jonny appleseed 

we went apple picking 
on the bottom of a glass bottle.
planets took turns
blowing on the rim. a bird
died & turned into a fresh tree.
encyclopedias collapsed into each other
until we only had five words left
& they were all the names of apples.
boys are all made of branches. girls are all
made of soot. i was somewhere inbetween.
a root burned in me. a twisting.
when we kissed i got smoke in your mouth.
holding hands is like becoming
a chainlink fence. tell me about
your favorite parameter. mine is 
the edge where the orchard becomes 
a regular forest. there is a glass between 
fruit & wild wooden areas. i loved you more
when we were a few feet apart--
when we were stepping
in mucky apple carcasses at the tree's feet.
i dreamed of all the little amber seeds 
with their knees tucked into their chests.
i wanted only mcintosh & you wanted
the goldens. a slipping in our ankles.
picking & picking. filling basket after basket.
i said do you think that's enough
but it only came out mcintosh?
you nodded, thinking i meant yes more. 
piles of apples. we could never eat
so many fruit. you were tired of me 
i knew. i was sorry for all the flesh
& the burning. a little column of smoke lifted
from the lip of the bottle. we held hands 
picking picking. a stem is 
a neck. a trunk is a neck.
we picked every single apple. 
not one remained. you fed me one
& i fed you. juice down me chin.
you said gala & winesap. i said cameo.
fingers through my hair. all the branches 
in you bearing fruit. i pinked them off 
your arms. all love is meant 
to clatter. a dusk poured 
from the skin of 
a particularly large apple.
you feel asleep 
& the bottle slinked away. 
i carry a pouch of seeds
& left you there.

gulping 

more than i can manage.
ears as acoyte bells. i ring
tuesday's doorbell & wait for the sun.
arriving is a series of stoops.
concrete hardens into the cast
of a poet's face. my uncle plays pacman 
in the corner of a dead pizzaria.
he is full of quarters. 
i peel back my skin
to find a swarm of beetles. shiny back.
all gems are just insects 
with their legs pluck off 
by miners. a shaft is waiting
in the basement. 
i take a fork & a spoon
& wittle away at the earth.
dirt tastes like autumn. the seasons 
have given up on me. it is just
summer summer summer. a tulip
where the light bulb should be. 
the sound of losing the video game.
my uncle with his huge coarse hands
& a joystick toggling. i have 
seven knees & five eyes. 
a blinking aches 
in my joints. who is going to change
the last light bulb? who is going
to unhinge sigh from his teeth.
i want a new finger to press
to the roof if the animal's mouth.
my vocabulary isn't strong enough
to tell you how the basement hurts.
remove the tooth & burry it.
we need more trees. how long will it take
for the seed to sprout. red leaves.
vein stem. the earth's core
is full of blood; hot & stewing.
somewhere the tea leaves are read 
& suggest death. a tarot card is pulled
that means no one 
is going to sleep tonight.
i try to swallow a pencil but it gets stuck
& not a ghost writes poems 
in my throat. who will become 
a planet? who will unknot the necks 
of trees from one another? 
a bird is taking up oil paints.
i am the bird & there is no canvas
just a blank wall in my house 
that has been staring at me.
i need to cover it's sixteen eyes.
maybe we were all angels 
& then we were banished. i once
touched a boy's back & felt 
where his wings used to be.
i once swallowed a boy & the next day
spat a tangle of ivy out 
into the backyard. it is still
working its way up the mountain.
the planets roll down hill
& nestle with each other.
i turn a light out & cradle
my extra three eyes in the dark
before placing each in my mouth
one by one.

july will be full of pixels.

