september 

in the desert a violin grows like a tree 
& no one sees it. a bow too, coming up
from the sand. horse hair is abundant
around my organs. from the freezer, the ice cubes
chatter about escaping to a colder place
where they could live in the wild.
winter is coming soon. i left my jacket
in my last apartment. broken buttons 
& a wonky zipper. thrifted from from place
in Brooklyn where me & you felt really cool.
i left the jacket before that
at a hotel room in Portland. i don't think much
about the violin but if i got in my car
& drove & drove & drove i could reach a desert 
full of string instruments. the nights would still
be cold & my bones would still freeze up.
look at me, i'm a statue now. we talk about
how we can live anywhere we want in America
but somehow all the places seem 
like doomed snow globes. winter is 
coming soon. i'm scared of tornadoes. i'm scared
of a hurricane arriving with my mother's name.
why should i learn to play the violin?
i am too old to pick up new things. 
besides, i have all the desert i need.
a bag of sand & a sense of aimless wandering.
there have been a lot of dead trees.
maybe this year i won't wear a jacket,
i'll just swaddle myself in my worries.
a stream of light is peering through a fissure.
i take my tarot readings too seriously
& sometimes not seriously enough.
i could be a polar bear if i tried harder.
i could grow tadpoles in the sink.
nothing is alive anymore. when was the last time
you saw a bird? the vultures don't count.
i do live in the desert. cactus blossom 
from my forehead. windows open. hallway
filling with scorpions. the violin--
where is the violin? if could just play something
a single song then the neighbors would know
i'm not just a quiet man-- i'm an artist
worth contemplation. i can tell 
no one is thinking about me. 
it might be better that way. 
a stoplight bursts from the ceiling.
red light red light. porcelain raven 
on the mantle. i don't have a mantel
i just have a house i've built
in my heart. there is no city
just a desert. tuning the sky.
four strings. dry skin. blue morning. 

autumn 

all the moons are out tonight at the ball field.
glow on the dirt. ghost boys
bring the skeletons of their fathers.
run the bases round. i send my pennies to hell
because they won't add up. a jar 
of strawberries shrinking into stones.
my angels have bat wings 
& they kick pumpkins down the street.
mums bloom from each of their footsteps.
for the longest time i've staved off septembers.
slept long & deep. closed my eyes.
plugged my ears so i didn't hear 
the leaves loud oranging each day.
i am not as into death as people might think.
by my front door i leave spell jars
to keep him away from this house.
no one is dying anymore. we're all just
going to play forever baseball.
we're all just going to lay down
for a long long sleep. wake up in a green month.
the moons flap one-winged. i use eyeliner 
to carve a crescent. wolves walk
on hind legs. they chat with each other
& window shop while i let the season
do its worst with me. i'm all bare branches
& rain slick sidewalk. the ghosts are
asking for something to eat
so i bring them fading bananas which they share.
i want to be less scared of the cold.
the bees hum their final hums.
all kinds of farewells. i take notes.
it is not easy to learn how to leave
but the animals know best how to.
i'm saving up to buy a coffin or at least
a red wagon. someone parade my body
through town. tell the townspeople
"look here is your neighbor the scare crown."
all the wolves howl. the angels disperse
& perch on the eaves. one pumpkin is growing
in my kitchen. it's already the size
of the dining room table. the moons
are hungry. i'm out of pennies. 
all i can here is orange. 

