the porch was a dream of family

where a photo dissolved
into feet. my brother & i are astronauts
in our own rights. the surface
of our father's face: a swing set
or a moon. we are naked 
on the porch & it's pouring outside.
july with all july's yellow silk scarves.
rain smacking the earth 
like a cantaloupe. everything is 
getting round in the heat. 
i am most nostalgic for moments
where i was a rubber ball
& the pavement gnawed on the ankles
of a grey sky. here comes 
a grandfather throat to slide down.
who is going to roll the stove
down the hill where the creek
is waiting for bread?
my brother & i with amphibial hands 
open as if to catch a fish
in the down pour. open as if
a cloud might come down
to perch on our wrists.
fresh curtains of rain across
our lips. rain so ripe it purples 
in the air. porch all around like
a dictionary-- spewing potential words
into our bones. i try to shout to him
through the deluge but all the speach
slips to water. we are talking water
on the porch. a screen door
hinges in us but never 
opens. metal & yawn. 
we could have walked out into
that thrall & become 
two green leaves-- shaking
& pearled with rain. instead
we stayed human somehow
& the porch ached with our teeth.
exchanging bones i was a boy
& i was a boy & he was a jupiter marble.
i took a photograph with my eyes
& it printed out my mouth.
salted blur. our mother's finger print.
blushing pink porch.
pink rain. pink summer.
pink boyhood. a frog
skipping towards heaven. 
porch folding chair: 
newly perpendicular. 

nocturne 

i tether myself 
to the bedpost with a shoelace
so i don't ceiling float again.
that's what night does to me--
tries to pry me away 
from rock & dirt.
the moon's gravity is getting
stronger everyday. soon it will
out weigh the sun's. i want to sleep
until my body is a pool
or fabric. cut me into
a robe. i'm measuring
everything by the acre from now on.
here comes an acre 
of night--swooping down
from its obelisk on the mountain.
i have grown tired of metaphors 
only living in poems. give me something
semi-permanent for once. 
i am a golden orchid. i am
a muddied clarinet. i am a dead bird
rising towards the sky graveyard
where all flying things 
rest between this world 
& the possible other. heaven
is covered in weeds.
really, the only thing i want
is to feet tangible. no 
not true. i want to dissolve
into the sweetness of bows 
& birthday table clothes. i text
the bears in the woods to meet me
later by the train station. 
i leave a message
on the answering machine of 
a honeysuckle bush asking if 
he intends to bloom again 
before the true frost. 
a cloud of gnats slip into my house
& write me messages with their bodies.
today they just spell
"late." do they mean it is
late at night? or do they mean
i am late for something? i guess
that could be the same thing.
late to my own quiet dark.
really, above all else
i am missing you. i am missing
what it meant to have my night
made translucent by another.
i feel myself rising--
lifting like a shopping bag
of grapes-- but the tether holds.
call me your brief balloon.
someday, will you eat my heart? 
the bears text back
but my phone is on the floor 
too far away to reach.
the honeysuckle is already gone.

these things will be okay

as long as i light a candle in 
each window. as long as i pray
to the right tree. as long 
as you wake me up at 4am 
to stand on the porch & watch
as the stray cats march towards
a bright next life. sleep is a new 
luxury. there is so much to miss.
once, i slept & missed 
all the fireflies of july.
another time i slept & didn't eat
for three years. right now
i'm held together by a string
of promises i'm keeping to 
the gnats in the kitchen. 
a harmonica spins in my soul 
like a haggard breath.
the gnats lick the sticky syrup 
from the surfaces of nectarines
& uneaten bananas. i make deals 
with minor demons to see their faces
in the bathroom mirror.
living alone is like living
inside your own voice. you would think
i'd start to sing but i use it less
& less. what is the point
of sound? my dogs started a book club
without me. i open the windows
to flush the place with cold. 
here is the winter talking.
soon i'll be able to use myself
as firewood. kindling hair.
fingernails curling towards
the moon. who knows if any of this works.
i set pumpkins by the door
& they turn into infants--wailing
until i pull them inside & feed them
mashed sweet potato. i hum to myself
a low tune with no words
& it summons a herd of deer.
i am beautiful in some corner
of this life & somewhere out there
you are a brilliant aching.
i dip a needle into your thumb
to sew mine to yours. 
thin little red string. 
don't wake up yet. 