square raindrops are falling
to the green. when i cross the street
god holds his remote controller 
as if he's playing frogger. 
i have three more life tokens
& they glitter in the corners 
of my vision. a hoard of moths
is always ready to fight me.
i smash a beetle into the wall
with my thumb as if it's a big red button.
any room can be a puzzle.
i feel along the floor 
for a loose board to yank
& watch the house open. i don't entertain
the basement's groans. that is for
another level. what i really need
is a home screen. the unspooling
of anthem music around me.
when was the last time 
i felt un-liminal? liminal is
an over-used word when what i really mean
is purgatory. there is 
my religion in me. i need a coin
to light a candle in the cathedral
up the street. i have been waiting
for a new character to approach me.
i fast forward past my neighbor's words--
all of their angular sentences
to get to the point. this man
wants to know where i'm from.
this woman wants to make me 
a fairy house to sleep in. this man
wants to carry me to his bed
& make a blurred graphic of me.
where is the rock rolling to
& who will pick it up when it lands?
i want a new square moon. i want
a bridge over every asphalt.
july rattles & finds a staircase
to trip down. i find
a remote controller in the bathtub.
unplug it from the wall.
whole house does dark
so i plug it back in. yes
this is how it is right now. 
god makes me jump
but my fingers don't graze the ceiling.
a neighbor stands on the porch
waiting to be clicked on.

a memory of us or the moon's pull

i put a strawberry in my mouth
& it becomes a boat. we sit.
rocky water. moon dunking itself
into the surf:
pitch black night full of holes.
an ocean is always having a grand opening
somewhere near by. whose sand 
is in my living room today?
whose sea shells in my cupboard?
when i met you, you told me 
you could sink ships with just a glance.
i walked on watch & begged you
to peer into me. the bath tube
gets deeper. the faucets bleed easy.
nothing can prevent a face 
from becoming an oar. 
we are sailing the boat. 
you navigate & the stars scurry 
back & forth to confuse us. 
we will likely
never arrive. we might just
run out of shores.
there are only so many salvations left
on this shivering planet. 
the earth is not round 
it is an oak leaf.
have you never looked at the ground
& seen the veins?
i draw a card from the water.
it's death. i draw again it's
the moon & we're pulled 
into a whirlpool. 
underwater you change into 
a boy who i knew years & years ago.
he had huge knuckles 
& a firm grip. he grabs my arm.
neither of us swim
to the surface. 
i spit out the strawberry.
a kitchen window. a mop & a broom.
just me soaking wet. dripping
on the tile floor. salt water.
a scarf of sea weed.
the moon knocks on the glass
& asks if i'm going to eat my fruit.
i wave & tell it i do plan to.
there are no visitors. there is 
no "you." i look
at my hands.

house warmning 

i belong in the frying pan
a skirt of egg white around me. 
when we swim in oil 
i will give you my purse
& my phone. you can do what you want
with them. my mother has 
a cast iron pan that she loves
like a daughter. she makes good use of it
& then on sundays 
ties a bow around the handle.
any implement can be a girl 
in the right pair of hands.
once, only once i cooked a chicken breast
in the bottom of a pot. i watched
the pink turn white. muscle of the bird
like ribbons of bark. a knot
of sinew. i plug the sun into 
a power strip & it flickers. prayers are
a kind of outlet. throw you fears 
through your mouth.
you text message my grandmother,
sending her a picture of us 
in our drag dresses. none of us
are girls anymore. i am often
a spatula & you are often
a whisk. my grandmother is dead
& all her pots & all her pans
are elsewhere. who is to say.
maybe lurking in a closet
stirring each other. i am told
i should let the reader know 
who the you is in my poems 
but the truth is it could be
anyone. every person is in danger
of becoming a "you." just yesterday
i was a "you" in the heart 
of a strange white man wearing 
a fisherman's hat. he said 
"you, what are you doing here?"
i said "i am just sitting on this bench 
waiting for my orange slices 
to dry out." he accepted this
& moved on. i don't actually own
a frying pan or a pot for that matter.
i do own a boil & rice you can make
in the microwave. i put my mouth
close to the window & blow to make fog.
i write my name with my index finger
across the glass. the word simmers 
& oozes like a warm yolk. when i say
"i belong" i don't mean
as punishment. i mean there are
few other options left. 
i mean i stepped out of bed
& into hot snapping oil. 
pink to white. a chicken upside down
where the sun shoul be.

