narrowing

i found myself in the sliver of gold
between finger nail & skin. there is a 
a crawlspace underneath my parent's house
where the ghosts of cats are pressed down flat.
how thin can your night make you? i lay down
in front of a giant turning wheel
& threaten myself with less dimensions.
how do you know the solar system
isn't planning a fresh conspiracy tomorrow?
even my wrists whisper about me. i tell my dog
to go back to sleep & not worry about
the storm clouds forming above the bed.
grey deepens to black, the rain: purple 
& staining skin. i have all kinds of smudges 
across my body leftover from getting 
on my hands & knees & slipping beneath
the hood of the car. most stains
are perminant. i buy several extra shirts
incase this one gets destoryed. you can protect
very little in your life. everyone 
is thinner than the last time you saw them.
everyone is slicing oranges into slender medallions.
take circles & make lily pads. take a sheet of paper
& fold a raft to get you home. a crease
is where a life is born. mine was folded so tight
i scraped myself on entrance. a bee
flies out of a key hole. a girl opens
the fly of her pants & a centipede emerges.
it's all about waiting for the right moment 
to break the surface. a pike rests
with gnarled teeth just waiting 
for a wandering bluegill. you call me
in the middle of the night
& tell me something is squeezing you
so tight you can't see anything,
just a slit of light. i tell you 
to give in. we both wake up
on separate coasts as dried apricots.
the sun is always making excuses
but here we are as it slurps 
our sweetness. i just want a straw
shoved down my throat. i just want
to feed hummingbirds with my saddness.
that is not a humming bird though
that is a mosquito but then again
a body is a body. each full of light.
a rolling pin makes a painting
of all of us sitting in the living room
scrolling on our phones. there's nothing wrong
with turning your brain into a colander. 
all those holes to slip light through.

ache

this morning i felt a seed lodged 
in my palm. it ached like a torn 
length of rope. we are playing 
tug of war on the roof & one of my brothers
is falling of the edge. i am holding 
the rope & he is a bunch of cabbages in the yard.
the seed is twinkling 
in the bed of my thumb 
where there are cogs & filaments & wires. i water
the seed. i talk to it. i say
"you don't want to choose me
for your roots." there is sorbet 
in the freezer, huge tubes of it.
a spoon floats in the doorway 
begging to be plucked. spoons are
mostly stalkers. i give in & taste
just a tiny spoonful. the flavor
of a vacation-- one where i was too little
before i made lists each day. 
round rubber moon asking
for its own nightlight. i press
the handles of flashlights 
into the loose damp earth.
a forest of diminishing light
all up towards the moon. the moon is
less lonely now. what have you been doing
to keep your body company? i love
the persistence 
of orange rinds. a wheel 
rolls down the hill 
with out its mobile or it human.
whatever grows in my hand 
i hope it is gentle with me.
roots around bone around muslce
& tissue. i am picturing
a tomato vine crawling
up my arm. a raspberry bush 
spreading all the way down 
to my waist. telling a boy
to open his mouth & close his eyes 
as i place a ripe red fruit
on his tongue. a tongue is
a kind of beacon. all these boys
in the their towers & no one 
to save them. have you ever been
a boy with a seed soon to burst
from his palm? the starlight
is sharp tonight, little incissions 
in my blankets. a thousand tiny holes.
a wound is growing. the sun is
packaging himself in celophane 
so he will keep for another hundred-million years.
i hate when humans consider extinction 
as if it is an option. we are here
to open out mouths until 
our jaws turn to wings. i am here
to let the seed open & emerge
out of my skin. what will you steal 
from the farm?