raw belle mushrooms

by the bag. little round capsized boats.
i discovered their glory in march 
when we wore blue rubber gloves
& spoke softly to each other
from the front seat of my dying car.
the streets emptied of wanting
& were replaced with an all consuming
aimlessness. most days i forgot
what we were to each other? 
we wondered through 
our own pasts like cartographers.
somedays u were my mother & other days
a girl i wanted to sleep with in high school.
the grocery stores, barren, i began
to research how to grow a farm
inside a small two bedroom apartment.
when i first typed this poem i misspelled
"grocery stores" as "grocery stories"
but "stories" is more accurate. 
i was writing stories of how long i would survive.
about the farm, they suggest starting small
a tomato plant of some potted herbs.
i looked for seeds. but what i wanted
was to grow mushrooms. bushels.
enough to keep me fed. mushrooms
growing down from the ceiling.
mushrooms beneath the bed.
i bought as many as i could--
too many to eat. some people stocked up
on absurd amounts of hand sanitizer 
but there i was with mushrooms.
i ate most of them raw. rubbery--
like absent meat. sprinkling
of salt. the granite kitchen counter.
you, looking out the window towards
a brick wall, the next building
only inches away. everything 
was getting tighter & more distant
at the same time. the television
comforted itself. when time allowed,
i came back to nestle next to you.
i should have told you i was imagining us
floating in a little mushroom raft.
where should we go? instead we went 
to our separate rooms & tried to undo ourselves. 
me, the budding mushroom farmer
& his tiny flock of dreaming. 

will you count balloons with me?

the factory has just released
a fantastic amount. a flock
of balloons. all colors. right above
the city. do you remember
how the last cloud sighed? i want
to release like that. 
if i catch a balloon
we can tie a love letter
to its tail & let it find 
a nesting place. where do you send
your desires? i have tried to keep
a journal several times 
but i always give up.
some people keep divisions between
themself & their art. i think i am
my poems in an irrevocable way.
is this something i will regret?
i could fly a poem high up
so that it lodges itself
on the face of the moon. can 
the ghosts up there read?
i applied for a job at the balloon factory
& you laughed at me because you said
they only hire angels. 
that is just a rumor 
but it could be true.
no one ever comes or goes 
from a factory. i think i would enjoy
that kind of capture. what do you call
the machine you crave? 
all those balloon tails. all those faces.
the sun glinting off their torsos
as they find a place to hover
where the air is cold & distant.
i want to hover. no like a bee
or a humming bird but in
the balloon's specifically reckless way.
no libs clinging to air 
just a round body ready to diminish.
you cannot count balloons alone.
will you sit here. make a tally
in the dirt or the sand or the water.
i will say "one one one"
& you will draw lines for each
until we have found them all. 

cultivation 

in the apocalypses i aspire to be
a mushroom grower. use all the timbers
of my house for sopping feed.
their bells ringing a fresh sunday.
every day will be sunday soon.
tomorrow tomorrow tomorrow.
write me a poem about hazards.
i don't have a house but in my heart i have 
an eternal post-rain storm. grass sopping wet.
soaking through down to my ankles.
i am wading deeper.
last night, plugging my phone jack into the ceiling.
hole in the drywall.
i called god to tell him i am very sad lately.
dial tone dial tone dial tone.
god is away you can leave a message
or pray harder. 
mushrooms grow with spores not seeds.
the air is full of spores
at all times. the radio runs
on spores or so i've been told.
don't listen to me i am not 
a scientist. i am just an observer
of potential comparisons.
i tried to be a bird watcher
but they all turned into baby belles.
tried to hunt lions
& they turned into portobellos.
got to be careful of the mist
& the murk. a big white button
blossomed from my chest
so i tore it off & pushed it
to the back of the fridge 
& out of my mind. mushrooms often
taste like meat & meat is what
we'll all want when the lights turn off.
i am not prepared for anything
but being vegetarian & buying
premade nights from the future.
what should i be doing with my hands?
when he comes in through the window
should i feed him or pretend he's not there.
breathing in the spores is not
dangerous. it will happen.
that's just a fact of lungs.
spitting creminis in my hands.
would you like to buy
some more summers? a night or two
to save for a lover?
let's sit under the big huge toadstool cap
& dream of life after trees.

every poem i've ever written is a metaphor 
for whatever you'd like to diagnose me with

i've been trying to monetize 
my sense of dread which 
doesn't look nice on anyone.
by that i mean, 
this is a *mental illness* poem
as rachel & i would say. when was
the last time you measured 
the weight of your organs 
against the weight of an angel 
on the scales of justice?
there is no such thing
just a forked-tongue
& a wheel of guilt circling 
back to you. once, i built 
a house of fire & slept inside.
now, i am the house of fire.
my organs are made of fearful longing.
by brother is an airplane 
blinking "goodbye." all my skin
is prickling with a fresh rash--
purple & blue & gold. paint a nice
picture of me, uncle. frame it
& hang it in the coat room.
when you are falling
from a mirror who breaks first
your reflection or your teeth?
this is a long spelling bee
& you have no idea what word 
they're asking about.
my heart is a bag of plums.
a bruised bruise. when will
we really get to know
the ceiling & all its contours?
walk backwards towards 
the skylight. ache the sliver 
of july left in each iris.
who is going to bleach this tongue?
my friend tells me 
a corpse takes at least
eight year to be just clean bones.
every poem i've ever written is a metaphor
for whatever you'd like
to diagnose me with.
i had an extra finger once
but i traded it
for a front porch. would you like
a tablespoon of midnight?
i prefer not to share my own.