bird tree

if you come upon a tree made of birds
you should be grateful. a bird 
is a shifting kind of thing. at any moment
i could find myself a hawk or a swallow.
have you ever missed your hollow bones?
flight is only several phylum away.
talon roots. all throat. 
feather thick branches. no voices
just rustling. the first bird tree arrived
before there were humans. one bird perched
& then another & then another until
they were collaborative. until they shared
organs. until one mouth was another mouth
was another mouth. they stay deep in the forest
where no one might startle them.
deep in the forest where time has moved yet.
where a prehistory grazes on coal.
i know all this because i am a forest walker.
i fill pockets with stones & flowers. i listen
to green ghosts & whistle till the song
comes back to me. i found the bird tree
& i wept. my tears turned 
to mud. my knees became root & brush
& my body knew the wildfires & the floods
& the drip of overripe nectar down 
the trembling trunk. the birds eyes
all turning to coin & flashing with life.
i filled my pockets with feathers 
but the feathers were gone by the time
i got home. i filled my mouth 
with rocks but swallowed 
each & every one of them. the bird tree
is up there waiting for us.
i forgot about boys up there. i forgot
about my ribs. i was just another 
forest statue. in my house sometimes
i wish there were men made of birds
who might come & stand over me.
there is a lot of flesh in my town
& a lot of toe bones on the sidewalk.
how much practice does it take
to grow a single feather. i stare harshly
into my skin. not a single one.
in the presence of the tree i managed to sprout
three white feathers they quickly fell out
& blew away. where are those feathers?
whose are they now?

bullseyes 

the distance between
needle & need is not far enough.
in the cupboard my bouquet of syringes
is taking selfies. is it still a selfie 
if the picture is occasionally someone else?
what can i do to become more 
disposable. i need a nice trashbag
to dance in. out behind my house
a trash monster devours the rinds of
my oranges. a ring appears on my leg
& it's neither a trap door 
or a coin. it's possible 
a manhole cover. i am possibly
a sewer. all the water is 
running away down the side of the mountain.
what have you evacuted from recently?
i am scared the planets will align wrong
& all my friends will turn to basil.
i press a needle into the wall
& inject exactly what we both need.
the house becomes hairy & hungry.
a fever is settling into both our bones.
holes in the ceiling reveal 
my neighbor. he smokes 
all day. he kisses the cigarette
like a house husband. rings of smoke
curtsy in his living room. every living room
has a dying room on the opposite side.
i pull up the floor boards 
to find mine. not what you might expect.
not all black or all white,
just a light sepia tone across everything
& a sleepy feeling. 
a bowl of red hard candies promises 
if you eat one you will never leave.
when participating in a haunting
it is most important to not use
your hands. don't touch anything.
my favorite ghost runs his finger 
across my shoulder & i ask him
if he knows where needles are born.
he does not. a needle bush
is alive somewhere. the hands 
of the pickers are raw from 
grazing the implements. i used to 
knick my palm & my thumb.
i have been a red tomato pin cushion. i have been 
a dying room complete with a gramaphone.
after it rains, i'm going to convince the water
to form a lake in my bath tub.
i will fill the syringes with water
& press them into my tongue 
when i feel myself slipping beneath 
the sofa again. a man is soon coming
to break the blood vessels on my neck. 
i will hand him a need 
& not a needle. i will tell him
to press his hand to the ring.
i will ask him to bring me a lake. 
press the needle right here.

time on the moon

take a twig & jab it into the soil.
now you have a sundial. now,
in the glow of the moon, you have 
a way of knowing what part 
of the lunar afternoon it is.
on the moon, there is no such thing
as morning or night or even midday.
the moon creatures toss bones in the dirt
to ask when the day is over. once, a day lasted
several human lifetimes.
the moon beings wept & pleaded with the day.
they said let us go, please let us go
but the day just kept working. 
the moon-rocks grow beards 
near the end of a cycle. the moon dial
in your backyard should not be disturbed.
we should check it often. we are 
made of water after all 
& whatever the moon says we should do 
we will do. once, the moon told me
to swim to the bottom of a swimming pool
in the dead of winter. my skin prickled
with the cold & from beneath the water
i saw the moon peering in. 
we have assumed she is gentle & kind 
for too long. the truth is
the moon is just deeply curious, willing
to knock glasses of water off counters.
eager to let pots boil over. she has 
no way of taking notes so she 
tampers & tampers & tampers. once,
in a bowl of vegetable soup, 
i saw the reflection of the moon looming
over my shoulder. the moon was watching me
put lips to the hem of the bowl. the moon
is jealous of tongues. it wants one very bad.
the dial reads 4pm on the moon. up there 
the people are rejoicing. i can sometimes hear
their singing. they clutch moon rocks 
until the rocks turn to dust. they dream
of a great rain. they tell fairy tales of trees
& the color green on earth. one tells them 
to plunge a rod into the moon dust 
& try to read the time of day 
on earth. they discover my 8 pm 
all glossy & dripping & the moon people
they dream of having early nights. 
all the while, the moon beneath them 
shudders in the cold of itself.
i wave goodnight out the window.
my eyes become trap doors into a morning.
the moon: a vaulted ceiling.
a flashlight on a round face. 

