fireworks &/or boys 

please don't tell anyone 
but i have zoo of fireworks to come home to.
some people have husbands & children 
but i favor the volatility 
of sparks & ash. the smell of sulfur
& black powder. i am careful 
when i open the door. my fireworks 
are excitable. one rapid movement
& i might find myself in the midst 
of a show. the brightness 
& the pounding flashes. white hot light.
i close my eyes. i never tell my fireworks
i'm not in the mood. it takes so much effort
to explode & they do mostly 
just for me. you could call me 
a keeper of the fraught & turbulent.
but fireworks are so gentle sometimes.
if i take my shoes off slowly enough
& steady my breath 
they will come up to me 
& nuzzle my body with their colors. 
they will fizzle 
like orange soda. 
a trickling sensation
fills the house. i tell my fireworks 
stories of the first fireworks i watched
from my backyard & from the fairgrounds.
fragments of light palm-treeing 
across a early night sky.
they are eager to know 
why i love them & i weep 
& tell them that it is hard to explain 
why flesh can often love
to be startled. i tell them 
a story of how i used to love boys 
but now i love only fireworks.
fireworks of course
have no gender. 
i used to let boys detonate
in my bed & leave me covered in ash.
house smelling of sulfur. i used to
let them borrow my body.
their footprints pulsed neon. their teeth 
like stairs towards 
a new fresh eruption. but no 
now i have the fireworks.
all gathered in a vase by the door.
quiet careful fireworks. singed hair 
on my head. the back of my hands.
hair all over my body
just like light sprouts
from the bodies of fireworks.
i say "alright go ahead & give me
a show." let the raptures take hold.
a spattering of flicker & fold.
shadows brief & heavy
in the wake of each flash. 
the memory of
a boy's shadow 
stuck to my wall. 

poem that ends in a snowglobe 

i am holding an envelope on stage
& someone whispers "you should open it."
instructions are never for the benefit 
of the executioner ( or is that executor?)
i do open the envelop & out comes 
a spew of dandelion fuzzies. this stage
will soon be all yellow. inaudibly yellow.
the winner is somewhere laughing at me.
the auditorium becomes an arborium.
trees instead of seats. old old trees,
the kind with musket-handle brothers 
& knots thick as mixing bowls.
the spotlight follows me as i try
to escape. hands are clapping 
just out of reach. i climb one of the trees
until it's a lighthouse. salt water.
televisions bobbing in the surf.
a conch shell presses its mouth
to my back in a kind of rigid kiss.
what if it rains from now
until the end of time? my windshield
is a watercolor. my memory is a school
of dead fish. take a little oil 
& anoint the forehead. the third eye
blinks & waters. it's just a marble
& a surveillance camera. the "veil"
in "surveillance" cloaks me.
i am receiving first communion 
all over again. hands pressed together.
a little girl
in a white dress. i taste 
like a breath mint. someone bites down 
all my bones gone chalk. 
the veil in a paper shredder.
we only keep records twenty-five years
after the patient has seen us.
i am the patient & the doctor
has cold hands. he is a robot 
& he forgot to put his skin
in the microwave. i am afraid of:
corners, crevasses, & my own
believes in the dark. 
a cirus is coming to work
underneath my bed. the music 
keeps me up at night
but i never say a word. i let them
have their fun. eventually,
yes here it comes, i am standing
in a perfect town surrounded 
by glass. just me in my pink shorts.
barefoot. have you ever seen
a figurine like me?
probably not. shake the snow
to swarm me. a single flake
pinned under my foot. 
the blizzard brief 
& releasing. do it again.
do it again.