portrait of my face throughout this day in june

i open the compact of my face.
here is everything soft & pink.
the mountains are made of powder
if you blow hard enough 
the world will be flat again. 
a mountain is born from the pressing together
of two hands.
when i put my hand up against yours
mine always turns into a lichin.
who is going to water the herbs
when i am gone? will the next tenant 
of this door know 
that this is a sage bush & this
is a friendly smidgen of lavendar?
i talk to the window & it clenches
it's teeth. when it rains tonight
someone will have left their car window 
a crack & the car will become 
a wonderful fish tank. the ghosts
of my goldfish whirl in the back yard
where their feather bones have long since
turned to soil. about my face,
it is almost unrecognizable. i am 
almost a dragon. i am almost 
a raccoon. my face is turning
on it's stage. we should pick strawberries
before all the green is drown.
i put strawberries where my eyes should be.
swelling red. tiny seeds squirming
in their seats. i walk in the field
& it's full of gnats & thin-legged insects.
i walk faster to escape them. 
some of them are sunflower seeds 
& i can't wait for them to just nestle
in the dirt. in the mirror 
my face has mandibles. it has
antenae. it has tusks. what creature
is the light making? we have little control
over what we see. of course,
i could spend every day 
with calcite instead of eyes. i pluck out
my sharp teeth & put them under my pillow.
a little pile of knives. who are you taking
to sit on the biggest red rock?
not me, that is alright. i will be here
with a chisel, trying to find
my cheek bone. i will be here
guarding a singular door 
with nothing notable on the other side.
strawberries are looming. a shark 
is in the fish tank car. pouring rain.

visitation by goats

the first goat arrives
through a crack in the window. it is important
to shut all corners of a safe house
if you intend to hide away 
for any extended amount of time. i was careless.
either that or i wanted to be 
infiltrated. my dating app is empty
& the gutter is full of yellow leaves.
who knows all his/her own brilliant corners?
not me. i could not tell you 
how many fingers i had this morning 
let alone the number of doors
cracked to let in a breeze. a breeze
is always swelling into 
a breach. the goat starts buy eating 
the slash between his/her which is
a wonderful relief. the truth is
i have always wanted an animal
with a bolder sense of hunger than me.
humans are mostly just cowardly
& sometimes very very bold. we are best
at envisioning our own endings. sometimes
when i'm driving i see my car
plummetting off the side of the cliff.
more goats come. all the hooves
patter like hard constant rain.
the fissures in the walls 
are meant to be stepped through.
i consider where else i might make
a hole. one goat walks on the ceiling.
the pupils of his eyes are a portal
down into a new kind of basement full
of even more teeth. 
in my room i open my mouth 
& try to eat a door knob. the goat
tells me i have to close my eyes
& pretend there is nothing else left
in the whole world to be eaten.
all the goat eyes burn through my eye lids
until i am left with goat eyes too.
they are hatches i can lift 
& slip into. dark little quiet rooms.
damp & stone. all these little 
tunnels. on the floor of the rooms
are all kinds of teeth fossils.
a shark tooth & even the teeth 
of an iguanodon & then the small teeth
of god: square & yellowish 
even by the dim light 
of my tongue. the goats are waiting
for me to return to my face.
the are circling me for one reason
or another. i want to never
be alone. i seal the cracks in the house
to keep the goats inside.
all of us. a little herd.
my lesson for you is that
a goat cannot be contained
by a wall alone. i woke up
with an empty house. in the mirror
i found my circle pupils again.
i state in the closet & shut the door.
to contemplate what i knew now
about hooves. outside it rained
for seven days straight.

i will be so much more beautiful 

i take a curling iron
to my long phantom hair--
ringlets fall around my face.
a portrait of mary made of celophane.
what do you know about 
capture & likeness? 
i have very little to report 
about the body you see. the truth is
there is so much else going on
without evidence. now you see me.
now you never see me.
an invisible hand is reaching
for a new bright ledge. a ghost leg 
is making its way up a mountain trail.
here my body is though in a cardboard box
waiting on the porch. i count my moles 
like currency. a sapling starts sprouting
from the one on my back. i have no
statues of jesus to protect me here.
you can find a statue of jesus
doing just about anything: baseball,
soccer, painting. he is like a pigeon
stalking over my shoulder. this poem
is 100% about god or death, though 
i am not sure what i will tell you about either.
all i know is that no one will recognize me
in heaven. i will be so much more beautiful 
than i ever was on earth. my body will shift
each & everyday & even god 
will lose track of me. my soul
is as slippery as a lily dipped 
in olive oil. similes are always
absurd. i should have just told you
i am turning to grease because
that's the truth. a piece of bacon
is frying in an imagined pan.
grease pouring from meat. a jar of grease
turned opaque on the back of the stove.
argon oil is good for your hair & skin
but if you're not careful you will 
deep fry your hair. it is summer afterall
& people will start to notice 
you shrinking. oh my ghost body.
tall. the size of any give house. 
a t-rex self. hair as thick as yarn. 
no one is large enough for him. 
a jesus statue is swinging a baseball bat.
an angel is waiting
to be released from duty
back into an mourning dove. the calls
of birds through the window & my ghost hair
all knotted around each & every door knob 
in my house. i know i have to 
cut the phantom hair down to my scalp
but the it is lush & bleating.
steam pours from each of my fingertips.
a great fog in my soul.
i walk through it. feel for 
the walls of my house. this is what
my body looks like.