lullaby 

we stole our fathers shoes,
the heaviest ones. each of us
cradled one like a baby-- told them
to hush. we escaped by the light 
of the fireflies who followed us down
into the closet at the end
of town. where have you gone
& never come back? this is a story of
failed elopement. the weight of show
in my arms, my brother lagging behind
as the world oscillates between
tundra & thick tall brush,
the shoe infant fussing
while i told it stories i remember 
from when i was just a single 
right appendage. all textbooks
have lied about the growth of humans.
we grow from our hands. i was first
a pinky, then a thumb then followed
all the rest. the shoes get heavier
as we go. my brother, clutching the shoe
to his chest & listing 
all the light object he can think of.
he says feather feather gust of wind
a single leaf until the boot
is as managable as air. we are not sure
what we will do when we get to the closet.
we did not see this on TV. 
i havea duck call in my pocket
made from a single blade of grass.
a great goose might arrive
& shelter us beneath her wings.
my brother asks me why are father
is our father & i tell him
no one is sure 
where the first father came from 
but they are sure there was 
no turning back. even the trees
have fathers. the only creature
without fathers is the fireflies
& look at how they glow.
they whisper in a secret language
& i tell my brother we should study it.
he says it's best to let secrets remain.
this is the difference between
him & me. he holds the shoe tight
until it stops sobbing. i put the single shoe on
& stomp around in the dirt. 
the closet has a chandelier 
& a dirt floor. the closet was made
slightly askew. when i say 
we needed to hide i mean we had
no idea where the edge of town was.
somewhere my dad was looking
for his children. he was slicing 
the night to pieces with a flashlight.
we are terrible runaway children.
hearing him laugh, limbs fell 
off trees. the boots broke 
into wails. hush, yes hush we said
until there was no sound 
& the closet doors cradled us
by its handles.

a single popcorn kernel 

my popcorn tree bursts each morning
with all its limbs of kernels
turning white & soft. i sit underneath
to watch. little shells raining down 
like insect carapaces. i think 
of the popcorn machine we had when i was little:
a small spitting device. catching 
the popcorn, sound of each kernel 
meeting bowl. we filled whole rooms,
with popcorn, my brother & i, & laid
in the mounds. popcorn crunching 
beneath our bodies. what else carries
the same magic? the truth is 
i planted the popcorn tree for a past self
who i needed to entertain. i set 
a pair of shoes in front of the tree
& wait for her to arrive. she stands 
like an obelisk. she is amused
by the popping. nearby, a movie theater
is sitting like the carcass of a whale
at the bottom of the ocean. fish gnaw
at its windows. an invisible film
is playing all over. no no, i won't say
we are all actors because we are certainly not
but we do pass by scenes every 
time & time again. just a few days ago
i saw a man feeding geese in a parking lot 
& that was likely the opening moment. 
the credit screen rolls
each night before the stars. kernels reform 
into their amber selves. i tuck my knees into my chest
in the hopes that i too might 
grow a shell, no matter how thin
or rupturable. there are people on this earth
who have killed other people & they also 
eat popcorn & some of them even know
about how to plant a popcorn tree. most of us
have a self who has done terrible things.
i am trying to not make a kernel 
of him. i tell him to sit & watch the tree
un-bloom. i wrap him in celophane
to keep him from going stale.
see, without butter. popcorn just tastes
like air. the holy spirit. maybe that's
too far. i eat the air or the popcorn
from my own handfuls. a single kernel
hovers in ever doorway. the movie theater
was a mirage or a monster. i put the old shoes
back in the closet until tomorrow.