my teeth & your teeth turn to a fireflies

i pass an angel chewing a rock 
to make sand. those sharp teeth 
& eyelids. the carcasses of jellyfish 
lay around like dabs of grape jam;
we are barefoot & careful not to step on them.
a man flies a kite too close to the sun.
it's bound to catch fire any second
but his sun glasses are so strong 
he can't see anything.
the ocean is close to the crease
just like the mountain & the closet.
a fear can grow if you add water.
like this video for more dissociative content.
i could stare at the moon 
until like eyes turn to hard boiled eggs.
i am missing the feeling 
of salt water air. i am missing 
the bells of dead horses. 
a donut pulls apart to reveal 
a ghost or a puff of steam 
who can know the difference?
a butterfly net can be used
to catch just about any spector.
i stand poised & ready.
five locks on my door & i use all of them
to be safe though i know 
an ocean could break down 
this barrier if it wanted to. the half-hour 
is as strong a unit of measure 
as the brick. i could build a house
from half-hours. this house
is made from watching 
each & every minute. everyone
wants to live alone. i don't 
& i do & not anymore. do you know 
what i mean? i mean this is 
that most knee-caps i've ever had.
i mean my teeth are more slippery 
than ever & the sink & the refrigerator
are my companions. when you call me
the signal is weak, not because 
i live in a mountain but because
the closet forms a seed pod around me.
is my voice the same as it was?
i count my fingers
to be sure. a door knob 
becomes an elbow. i am interested 
in going on a date with a strong oak tree.
collecting his leaves, i might
make an album of our hands.
do you know what i mean when i say
it is impossible for me
to remember your teeth? 
send me one in a jar. 
i want to watch over it 
until it turns into a firefly.
i don't know how i'm speaking anymore--
what with a mouth full of bugs.
knock my door down. break my tongue
in half. i want to be entered 
& remembered harshly like 
a storm that uproots a backyard.
forgive me for being blunt. forgive me
for my itchy windows. come here.
i have a jar ready.

put your feet up in my climate change mystery

i plug the air conditioner 
into my mouth & wait for october.
we stood in a circle & clapped out hands 
waiting for the echo. a pile of leaves 
is the same as a deck of cards. 
shuffles itself. was this 
your oak tree? in art class 
we tried painting leaves with a serum 
designed to make the flesh fall away 
& leave only the veins. we bent over 
these leaves brushing & brushing.
i imagine someone doing the same
to my body after they find it in a school yard
fallen from a great tree.
all the veins in my body are gutters.
summer will be hotter this year
than every before. i can feel it now
& it's only june. my car runs on 
melancholy so as i drive i play 
sufjan stevens in my earbuds & try to think 
of my childhood on the wharf.
ocean of golden corn. my ears 
are ears. the kernels dripping.
a single earring falls 
on a long one-lane road.
when god runs away he leaves us clues
as to where he's gone. or, alternatively,
no god has run away & the clues
are all illuminati prayers.
a triangle is always waiting around
the next turn. you can count on geomtry 
when every other belief system 
falls apart. we want a book 
made of ice. read it faster.
we want a north pole 
lush & green & ready 
for the first strip mall.
i have a pair of high heels
that i only wear at night. 
i clop around like a deer but i never
leave my house. 
there are hunters around here
& they hang trump flags 
where their tongues used to be.
none of this is a political poem.
i am just living & documenting 
what i see. i am just 
a forest creature. a fox even.
with a long soft face.
the climate has always been changing.
here comes summer. here comes fall. here comes
fire raining down on a plastic swimming pool.
here comes an avalanche. 
in the rocks of afterwards
i'll tell you a story about
what it was like we the field parted
& let us walk to the other side.

in uncertain mirrors

you shouldn't let a mirror have
a taste of dark. it will want another face.
my mirror sometimes tranforms me
into one of my dead great uncles.
a priest in long black robes.
am i holy yet? magenta sash.
hands pressed together. in my head
a man crouches & whittles down 
a stick. i feed him twigs & branches
to keep him occupied. dungeons & dragons
is, at it's core, a game of mirrors.
i am now a dark elf with a mouth
full of dice. a computer rises
like a zombie, in the center
of my living room. i tell the computer
i have nothing to offer it & it shows me
a video of myself on youtube. 
i am speaking like a cricket
& then i become a video
of crickets devouring a rotting apple.
mandibles working the carameled flesh.
all those legs & all those angles.
the face of a priest on the head
of a cricket. all that praying.
computer then blank with overload.
i turn it on & off again 
on & off again in the hopes that it will
become the one & only television.
a commercial plays in my heart 
& i see a doctor about it via zoom call.
the doctor is actually just a professor.
he furrows his brow & says that
my writing is lacking but everytime
he tries to explain what is missing
the connection cuts out.
i unplug my finger from the wall.
the house goes dark. i am waiting
for a load of laundry to emerge 
& fresh new clothes. we used to
be lost is great huge stores.
we used to hold hands
with ourselves in dressing room mirrors.
all my dreams have price tags.
one emerges on my wrist. i yank it off
& blood leaks all over the floor.
a line-break once saved me
from my own staircases.
i am not radical enough to have
an "i" so i have several 
& i keep them in mason jars.
a film of sugar form beneath
the lid. i place one in my mouth.
this self tastes like honeydew 
& is yearning for a year ago
when you might be able to have
a conversation with neighbor 
about the shingles falling down
& turning into cardinals. 
now, i talk to spiders. we have
bargins. i flicker the face
of a priest. my fingers 
turn to yarn. pink thin threads.
i want to learn how to knit.
the spiders are social distancing
until they eat little speckled beetles.
a beatles song is playing
on the last cd player. my brother
is a priest now. his pockets
are full of crickets & communion.
i don't let him in 
through the mirror.