my alarm clock
 
is an expanding device. there are 
red numbers written in the bellies 
of green frogs & raccoons. i open 
a door to find great rattling.
i have five more minutes before
the sun puts a hand over my mouth.
when all other forms of self defense fail
i advocate for biting. i bit 
my alarm clock so it hissed 
& slithered between a crack 
in reality. sometimes i cut my fingernails
over the toilet & each falling nail 
smiles back up at me. toothy smiles.
tomorrow the world will be too late
& the alarm clock will arrive 
gold & loose. what will we do 
with all our 30 seconds. i have 
a tendency to know when the alarm will come
even if i'm just laying in bed 
& watching the arms of the ceiling fan 
become the tentacles of an octopus.
there are minutes with their digits
in my spine. i have a red number
burning & eager beneath my tongue.
what time will you give yourself
to open like a moon lily each & every day?
i am a hurried bone. i am the worst kind of root.
in another life, used to wake up naturally.
there was no where to go. i was a simple person
& everyday i woke to find 
rosemary & calendula growing 
beneath my body. if i dig in the earth 
i would find tiny soft unripe numbers
waiting to be mornings. i'd give them
water & salt & wedding rings. a precious medal 
will alter your life. all my rings
leave my fingers green. in the sky 
a clock looms & explain that there
is only so much time left
for me to plant the eggs in the soot.
a fire burns & eats only the faces 
of flowers. a lantern asks 
for a number & i drop a "5" writte non 
a piece of paper in the flame.
what will we do with the ash?
a snow storm is easily mistaken 
for communication with god. each flake
is in fact a number. everything is red
if you get close enough. ripe numbers
in the crisper. frozen numbers in the freezer.
june with a finger in july with a finger
in autumn. an alarm clock 
dangling from the ceiling of a cave.
another one in the closet, perched 
on a pair of my shoes: mouth open 
sound coming, sound arriving. 
my hands over my ears
i say, yes i know don't. 

the trainset in my neighbot's basement is getting out of hand. 

first, he started with a model.
a single track plotted on a green table.
the train climbed over a mountain 
& back through a valley. all valleys
are a kind of throat. the neighbor kids & me
would take turns letting him 
make miniatures of us. he would say
close your eyes & we'd turn plastic
one at a time. cupping us in his hands
around us, before placing our bodies on the train.
i don't remember the rides but i remember
watching others as their figures 
became useful. everyone grows up
by a railroad. i had two. the real one
& my neighbor. the real railroad 
carried box-cars of lumber & coal
& natural gas. the real railroad
was going somewhere but this one--
this model train is always coming back
to my neighbor's knuckles. he is a short man,
nearly bald & has peachy-colored palms. 
the train set grew, is still growing. 
more trains & more houses. 
a whole little town.
now i can see it is a model of our town
complete with my parent's green mailbox 
& the soy beans growing on commonwealth avenue.
complete with each of us when we step inside.
i take a walk in my plastic body.
trees are growing. his whole house
has become a train set. trains glide
across the ceiling & up into the attic.
me & the neighbor kids 
we don't even know
his name. he is just
man-in-the-white-house. you should always
learn the names of your neighbors 
so you can call them when you are lost.
a train goes all the way out to his mailbox.
two of us are conductors & never come home.
another, becomes a plastic river
in the landscape. i tell my friends i cannot
go back. not ever again. from my yard 
i feel the pull. i see the trains
all of them. they are becoming
full-sized. huge engines yelling 
from his basement. a switch to turn them on.
climb a mountain, break a tree in two.
i hide in my house & the train come knocking
at every single door. track lays itself 
all over the neighborhood. 
a train is never confined to a single vein.
howling, howling. the conductors 
telling me to get in, saying
there is a throat to drive through
won't you join us?

