convalescence

the moon is sick with a virus.
turns green then yellow. decay 
on a celestial level. what does it take
for a planet to rot. i am scared
for our souls in these kinds of conditions.
i used to pray on my knees. i used to prau
every single night. mistaking the stroller
for a dark horse, i'll mutter
the our father as if it will save me.
my whole family is made of soap.
we lose whole fingers in a downpour
& a sink whittles us down. i have no use
for my digits anymore. all my veins are wires.
plug me into the cable jacket
i want to listen to MTV in my brain.
this is a reality TV show. i sit down
in a confessional & tell the camera
once i used to dream of being
a hang glider & now look at my life.
my mom asks what i do when i am 
too tired to move my body. the truth is
i lay on the floor & watch my phone 
scroll into a prophecy. please amputate
my feed. don't get me wrong
i am a voyuer but not this consistently.
where are the fruit plates? where is 
the fancy cheese? i need a frog
to sing to me. before bed, sometimes 
my dad would sing to me. i didn't deserve
that kind of mouth. i don't sing
not even alone, not even to myself.
the moon will get better if we all 
keep believing in it. i look up 
& see her full as a coin. she's coughing
into the river. up close in the mirror
my face has the texture 
of the moon. craters & another man 
lurking behind there. i fear sleep
because i'm scared i'll die before
i wake up. some wiccans believe
when we die we'll all go
to the summerland. i don't know
if i trust anything. i don't like it here
but at least i know the texture of 
saddess & feeling muscle aches.
i am pointing a kaledioscope
at the moon & telling her 
she looks so much better.

how the birds eat my trash

beak slitting plastic. gossip about
a mourning dove who is still sad.
she's thinking about capitalism & food waste.
chickadees hunger. they look at each other
& feel all the same. clones. one imagines 
a huge giant egg they all could have
came from. what makes a meal?
i scrape a spoon against the bottom of
the house looking for crumbs. 
songbird munching on plastic.
through the window i tell her
she'll die if she eat that. laughs debris
from her mouth. the flies arrive
in a cloud. the most certain sign
of demise. even the birds fear 
too many. i slice a peach 
into five pieces & eat each slowly.
once, i watched a mini documentary
about people with eating disorders
& this one man said, "i cut everything
into the smallest pieces i can."
are there birds with eating disorders?
sometimes they watch me use my tablespoon 
& i tell them to mind their own business.
a cardinal nibbles on a caramel.
sticky & sweet. somewhere in the forest,
there are hawks with their piercing faces.
my microwave is my caregiver right now.
in the morning, the trash bags
are full of little holes. banana peels
shredded & dispersed. 
at least i get to see the birds.
i'm not sure what else comes to visit
my back porch at night. the ivy grows lush
even in the shade. a fox? a raccoon?
i am scared of all mammals. they're deceptive.
a bird is an honest animal. hungry 
like me. no arms. impending flight.
i wash a bowl out in the sink. run a sponge
against a knife.

watching a snake shed its skin

my mom used to help me into stockings
one leg at a time. my steadying hand on her shoulder.
a new flesh clung to me. i got runners often
& learned to pull the tights up
higher to conceal them under a skirt or a dress.
mostly, we didn't have bandaides. waited for gashes 
to turn jeweled in the air. 
i peeled wet gloves off 
& set them on radiator. january was grey.
i learned to drink tea. toe nails grew.
we bought a sleeping bag at the thrift store.
i crawled inside. makeshift chrysalis.
no change. hair clips.
discovered dead skin on the bottoms of my feet.
four to twelve times a year.
belly reptile. what is it like
to look up through the brush? peeling an orange
all in one piece & leaving the skin
in the yard as compost. 
the body can be a hallway.
my favorite nightlight needed a new special bulb.
we found it no where. my covers became less soft
the more i turned. a rock is a good place
to press. how does anyone know
the right moment. skin on my hands.
skin on my face. i banana open.
sweet muck underneath. i was ripe
as a canteloupe. a splash of nectar.
peeling off two knee-high socks
& laying them by the side of the creek
while i waded inside. how to we make sense
of our own body's departures?
when he looks at the skin,
translucent & baring his shape, 
what does he think of?