soon this house will be torn down to make room for another hotel.

tiny soaps arrive outside
each of our bedroom doors. 
a super 8
is weeping by the side of the road.
my dad would talk about 
taking us on a trip to go look 
for fossils
but we never left 
& the fossils have all dissolved by now. 
our shoes became our feet 
or was it the other way around? 
we even bought sifting trays 
to cull the bottoms of streams.
the urge to stand 
in the middle of the creek 
is over-powering me.
i count to ten. 
cool clear water up to my waist. i count
to twenty. smooth stones beneath 
my feet. i need to wait
until it stops raining
to drive through the center 
of another nectarine. my friends 
are all waiting for me 
on a Zoom call. i won't be joining them.
what happens if everyone i knew
forgets i exist? 
if a tree falls
in my heart will i hear it?
probably not. i am not the best listener.
i put on a sound machine 
just to try to sleep.
artficial rain is better than 
real rain any day. nothing wet
just the sound. 
i record your voice
& make a sound machine of you.
i am no longer lonely. 
i miss 
everyone. i cannot wait to be 
alone. soon all the pizza places
will open up 
their crampt little booths.
soon the virus will be a song lyric. soon
you will arrive on my doorstep 
as a tuft of onion grass
to be eaten. i will pluck you 
& cradle you like a shell.
wash you in the sink
with tiny hotel soaps.

the persistent return of fireworks

the fireworks have been out
every single night this week. 
so many fireworks, people have stoppd 
paying attention to them. they stretch 
wirey wings & swoop dragon-like 
above the town, 
leaving glittering fragments 
in the grass. 
at first, children collected 
the debris, 
stuck shards to their tongues
but now the grass is piled with shimmer.
is it still a phenomenon  
if something happens every day?
every week? i open a can of peas
& slip inside 
to talk to some glow worms.
the glow worms have nothing to say
on this topic. 
i peel back the wall paper
& enter a rainforest room. 
i hold a microphone 
& i ask a corpse flower
what it thinks about beauty & patterns.
the corpse flower tip-toes around the question
& instead says it doesn't believe 
in happy endings. the truth 
is somewhere buried in a cliche. 
we will power through. it will be
okay. every single day 
i keep the same routine 
to remain a part of the firework scheme.
i place a spoon in between my teeth
& balance it there. rain isn't good
for anyone, but especially not for 
fireworks. they sizzle overhead.
they wince & cry. i tell the fireworks
we are going to be okay. i tell them
they should take a day off 
but they are furious
how dare i suggest a breach. 
they writhe & keep bursting.
a vein of thunder cracks the front door
into five pieces. a second strike
touches the earth 
& leaves the cars 
glowing in the driveway. the fireworks 
continue long after the storm is gone
until they are ragged 
with bursting.
one blue firework bends down
to ask me if i miss my childhood.
i tell the firework 
living alone
feels like living at a vacation home.
the strangeness of the morning 
in a space that doesn't quit feel perminant.
someday i will crawl into
an abandoned house 
& keep the fireworks safe.
i will stroke their backs till my fingers 
bloom with blisters. we will learn 
to be calm from each other.
in the mornings we will ache 
with our own loudness. the rainforest
will whisper its worries about us. 
the glow worms will smirk 
with envy.

