circus / circular 

the ballon dart lands 
in my thigh muscle 
between meat & murk. 
feather tail protruding. becomes 
a bird. your circus funhouses me
into a bright whirling corner.
i wanted a popcorn fuck
& i wanted the glaze 
off the apple. where was the last
fairgrounds you sulked?
he was my first backyard 
& his swingset filled itself
with rusted nails. a merry-go-round
twists until it's as thin
as a hair. summertime
is for charades. 
i'm kicking my legs:
am i swimming or fighting 
for my life? a pool of water
dunks me. drenched, i crawl
to you & all your bells.
i was indebted to your ring.
you won me a giant stuffed angel
complete with blinking eyes.
your soul on a ferris wheel
looking down at all 
the freckle-people. i grab your hand
but it turns to taffy.
i touch my face
smooth as glass. i become
a mirror in the wrong light.
there are too many calories
in a twist ice cream cone
so i just eat a tablespoon
of sprinkles 
before they turn into
a swarm of colorful flies.
i am leaking out of myself.
all my blood gone caramel.
a boyfriend is a kind of
red button. i press you
over & over. when will you
launch me into the face
of the moon? oh firefly harvestor
oh funnel cake heart oh tower 
of frayed hair.
you leave me with
a chain of tickets. i try 
to exchange them 
for a flashlight 
or a kazoo. you took all my whimsy 
with you. you planted a tent 
in the living room.
lion after lion. a cow
chewing wires. who were you
to laugh at a light bulb?
you strung my flowers 
& neoned them all night.

falconing in new york city 

after you left
i watched nature documentaries
every single day. it is not true.
you cannot carve a routine 
out of just a door &
a television. on screen
i watched falcons ride 
wind currents between skyscrapes 
in manhattan.
they plucked rats from alleys 
& rooftops. the rats, ragged.
the falcons 
sitting high above 
& sending telegrams 
to god. one falcon says
"some humans are obsessed
shimmer." an empty lot 
is a kind of church, rubble
for rosary. i ate lunch 
on the concrete & felt 
like a real true human there.
stoplights after stoplight
& car after car nudging each other
around corners. the city 
was a a series of tight turns.
below the streets
the rats were discussing
their teeth. they were holding hands
& dancing in circles. in my hand
i clutched a plastic fork
made with dinosaur oil.
this was only last july
i was in a thrall of 
air & metal & i knew nothing
about the falcons or their meals.
what other animals were
above & below? who was i
doing there? hours later
on the long island railroad 
i would rush to find a seat.
hopefully a window seat
to see the city
slip away through a series
of orange tunnel lights.
the falcons see every light
as a jewel to never be touched.
the falcons gather 
on my forehead some nights
& tell me there is a rat
to be caught 
in the basement of my new apartment
away from the city. 
they tell me i am no longer 
human here. all those people
with their fingers 
clutching bars
& arms & bags. so many people
shoulder to shoulder. 
all the sweat
of one afternoon. the falcons
sharing a carcass 
on a rooftop,
taking turns imparting their intel 
with angels. 
i often shut the TV off 
in the middle of a show.
i think to myself, that is enough.
falcons rattled inside the screen.
a man in my heart
takes a loud phonecall through 
a dead tunnel. i do not know 
what exactly it is i miss 
& what it is 
i am without.

portland 

i walked through the food truck village 
late in the night. orange lamp glow.
an open yellow-full window. no one else
was alive in all of the city. 
you were elsewhere in a forest
of faces & hair. i was leaving you
for good. i wanted to be 
a phantom. you wanted to be
all skin & warm face.
a ghost sang from a rooftop before
turning back into a bed sheet.
i said, "i want to join you" but the ghost
was already on his way. i knew very little
about the city, only that the bus
would slink by soon & that some corners 
smelled like white flowers & 
that i was a whole country away 
from all my usual haunting.
i wanted to show someone
the sleeping food trucks
but no one else was around.
i decided it would be best
to not take a pictute. who knows 
what kind of creatures an image
might reveal. all those dormant animals.
a stop light heating to red.
a candle in a window. smell of 
dragon's blood. sitting on a stone bench 
i pretended
to be a statue. i imagined
you would pass me on your way back
to our hotel room &
you would not recognize me.
i would stay here forever
until someone saw my soul
in the stone. i am a martyr 
of sadnesses. a single car
shimmered by & turned down
a narrow alley way. a ways away
a couple, leaning all over each other
like townhouses, ambled 
from a crack in the wall.
no, i was not alone.
i took one more look
at the darkened windows
of the food trucks & i slipped
even deeper into 
a city i didn't know. 
somewhere, you did 
the same.