medusa redux

i'm sewing a dress of pins.
i stole the pins from my grandmother's sewing bag.
just kidding i don't have a grandmother.
she became a cloud last year. 
a grey angry cloud. gave us a loud rainy day
& then she departed. in my dress, no one
will be able to touch me. i'm inventing a prom
for only boys like me which is to say
a dance for doilies. this is a great
dining room table for us all to lay down on.
if i could reinvent the sky 
it would be sharper & more treacherous.
i want an angel to arrive to tell me
what i'm doing wrong so that i can ignore him.
i could point the needles inward
& make a cushion of myself. press the pins
into my skin & call it fashion.
put me on the cover of a magazine
& call me beautiful pain. i'm going to
photoshop out my blood. retouch my skin.
beautiful blur of needles. 
leaning in close to a mirror 
is pure disaster. sweat collects on my face.
i am an alien planet. who is going
to feed me visitors? the truth is 
this dress isn't a statement
i just don't have any fabric. i just want to arrive.
i can't walk outside in a dress
or i think someone might shoot me.
no one believes my fears are founded.
around here everyone has guns 
coiled around their hearts. 
no one understands how glamorous i am.
they're scared of how acute
a dress can be. they're used to girls
in summer skirts & bows. i could show them
femininity like no other. touch me 
& discover your own blood. 
look at me & turn to silk.  

specimen

at the lab they need a cup of tears
so i crouch in a little white room
& try to think of something
to make myself cry. i imagine
dead dogs & your plane taking off.
nothing is coming. 
i center myself.
take a few deep breaths. try again.
i have round chubby hands.
6th grade & no one wants to have lunch with me.
we're on a field trip so i sit on a grassy hill alone
& dream of being older. eating mac & cheese
with a plastic fork. yes, that's close.
crying is a certain skill. i have friends 
i've only seen cry once or twice 
& then ones who are masters. i wish 
i cried more. the doctors want to know
where my sadness comes from.
so they need the sample to run through
their new gold machine. 
they're hoping everything is diagnosable.
i don't cry about things people think i would.
it doesn't make me sad we ran out of food sometimes
or that i slept in the backseat of a car for a summer.
once in a therapy season, the psychologist ask me
to pause & let the emotions about my father
sink in. i heard "seep" instead of "sink."
i told him i didn't want to cry.
i couldn't, not in front of him.
my dad has seen me cry & i'm always
so embarrassed in front of him or my mom.
i am a happy g/irl or at least i can be 
in the right light with the right amount
of concealer. when i was a real girl 
i never let myself cry because it would ruin
my winged eyeliner. not even the thought
that i once lived as a girl makes me sad.
you know what is sad? fireworks.
zoos. prisons. tuesdays. i want 
the results. i want to know
what is so wrong with me. maybe it's just
in our blood. sometimes my brother just texts me
"it's hard--it's so hard right now"
& i know exactly how he feels. 
i lay on the floor & picture my eyes
as two pools of tears ready to spill.
hold the cup to my face & get one out.
raise the cup to the white neon light
to look at the liquid. does it shimmer?
is it enough to process? 
soon a nurse will come 
& peer at the jar's contents too.

welcome to the electric museum 

do not enter at all ever. then again
if you want to be singed & sparked 
we have everything you need.
there is a fire waiting for us 
at the end of this hall.
there are busts of drag kings (finally)
& a corridor of fake wands. in the basement
is a morgue where we keep the bodies--
your bodies. a visitor can pay 
to become an exhibit. immortalization
comes in many forms. some people just opt 
to have their hand put in a glass jar.
they come to visit the jar 
& wave with their other hand.
why is the museum electric, you ask?
we needed a way to keep the cows
from entering. you know, cows really like
modern art & they especially love 
history. put some electric in the walls though
& they keep their distance. 
we haven't figured out yet what to do
about the lions. they won't bother you here
but in your dreams you'll probably meet them
for the rest of your life. 
the museum will hold whatever you want to see.
when i first arrived i saw my father
pacing a hall of blank canvasses.
the fountain is spewing nectar.
a curator made of wax. everyone's hair
standing on end from the static
& the worry. what do you want to see
in the big dark display case of your life?
i'm hoping you won't leave.
the museum was founded by 
two black holes deeply in love.
they sent fragments of light to construct
our pulsing walls. only from afar 
can they see the museum's glow.
if they ever arrived they would destroy it all.
but, please eat the tile floor. please
make yourself a real visitor.
get lost deep in the bare branch topiary.
follow your father's ghost. all the faucets
spew blue paint. leave a hand print
on the bathroom wall.
i'll be fading into a wire
if you need me. 