all the button-up shirts in my closet without me

when i go to work they sway together
& talk about my body. even fabric 
is capable of conspiracy.
they say, "stomach" & "waist." say
"hair" & "chest."
i install a surveillance camera
& then i install 
eight more. all angles.
what else can one do to keep track
of his items? the shirts frolic
in a circle. they make a may poll 
of a broom. i should sweep the house
& look for teeth. they are always
dropping from the ceiling. the shirts 
are wild i know 
& i should teach them more manners 
but if they run away 
what will i be left with?
a dress will never wrong you
the way a button-up shirt will
but who would i be without them. 
sometimes my shirts go 
& let other people wear them.
i will see a nieghbor with the blue polka dots 
or in the grocery store i will pass
my blue & orange floral shirt on a stranger.
shirts can wink, you know?
the first men's shirt i bought
was pink & white. it winked at me
everytime i went to target until
i finally caved in & bought it.
the truth is, we don't actually choose
what we wear. at least, i don't.
the clothing is forceful.
a tie around my neck. a watch 
strapping my to the bedpost.
a shoe lace coiled around my finger.
these items are making
a human of me. their seams 
form my own personal crease. 
my pockets are full of gravel.
a paper napkin dabs the tears 
from my face. the shirts love me
despite their infidelity.
who am i to keep them
from more intimacy? spare buttons 
are always popping up in my palms.
i keep them in a jar like 
blinking olives. who is going
to salt my tongue when my fingers 
turn to single threads?
i wear the button-up shirt
wirh triangles parading across & across.
often, i feel like less of a gender
& more of a pattern. everything can go back
to the geometric. is she a cylinder
or a rhombus? i am a tringle today
but yesterday i was 
a parallelagram. when i leave for work
i decide to be cruel & lock the closet door.
my shirts will conspire inside. 

disobedience towards black birds > god

i'm stringing peppercorns
around my neck to keep the black birds away.
they stand like little policemen 
outside my front door with their metal eyes. 
any animal could actually be a machine these days.
you never know 
what technology you're dealing with.
the black birds 
have beaks like guns.
i learned my modes of protection 
from observing 
how the clouds abscond 
when they no longer want to be painted
by a man standing 
in his backyard. i walk up the hill first
like a fragment of hail flies up
before its final plummet.
about the black birds, i don't know
who created them.
they move between the sky 
& the underworld. you have to understand 
i did nothing wrong that i can recall
but i still feel guilty.
i speak in a hushed voice
to the black birds.
i say, "please leave & i will 
give you all the rings i have."
two black birds share a look
of consideration & they accept the rings
for today. i am a bad human.
i kept a ring. a promise with a black bird
is like a promise with god.
i am certaintly going
to the factory when i die. 
steam & pistons churning me
into a spring. for now though
my life is small & warm.
i fit in the gutter
if i whisper enough. a voice
is an extension of the spine.
the leaves are paper macheting themselves
to the street. a great collage
none of us can see.
the trees are artists.
paint brushes are made of wood
but if you plant one it will
return to the tree it was.
my grandmother knew nothing
of alchemy. she just did whatever
the birds told her.
i can't be mad at her.
back then, people just did 
what they needed to 
in order to make the sun climb down
& up again.  

for a future exoskeleton 

in any given corner a spider 
might be completing a crossword puzzle.
my great aunt is a spider sometimes 
& we have to pick her up 
with a plastic cup & a sheet of paper
& let her out into the yard 
where no one will smash her.
a broken spider can look 
like an asterisk or a pile
of fallen men. the street tilts so high
all the cars roll down & away from us.
we tried chasing the cars but eventually
gave up & took to traveling
on all fours.
when the spiders compare notes 
they think i am not the kindest human
but maybe not the worst either.
in my last life 
i knit a web in my own hair
& let the spiders nest there.
i have been walking through
many webs lately. some of them
are thinner than others.
my mom is not a spider but she does
knit & she harvests yard
from any unsuspecting surface.
once, she pried a whole spool
from my thumb. is the opposite of unraveling,
raveling? if so then 
the spider have been hard at work 
raveling me back together. 
insects have more experience 
with grief than mammals do,
especially spiders. they are weary 
& weathered. they will not 
sugarcoat the truth. 
they sit me down in a circle
on the floor of my living room
where i don't have a sofa
& they tell me i need 
to try & knit something
of my own. once i knit
a have of a bag with my mom's help.
another time i tried to knit 
a scarf but i never knew
how to tie it off. now iam 
knitting a staircase
one that's short enough
for any creature to ascend.
the staircase is a direct path
up into my mouth. i want to 
let the spiders inspect my insides.
hold their flashlights up
to my teeth & pass their judgements.
i will ask them several times 
"how am i doing?" but they will
not respond. a muffled voice asks
if one day i would like to have
an exoskeleton. 
i reply that i would love that.
o! to having glinting arms
& shiny elbows & protection 
for all my softness. 
the voice replies
it's not yet time. i wrap myself
in tinfoil & wait.