precipitation 

i was greedy & i swallowed
a cloud whole. i had been so hungry
for so long. i sat & counted
the blue objects from
the roof of my car: the sky
the sky the sky. a door knob
in the dirt asked to be turned,
so i reached & the world flipped.
you were no longer an airplane pilot
or a coroner. you were a boy
to run between trees with.
i cashed you & kissed the bark.
my feet in blue & all the tree roots 
tangled in the ceiling. lamps 
in our hair. you swiped a fork
from the drawer & used it 
to comb my hair. i unhinged 
my jaw to show you 
how i eat clouds. on my knees
in a pivoted atmosphere. 
my tongue grazed raw my mist.
taste of above & plummet. taste of 
gazing upward. a sprinkle
of ocean salt. water from
bone marrow & water from 
knuckles & water from loud river--
all of that in my body.
you didn't want to eat one too
so i worked on chewing
alone in the kitchen. i am ashamed
of most things i eat. sometimes,
i dream of being a tree 
or a flower & eating nothing 
but sun. even more often
i imagine a bond fire 
in the forest. you feed me
snake meat & i feed you 
mulberries. you are a boy 
unafraid of wildlife. you take my hand
& bite off the pinky finger.
it was no very useful anyway.
you have no body
but your shadow is sometimes
so large it covers the whole town.
oh lover, i want to show you
what i can do with my teeth.
the clouds curls up feline 
in me. there is rain coming.

i have never seen my dad's uniform.

does he slip into
a suite of blown glass
or does he swaddle himself
in lace? in the backyard
there is a manhole cover 
he will climb into while no one
is looking. my father is 
a hell-worker. he won't tell us
what he does. 
the corners of his clothes 
return singed & in tatters.
creases of his hands
full of soot & ash. i used to want
to go down there with him
& work alongside all the men
in my very own secret uniform.
maybe an old diver's suite.
all metal & fortress. a tube trailing
to feed me air from above.
sometimes, dad will tell me
i must not ever work 
in a place like him. 
i have searched his closet
for his secrets & never found
the uniform: rows of old 
thread-bare t-shirts. i do not dare
ask him where he keeps it. 
instead, i will build him a better one.
i am testing out materials still.
maybe thousands of pennies maybe
an arce of lilac maybe hair 
maybe horse hooves. i keep
all these suites in a secret closet
where no one can see them.
one day the uniform 
will be ready & i will dress my father
while he sleeps & his skin will
not longer burn & his body
will no longer age.
until then, he will have a secret
from me. his uniform sleeps 
somewhere in this house.

i no longer need to sleep

i play soccer with a ghost
in the big empty field. 
my legs turn to rabbits & a burrow
opens in the grass. 
you were busy with the blow torch
when i told you i felt an aparition 
at the school yard. you told me
to go ahead without you
so i road a donkey made of ice
through yard after yard,
stopping to graze on glass.
there is scar tissue in my throat.
do you remember the time
you put your hand around my throat?
all those little bones.
you never want to come with me
when i go to visit a spector.
the ball is a head of cabbage.
at the center of any leafy green
in a single tooth you've been missing.
we break a window in god's house,
the ghost & i. the ghost 
died of unnatural causes--
he fell off the side of a ghost
& just plumetted until
he struck the earth & burst
into a maple tree. now he plays soccer
with other lost boys.
you are busy with your own teeth
& a razor. the moon goes grapefruit heavy.
i want to catch it but it will
crush me like a spider beneath 
a thumb. the ghost & i are scared
of bringing the sky down on top of us.
you lay in bed, knitting a corset 
to wrap me in. what kind of ghosts
do you play with when i'm not around?
i let him make a few goals.
he lets me run the length 
of the field with my reptile knees.
he tells me what it's like
to live as a tree. he knows so much
about the wind. i do not miss you.
most nights i could go without
a minute of sleep. i am going to
stay awake for the rest of my life
& you will turn the pages of books
propped up against a year's worth
of pillows. am i your ghost then?
when you touch me, does your hand
make contact with skin?
i come back to my room,
sweat sticking shirt to skin.
you are not there at all.
in your place is just a mound
of rodent teeth & a feather.
i warned myself against
loving but here you quiver
in my memory. there are so many 
soccer fields open at night.
will you stalk one with me?
i want to be your ghost.
i leave all the lights on
in my mouth. you will know
by the orange glow
where to come back to me.

self portrait as American Gothic 

you & i hung a tiny window
in the attic & asked the light 
to walk through walls. draped
star-covered clothe across glass.  
whose faces
are these? my gender 
has a wife. i want to be sturdy.
we laugh into paper bags
& save our joy for the winter 
when even the field has no teeth.
ten years ago was a bad harvest
& i still remember raking
bare dirt. we ate
sharing the same spoon.
i tied her shoes & she tied mine.
car won't start so i reach
my hand into the beast.
knick my knuckles on gears
& smudge corners of my bones.
she wonders to the barn 
where we rumor an owl is perched.
she says, "who who?"
to call the bird but nothing comes.
a stray cat mews 
& vanishes into the hay.
i come out to join her.
a sunset is on its way 
like a lesion or a bruise.
my thighs are heavy 
with rubble. her face
a sundial in the dark. 
we stand a foot or so apart 
& say nothing. soon, night 
pickles our tongues. 
the stalks of corn in the field
hush hush hush & she stays
while i go inside, still clutching
my implement. i think of devils
& their pitch forks.
i wonder where in my body
all my evil lays dormant.
i pray to god 
to make us worthy people.
my hands ache. i light a candle
in the living room
& wait for her to come inside.