what kind of stones?

good morning to the souls of my feet.
yes, i mean "souls" & not "soles." 
don't you trust me reader? i climbed the tree
& never came down. i befriended the wrong rocket ship
if you know what i mean. yes, one of my fists
will orbit again in twelve years. i am stargazing 
for a living. my father was a skilled astronomer.
he bought a telescope & pointed it down our throats.
i'm always painting him in a bad light.  
my poet-self is afraid of fathers.
not just my father, but all fathers. i will probably 
never have children. i'm a lineage in a jar.
the rocket is really an airplane & this poem
is very sad. i want you to cut the country in half.
once, i took scissors to a map 
of new jersey to try to visual a poem.
there's a constellation of my foot.
tomorrow, a fog will slip in 
through my windows & i will see nothing at all
when i wake up. but, remember, i'm in a tree.
i used to think i would grow up
& buy a house & now i just want
to make it to the next day & the next day 
& the nexy day. what if the tree bears fruit?
ha, it would probably be sour limes 
but i could make due with that. sucking on a lime
in the arms of the tree. i have not held someone
for a very long time. sometimes my body
takes a walk without me. oh rocket ship
what kind of stones could you bring me?
i touched a moon rock when i was ten just like
all the other people at air & space museum.
i'm afraid of getting too old to bend
into a bridge. i have unpaid tolls 
from driving away from new york. it wasn't 
an escape. it was an elegy. there, my dollars
turned to pigeons. beautiful shimmer-winged pigeons.
i feed them sunflower seeds. 
the tree will have children & the tree's children
will first emerge small as veins. 
i will tell them i'm their grandfather.
my grandfather is a ghost in my parent's attic
where he guards his box of ashes. 
cremation is the future for everything.
i would cremate my old clothing to keep
some vistage of its soul. what a material human
i have become. 

the ants always find me

unfurl from the dirt with their eating.
i wake up to a scattering of ants 
from the trash can in the living room
& i rush to press each on 
into crumple. 
i think of that dorm sophmore year 
where the ants could locate
a single misplaced cheerios on the carpet.
there is never just one.
i search for a trail but just find more 
& more across the room. down the hall.
my whole body prickles. ants can smell food
from up to 200 meters away 
& there i slept a huge wedge of meat.
could the ants have found me
as i slept? yes, yes they could have
each opened their individual mandibles
& swallowed me piece by piece.
i think they are gone. think i have won
but my heart still flutters
like a broken nestling. a new one
down from the ceiling. i remind myself
if have seen worse. one morning 
the ants devoured our mini fridge.
in my parents house a trickle of ants
march from the door to the cupboard.
this is just a scattering 
i am safe. i will win. 
where do your teeth come from?
mine arrive like a creek
of ants. i see ants from the corners
of my eyes & they are not there.
just ant ghosts. ghosts of ants.
all the tiny collapsed creatures.
if i were an ant i guess i'd do the same.
not much else but roam & roam 
& hope the wall is arching somewhere.
dear reader, sometimes i am a wall.
the ceiling is thankfully getting higher.
i am crushing each one i find.

