improv 

under pressure, i am always a mother
or a daughter. get down on my knees 
& celebrate a birthday. then again
isn't everyone either a mother
or a daughter most days. once
i was a lost little girl. she crawled
on all fours. hard wooden stage 
beneath her knees. the scene
always ends too soon. before there's real
resolution. are humans prone to story?
or is it part of the training?
cut & next scene. positions.
give us a word of inspiration:
secret, powerful, apple, plague, ice.
a mother scolding her daughter 
for the kind of boys she dates. a mother
baking a pie without turning on the oven.
the mundane is fantastic. i was sixteen--
seventeen when i did improv.
i knew nothing about sailing 
but there i'd be on the deck
of a ship. they say you're not 
supposed to plan the scene 
before you get onto stage
but i always did. i planned:
little girl with a dead goldfish. 
i planned: funeral parlor &
flea market & taxidermy depot.
always one scene ahead. tomorrow
i will be stranded on a desert island
& then an ice cream parlor & then
a vestibule. a theater
rising around me like a shroud.
tall ceiling. light dwindling.
all the improv kids sitting 
on the front steps of school
waiting for our rides. all these
headlights in the dark. 
our shadows pulled every which way.

the cobbler's worries

he's making shoes for the future
when none of us have eyes or feet
& we house what's left in 
little boats. main street floods
with hope. the kind of hope
that dismantles everything.
my brother wears his shoes
until he reaches the dirt.
you can fill a shoe with soil
& use it to plant a flower:
pansy, poppy, lilac. 
it won't be spring for a long time
at least another several years.
will someone come fit my 
for a nice pair of dress shoes?
the cobbler makes his own shoes
which is another way of saying 
some of us try to build
our own coffins. i want a headstone
that reads, "he was always afraid of this."
all my shoes are broken
but he is no where to be found.
planning for a greater mystery 
than myself as we all must do
if we are going to find meaning
by tuesday. no nothing is happening
on tuesday that's the point.
i wish it would never rain. i just can't
take that melancholy anymore.
it's too cold. i want to live somewhere
all the shoes are open. little patios.
my bare feet are microcosms of disaster.
even a mountain could be hiding
his own secret pair of shoes.
a mother's heels are to be played with.
a mirror is to be shatter
with a stray clog. why isn't anyone else here?
where did they go, taking all their feet
with them? instead i am alive holding
just this candle & a notebook
of all the shapes of the moon.
i am so scared of what's attached
to my ankles. somewhere the cobbler weeps
laying on his back as he floats
farther & farther towards the sun.
we have no need for him anymore
what with all the bones. 
he was a good man. he just wanted
to help us.  

bubble bath 

someone told me i should try to relax.
a massage therapist touched my back
& asked if i was made of stone.
i am in fact, but so is everyone.
my mother was a shard of amethyst 
& my father was & was was was.
i should self-care more often so this  
should be a start. a soup bowl
of bubbles. i'm going to eat 
lavender one little grain at a time.
i'm going to teach my blood to float away.
have you ever clipped your finger nails
in the dead of night? it feels like
making a sacrifice. i would make
any sacrifice possible if my body
would treat me like even just as a tenant.
instead, it fights me. 
all the door knobs in the world
are not enough. i collect them
in a side closet. salt jars.
three metal spoons. i miss everything
but especially the presence 
of shoulders. nudge me. how should i prepare
for the winter? more bubble baths.
more lotion. swaddle myself in lotion
& wait to reveal my whole new skin
glimmering & pink. what i really need
is a bassinette to fill with empty glass bottles.
here is where i'll be a good infant.
love me, me this helpless bird. 
i flit from window to window:
a new born ghost. no foot prints.
no limbs-- just a fearful darting.
a minnow thrives in each bubble.
sweet honey. sweet floral clean.
washing my feet in a half-inch of water.
i don't ever scrub my knees. 
is there anyone who'd like to keep vigil
over me. wake me up every 13 minutes
& ask if i am living? no, that's okay.
this is what alarms are for.
most days everything in my life
is an alarm. even people i love.
will you alarm me awake soon?
the bubbles form doorways
i walk through. the cellar is stuffed
with sponges. will you
take care of me tonight?
just one night. 

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.