 

orange superstition 

we went wicker in the daylight.
a chair & a summer sofa. 
thatched roof of the theater caving in.
a preventable fire. sconces blooming
from the walls of my throat.
someone is going to have to go walking
into the dark. our brotherhood 
is growing thin. do i really need
another pair of hiking boots?
do i really need this many teeth?
the hippos are going belly-up.
plastic bats go still in the attic.
what are we going to do 
about these contagious doors?
the cellar is waiting 
for a nice bucket of jelly beans.
when the magic vine sprouts make sure
he knows where he's going.
never give directions to strangers.
they have to find their own way to heaven
in their sports utility vehicles.
a spare tire won't get you 
across the river. a bridge exists
but only for the divine. 
turtles give up their shells 
to look at this beautiful man.
the otters are the only ones
having any fun here. i used to fear
our sun going supernova now i fear
the tulips's teeth. even a daffodil
can learn to bite. even my brother 
is a militia man with a gun 
ready to own him. dusk comes suddenly
& without warning. a fist forms
at my door & aches. i am staying inside
till this night passes. 
it doesn't matter if you believe
in the color orange or not. here it is
with all its envy. will someone fund
my trip to the next galaxy?
i need a jeweled benefactor
who appreciates the holes in my chuck taylors
& me desire to write poems
about impending circuses. 
we are doing something very wrong.
i'm going back & forth about
trying to sew my fingernails back on. 
take me to the orchard tomorrow 
& show me where the gold flourishes
even in these times. fill out pockets
with thin shimmering leaves 
& pray to a god of opulence.
no one i know reads the poems
written in the clouds. they just sit,
letting them blow away. 
the ocean is doing this to us.
how do you get adequate revenge anymore?  

longing

on the fold-out sofa we sleep like pears.
i ripe planet bruise & you arcana like
a real wizard. what will we do 
with all this future? 
tangled in each other's knees i tell you
i'm going to walk over the next mountain
& never come back. i had a dream 
everyone was indifferent to my mouth.
i won't ever beg to be kissed but
so much of me wants him to press me.
i ignore the jupiter of this whole situation.
where is this all going? are we 
going to get married like real men?
in the new year i will hopefully
have fewer wasps in the walls of the house.
my bed might arrive complete 
with a love poem. once someone told me
a bed is only for planting 
a lemon tree. i halved my brothers
so they could be tenors. 
my daughter is a thief.
i was never good at teaching morals.
she sleeps on the floor of my life.
you tell me we're not going anywhere
& i have nothing to add so i transform
into a marble & roll under the sofa
where the rats watch Sports Center.
they are all yankees fans. tidbits of
jewels & gold. the rats have been hoarding.
or, maybe we've been hoarding our humanhood
from the rats. my knees have recently 
become plastic bottle caps i have to replace
every other day. useless body machine.
i need a good workout video to cure me.
will you kiss me then? will you tell me
i am a beautiful sycamore? 
a lemon falls down in between us in bed.
the sun oozes through the window.
i don't want to get up yet.

billions

in the river of plastic gold coins everyone is 
a billionaire. floating on our backs. our crinkling 
minted glories. we all have houses like cities 
& we all have peanut butter imported from the moon.
our money talks to itself in the vault at night
when outside the iron gates slink the danger
of snakes & their poverty. it is important 
to take a step back & observe ours lives as fiction.
where are the symbols ringing? a name could 
signal a tragic death if money isn't thrown at it. 
we build private gardens full of new spiraling fruits
& bright weeping flowers. a jar of tears.
lockets sprouting from branches. 
we trade stories of being children who grew up
with nothing but windows to eat. carry money
in all our pockets. it's fake money but all money
is fake money. jokes about starvation.
the river gushing without a thought of drought.
no one asks where the coins flow from
because that might kill our high. 
unlike fairies, disbelief in money 
only makes it stronger. we have to ride this
while we can. what about a chocolate fountain? 
what about a ski slope? what about replacing the stairs
with slides? in the yard are the bones 
of our grandmothers. could money resurrect
their bones? it certainly could. 
we want them to make dinner just like they used to. 
the stove is automatic
& so are the doors & so are the dogs.
we don't really love each other. no not at all
but money without company is too sad
so we keep each other around & make toasts
to each other & hold séance when possible.
mostly, we talk about snakes & how they'll never know
what it's like to have our squareish teeth
or what it's like to open a catalog
& order anything we want. a carrot juicer
& a new wallet. yes, they'll just crawl
on their way towards the nest where they knot
with each other in brilliant patterns.
my one & only secret is sometimes
i wish i was a snake. also, once i ate a coin
& i still feel it where my lungs should be.
i breathe gold. fake gold but
but gold all the same.  
 