several occupations to consider 

my job is to kick dandelions
what's yours? there is no dandelion season
but they arrive mostly fiercely in the spring.
little bright faces across the grass.
what kind of machine do you dream
of being? i want to be something
compact like a pocket knife
or a button. my dad is a conveyor belt.
i have his eyes & his hands.
have you seen where your parents
keep the capital? mine hide their coins
in eggs & then place the carton
at the back of the fridge. back to
the dandelions. once their seeds are scattered
it's only a matter of time before more
are staring up at you like kittens.
where should we go for dinner?
should we save the spoons &
sleep empty? there is some merit
to skipping every single meal.
well, no actually not but you tell yourself
what you have to in order to survive 
sunrise to sunrise. the dandelions
respect me unlike everyone else.
they spit on my boots to shine them
as i explain i only destroy
what i'm told to by my boss.
the dandelions just nod. 
is this cruel? it might be. 
really i'm helping them.
the wind stopped years ago & they need
to scatter. i'm yearning 
for a big forest to get lost in
& never come out. all those
tree mechanisms sprouting 
& climbing each other.
i love when people say 
"i miss you" when i'm right there.
it's the most honest thing.
i miss you, dandelion faces. i miss you
triumphant circus. drawer of pressed
butterfly wings. where should we
take our rusty springs?
wash them in the river till they
dissolve. i want to be
a dandelion in my next life.
watch myself turn opaque 
& fragile waiting for a strong
wind that will never arrive.

your parents yard is always a cite of [ ].

is that a bat or a bird
making it's way towards 
the crown of our backyard tree?
blue june night. phoenix in
the garbage can.
a bond fire's ghost twisting
in the soil.
our tall pine full of secrets.
your parents yard is always
a cite of [  dandelions   ]. where do you
take your runaway shoes?
i buried a lot of barbies
& never dug them up. how did
i get to be this old. 
play the time lapse video
of my just standing back here
& getting taller & taller.
your parents yard is always
a cite of [ creatures ].
taller as a tree (no no not quite).
more like tall as a dandelion.
who mows your heart?
if it is a bat will it come down
& please tangle itself in my hair.
i want a jolt of fear to get me through.
bats are kind creatures though
or so i'm told. keep to themselves
like all good animals. our attic
used to be brimming with bats
until my father scared them away.
all animals are easily scared.
especially humans.
your parents yard is always
a cite of [  attics  ].
soon i will live 
in my own special attic.
so many places are waiting dormant.
if it is a bird though,
i hope it sings. nothing fancy
just a few hopeful lines 
of a hymn or pop song. it's all the same. 
just no country music (unless its gay).
what am i going to do with this night?
oh darkness carve a firework for me
or at least a new planet.
i want to discover something
before i try to sleep.
is it a bird or a bat up there
watching me between the thin arms
of the ghostly pine tree? 

mirror, mirror

all the mirrors gave in to exhaustion.
their big sigh knocked over all the trees
& the world was flatter than ever before.
i talked to my mirror to ask what it was
that broke her? was it my constant preening
or all the hours i was gone, walking around
without a faint idea of my likeness. 
yes, this included iphones too & cameras.
my reflections departed elsewhere.
i tried everything. drove to the lake
to peer at the grey-blue water
hoping for a glimpse of my own face.
who was i again? where did i buy groceries?
did i look like my mother?
how did narcissus die? gazing gazing
at the hood of his car. i needed 
some confirmation that i really did exist.
a fragment of body shown back to me.
followed a river to the ocean
where the water foamed white & green.
the waves laughed at my face & showed me
nothing but mermaids & kelp.
what did lacan say about mirrors?
something about self recognition. a moment
when you are aware that the creature
in the mirror is you. this is my hand moving. 
this is my tongue. this is a bug bite
on my forehead. the blank mirror reflected nothing
but the white light of my bathroom.
did it not miss me at all? all its muscles
slack with sleep. i thought about how
living alone must tire my mirror 
with all my worries. lately, 
even the mirror does not convince me
i am a real person. i would watch
my eyes move back & forth & believe
someone else lived on the other side
of the glass. 
my house gets smaller on every tuesday.
maybe soon i'll be reunited
with my portrait. 
i'll stare & stare
& stare & stare. will a flower grow 
where my body was? 
will my silhoutte
leave a shadow 
on the mirror's face?