several parades you asked for

we looked at 
leashes in the pet store.
some leashes
the length of our bodies. some leashes 
for snakes 
& several leashes for humans. some for tying
to tree branches
& teaching them to amble. 
a willow tree has a waltz-like step.
i use my phone speaker
to play radio loud for us.
we dance, stepping in & out
of leashes. 
you want to walk your rose bush 
up & down the street 
to make your neighbor jealous.
we put collars on our wrists.
one is big enough
to choke a planet. the midday moon
is water bright. we buy
leashes of all sizes. we buy 
several collars. you tell me 
you have been wanting
to make a parade. there are wovles
all over town & now
we can catch one. we freeze tag run
& catch one. a great huge wolf
with snarling joints.
it walks between us. at home,
we aren't sure what to do with it.
the wolf stares & stare.
you say you had just wanted
to walk a rose bush &
look what i made us do.
the wolf does not sleep
so we take turns staying up
to watch the animal. it doesn't blink.
we put leashes on each other.
finally the wolf becomes 
a dead tree. a fallen log
in the middle of the hallway.
we step over it to go back to bed.
i leash the ceiling fan 
& you leash the pillow. i ask
if we can walk tomorrow
across the sidewalk 
with all our pets. you say
you don't know if it's safe anymore.
once you're asleep
i put a collar around
each ankle & each wrist.
i wait for you to wake up
& make a thicket of me. i want
to be pulled across a terrain.
landscape me. the mountain
swallows a knot of cloud.
you roll over & over.
a collar glimmers 
underneath your skin.

intrusive thoughts

i am a collage-rupture of doors. 
most days, my thoughts crowd
& collect elbow.
a wind tunnel.
a tuning fork. i cut my tongue
on a gust of air. he used to reach
for the door knob 
at the back of my throat. 
open. out comes another thrust.
a dead railroad overlooks the town.
did i say "thrust"?
i meant thrist. 
water is always
rushing away from 
pinnacle. what does
a goldfish taste like? how easy
would it be to jump over
cliffside. this is not my idea.
a serpent openned me 
& whispered. trees fall over
rotten amidst the forest
& no one mourns them. forget
about hearing. sound is 
a lush fallacy. 
maybe there are unseen funerals.
a thought rides a bicycle 
into a brick wall. my father
ties a knot 
around my wrist.
he crushed-orange breaks nose.
listen to me, 
nothing i tell you
& everything i tell you 
has happened.
i am a living parcing. this or that.
believe your eyelashes 
or pluck them out.
keep your porches eager
or take a hammer to them.
if you wait for me,
i have a whole row of teeth
i want to show you. light pressed
to a pupil. puddle swelling
with storm water. grey leaking
up through floor boards. 
a heart breaking into hydrangea:
cotton candy & blue. 
my last bruise
was a continent & all the people
tried to drown themselves 
in the surf of my skin.
i saved them with a scoop
of my hand. where are they now?
carn horns in clouds. 
the hallway is long & endless.
i want a passcode
to the fracture where
all these images errupt from.
a safe box shutters 
in the basement. i have
three fingers. i have six.
i have a hand down my throat.
i have a bedroom 
with one window.

lingual heredity 

my dad carries a tape recorded hymn
into the ceiling. an attic is an attic
is an attic. where did you learn
to quaver? angels are no trust worthy
even when they offer you 
light white cake. i wear
a fork around my neck. 
a bell rung upside down
is no longer a bell. dad harmonizes 
without a tongue. i open a box
of spiders on the porch & they crawl
down my throat. light campfires
all up my esophagus. one of them
is my dad. the sky scraper
burns: a statue
of the god we don't talk about.
manhole cover openning to reveal
an unblinking eye. pigs hold truths
in their skin & their hooves.
they stalk alleyways in search
of a morsel. are you 
my dad? are you? he makes puppets 
from the altar boy robes. a cord 
is easily tied tighter. 
for years i was held together
with only cords. one for each wrist.
dad assembles a mass 
for his teeth.
presses play on the tape recorder
& out comes a rusted warble.
all the doors in my house
turn into bat wings.
if we don't pin the attic down
it will surely slip away.
i pick up large rocks. 
look for dad underneath. he is 
a grub & a salamander.
his tap recorder stuck
to the ceiling of my kitchen
trying to catch my voice.
if he gets your voice 
it's over. he will find 
a nice vase for you.
i was a lily once & my face
fell apart petal by petal.
i rotted from the stem 
to the roof of my mouth. i love 
my dad very much. he is 
a good dad & leaves me
packages on the porch.
i open with caution. 
(yes, the spiders). once
he gave me all the love
i wanted & i wept until 
my bones turned to salt. 
now, there is mass to be held
& a finger to put
to my lips. my tongue
is gone & in its place
a bell clapper.