for my envy of bicycles & other methods 

the herd of stolen bicycles 
take a detour through my house at night
where i am again trying to sleep
to the sound of rain. not real rain,
just a sound machine. the real rain
is too busy flooding my parent's basement 
& sitting patiently in the faucet.
in the basement there is a vortex 
all pulsating & purple. a great big bruise
where all the loneliness seeps through.
hence the bicycles. hence the pigeons.
hence the ships in bottles that arrive
without warning on my shelves.
have you ever tried to sleep your body away? 
i go with just a sheet
& sometimes the sheet becomes a flag
if i'm not careful. you'll have to guess
what kind of flag. the bicycles leave tire marks
which all look like snake trails.
wrangle the imagination. not snakes.
just bikes. the last time
i thought too much about snakes
i found a huge python waiting in my tub. i said, 
"guess i'm not taking a shower."
my grandmother died when i was still a girl
& so did my aunt so in a sense 
they belong to someone else.
i use one of the stove burners to rest
my green bananas on & i toss & turn
worrying what would happen if it turns on.
i would have a pile of slugs. 
do you ever envy bicycles? they're like
small horses. i envy horses most of all.
when they run the world crumples.
i've never seen this i just assume.
have you seen their eyes? i'm affraid 
someone will knock on my front door.
i stand up in bed & stare at the far wall
until it goes murky. i write too many poems
about not being able to sleep
but here is where i live. i tell the ambulance
i don't want to be saved tonight
not yet & plus that's too expensive.
leave the bicycles to take care of me.
maybe i can catch one as it passes.

new normals

i put my hands in the bucket.
all the shovel heads turn to look.
from the dirt, crawls another worm 
with all its segments shivering. 
i regret all the rain.
the nights are cold now & 
july's bugs are quiet. 
maybe they have all turned
to moths. my wings are dusty like theirs.
i kill a bug against the wall 
with my open palm & it leaves
a dot of red on my wrist.
i have been trying to learn 
what stillness can bring. 
laying on the floor, a few frogs come
to sit on my chest. 
water from the ceiling 
makes a grotto of the living room.
i used thumb tacs to hang 
all my pictures on the walls.
my femur is made of glass.
i am a hand blown kind of lover.
the mailbox has a habbit 
of swallowing my letters from you.
i want to know 
how small a human can be
before they become a figurine. 
my hair is dripping with ink.
soon i will be amphibious again
& i'll worry about the sun 
every single day. 
did you know the fireflies 
are drowning? no, we can't save them.
if there was a good thirft store
maybe i could find you
a jean jacket to decorate
with fish skins. the river
is getting high & we should 
be careful. never wade in deeper
than your waist. no one will ever see
what i do in the back window 
that faces the mountain.
a face stares back at me 
all wooded & ancient 
& i open the door to let
the spirit in. all the cats 
in the neighborhood stare at me
because they know i'm a stranger.
tell me, what do you do
to belong to the dirt?
i am digging a hole in the lake
so that all the water 
will spiral out. i know, i know 
but don't worry this lake is man made.
i just want to see the bottom.
want to see the sea monsters flopping around.
can anyone blame me
for loneliness as the world
becomes a bowl angel hair? 
when i wake up i hope my bones 
are kind to me & you will not be here
& i will take a frying pan to smack
at the sun like a gnat.

in a pastle drawing

i smudge the edges of every door frame.
wipe my hands on my thighs 
& smudge those even larger than before.
a seam warbles into a road.
my brother is sitting in the corner
with his eyes smeared shut.
when i sleep i want to be renewed 
but instead i'm pulled & spread.
the water is washing itself clean.
a bird lost its wings 
to a gust of thumb-pressing wind.
i am searching for the horizon line
my mother drew for us.
i'm finding nothing but more 
mountains to whittle down. 
it hasn't rained but will soon.
all my shirts are covered 
with handprints. my toes 
blur into each other. 
stoplight mixes colors. all the cars
park in the street. an alarm 
streaks into a bird call.
i used to sing aloud to myself
but now i just hum & the humming
slurs my lips. soon i will just
have misshapen teeth & a blur of a tongue. 
what i love about this kind of picture 
is you can't always notice
the mistakes. no one has to know
i forgot to give my father
a pair of shoe laces & forgot
to lock the door but who would enter
a blotched house like this anyway.
i keep a nightlight on
& it spills like in little threads
all across the living room.
each night i try to convince myself
to turn it off-- to let the house
go dark but i don't.
i try to draw some of the corners back.
fix my smeared elbows. give my brother
a smile & two eyebrows.
draw my lips back. a dull pink
in the yellow dim. 
the mirror shows only 
my murky silhouette. i am 
a faint ghost. 