alone-ism 

i insert a tooth pick into the moon. not done. 
preheat the sound of my voice to 450
where all the squash turn soft & edible. 
my phone is a cicada & i scream & it screams.
we all scream for tuesday.
why doesn't anyone like summer & sweat?
there's no point in being alive
if you don't get to feel burning blacktop. 
mars is full of the perfect kind of blood.
rachel told me if i ever need an organ
she's a universal donor. 
my blood type is negative something.
maybe sadness is in my blood.
everything hereditary is red. 
some families have heirlooms 
but my family just has the collective memory 
of a chicken coop in the backyard
where there now grows a pine tree.
mow the future. green every single sunday.
i miss the song you used to sing to me
when i was a girl & you were waiting
on the other end of a phone.
forgive me, i am a poet who abuses 
the "you." frank o'hara said
to put the poem squarely between 
you & another person. some asked me yesterday
if i live alone & i tried to search
for a way to say "no." this year
will implode & i do not have the proper gear.
mars is up there all full of blood
while people are dying. 
i take one of my syringes & i tell the planet
"i am doing this for humanity."
up on my roof i manage to prick the surface
& draw up the plunger. thick coarse blood.
mars cries because i've taken from him. 
i would feel violated too 
if someone stole my blood in the night.
actually, that happens often. 
i pay for sleep in vials of blood
to the demon with the moon face.
how long does you heart let you rest?
i miss you so very much. 
the void in the kitchen is stretching its arms
& reaching to open the front door.
inside i am safe. outside who knows
what kind of bears have claim on this street.
the moon is finally ready. crumbs rain down. 
one giant biscuit which i feel guilty about.
if i had company we would share this delicacy 
but instead i will divide it up
& save the rest in the freezer just like i do
with browning bananas & the blood of mars.
food for another day & another & another.
i promise i am trying to leave this house
but the solar system here is fresh 
& caramelizing. come again in a few years.

ANCESTRY

my grandmother was full of bees.

the nest at the back of her throat.

i use the word “throat” too much in poems

because so much of my life has been about what

what enters me. to swallow or not to swallow.

a single bee slipping out as she speaks–

landing on her overripe pears. their skins

slipping off to reveal to sweet melting beneath.

i take off my clothing in front of windows, i always have.

i’m sick of weekends & tuesdays. i’m sick

of family trees. all their baby branches.

when am i going to dislodge

& plant my finger nails in the garden?

grow a family of gourds. pollinate a plum tree

with my grandmother’s bees.

i used to beg my mom for her to plant us

a crab apple tree. she explained you can’t eat

crab apples. i liked them for their smallness–

imagined placing on my tongue. all the bees

would gather there in our yard & have weddings

over & over all june. my grandmother died

on a cold day in january. all her bones turned to dust

& only the bees were left.

i am scared that i am losing

everyone i know to distance. i have started sending letters

with no return address to people i never met.

i slip a single bee inside.

sometimes i find a bee waiting on my porch.

not a real bee but a wasp or a hornet. i know they’re looking

for ancestry. digging in the flesh of this town

for someone to latch into. i open my mouth

in the mirror to check for nests.

nothing yet.