each summer i wear my way through a pair of sandals

i had blue ones when i went to maine 
with my boyfriend's family.
august after graduation. i wore 
a lace b-cup bra. 
i bought two pairs of pajamas for the trip.
i thought i was 
a woman. street gravel
stuck to shoe bottoms & fog gushed 
from the ocean. in town
there were all kinds of galleries.
as we walked, my boy friends's hand 
made a purse of me.
a potter & a portrait maker
& then the hat pin carver. he etched 
little tabs of ivory, old piano keys.
i bought three despite not having
any hats. i pinned one 
to the strap of my dress
& the metal grazed against my skin.
my boyfriend stuck one 
in his curly hair. 
on the rocky beach, i nearly tripped
every day. my flipflops made 
gripping the huge rocks nearly impossible.
often i gave up, & just set the shoes
by the side of the road
before the beach. anyone could have
taken them & then i would have had
no shoes at all. we harvested sea glass
& all week we looked for 
a shard of blue. found clear & auburn 
& yellow. no blue. went back
to the hat pin maker & he told us a story
of how he saw the whole universe's alphabet 
one night while walking on the rocky beach.
august august august. on the last day
the strap popped off my shoe.
my boyfriend said, "i'll he'd carry you home."
i replied "i'll walk barefoot."
i have been told in workshops, it is good
to refer to people by their names
& not just relationships like
"brother" or "boyfriend."
i am calling him "boyfriend" 
so you can see more than i do.
this poem is just about summer & feet. 
we took a little boat ride
to the other side of the canal 
where canada waited. the town 
was tired & full of worn wood
& dilapidated storefronts. 
on the ride back i took my shoes off
(this was before they snapped)
& i thought about my ankles.
nothingt matters but august. 
he kissed my shoulder & then my neck.
the boat dipped & ripples spread out
all around us. tiny little row boat.
i said, "we should keep going."

3 pigs

the first house is made
of telephone wires & broken phone chargers.
a street is always a parable.
where do you build your sleeping?
is your brother awake?
when i was little 
i peered in at pigs piled their pens 
at the local fair & they whispered
"we're building we're building."
they weren't telling me,
they were telling each other.
brothers always come in threes.
i once built a house 
just inside my rib cage 
as practice. it was made
of paperclips & jingled 
when i played tag at recess.
fell apart after a week or so.
all the door knobs in my parent's house
are loose. the cabinet knobs
fall off one by one. the second house
is made of old light bulbs
all perfectly balanced together.
their filaments loose in their skulls,
the pig who lives there
is the careful brother who thinks
nothing will ever happen to him.
the rooves in all my apartments
have leaked down on me. 
what is a forced baptism? 
you don't need wolves for destruction.
here comes a wind with it's own teeth.
i wake up with bite marks sometimes
on my back & my forearm.
are they from my own gnawing?
the pigs are just trying
to live as artists do,
in impossible homes. the last brother
with his symetrical lawn
& flamingos & his house
constructed from his own old shoes.
there are no quit enough 
so he used his father's shoes
for the roof; heels & sneakers
& sturdy snow boots at the bottom.
the pig are never content
& they spend their afternoons
shuffling between each other's houses.
there is no wolf, not yet,
but they each know 
one is coming. they are well read.
we ate pork chops about once a week
as a kid. slabs of meat
in their crockpot home. 
all rooves are lids. my skin 
unfurls for dinner. the wolf 
is walking down the street.
he whistles out of tune. 
has a newspaper
coiled in his heart 
like a snake. when you wake up
what do you learn 
about your body?
a light bulb flickers on
by itself. there are no pigs.
i made these houses.