on the otherside of strapless dress

the forest is tall & blue. all colors invert
if not given enough attention.
i ask the wild flowers permission 
to stuff my pockets with their petals:
purple & white & lavender. an ice cream truck
hovers where there should be a god.
what i'm waiting for is the moment
when my life starts to feel like a novel.
so far there is just a string of dresses
all of them thrift store & all of them remnant.
my alarm clock sound is polyester & orange.
if i didn't have to get up 
& find a pair of socks i would probably
try to find another dream. i don't have
cherry ripe dreams 
i have cameras flashes. i met 
an old teacher & he washed my hair.
i was a giant. all the trees the size 
of toothpicks. i didn't want to break anything.
not a dream now just a story
i had this deep pink & wine strapless dress.
the back was open. anyone could
press an open hand to my skin. boys used to.
their warm open hand. they'd say 
my back was so cold. i'd say 
i have a orange dreamsicle 
where my heart should be. no, i didn't say that.
i'd laugh because girls are taught
to laugh at discomfort. i'm not a girl now
but i do still let people handle me
like a pinecone. i see the other side 
of the forest where all the trees hang down
like ragged teeth. the gravel of the trails
fall as hail. all the animals
cling to their burrows & their nests.
i tell them to just hold on one second
& then i set the world straight again.
an ice cream truck song hymn 
comes bleeding. i want to eat something brief & melting.
the strapless dress asks to be entered.
a revoling door. i miss my girl feet sometimes
but that is all. i should paint myself
more often. i should have red talons
or at least black lips. i want to be
a bad influence but this is all i have.
a handful of smashed flowers & a story
about tilted trees. come visit me.
i'm crouched just below the horizon.
i'm hiding from day's end & tomorrow's start.
here i am safe & you could be too.
bring a favorite pant leg or moon.
i'll hold on tight to my stems.

vacation voice says you should relax

there is a vacation voice hovering close by.
a blue pool opens for swimming. a snorkel
in the mirror. what we need 
is an ice cream machine in the kitchen.
white luminous soft serve. salt is knocking
at my freckles. a face mask can be turned into
a basinette for a sea gull if you hold both straps.
swing swing. a blue egg. blue water. green kelp.
i want a hammock to be cradled in. i want
two palm trees to sprout 
in the back yard. when i say "tropical"
i mean synthetic orange-yellow candy flavors.
june will leave us sprinkled & caramel.
the vacation voice says spend 
another five cents on the moon & add it
to your package. says one day 
the ocean will dry up so you should love it
while you can. my car drives itself
to the beach without me. i can tell because
in the morning there is sand on the tires
& a box of salt water taffy
melting in the passenger seat. most years, i feel like
a passenger to the story. sometimes 
my car drives itself all week 
& i just hold on. the sun is 
an electric burner. fireflies 
could save us all. i sleep with a window open 
& in the morning we are a float in the channel.
water all around. my dog & i on my bed turned raft. 
the vacation voice is saying we could
get two more nights for the price of one.
we could go to a seafood buffet 
where the crab cakes perch
golden & crisp. a crab steps onto the bed
& plays us a song on his tiny violin.
it is still dark 
& there are the green lights of boats
in the distance. i tell my dog to relax,
that we should go back to sleep if we can.
an apothocary will open in our rib cages.
we will catch soft serve with our cupped hands.
there is something ending in me. 
a single canteloupe falls from the sky
& splits in half. 
once, my dad bought a coconut &
we took hammers to the thing in the driveway
until it cracked with a splash of opaque water. 
white sweet meat. a vacation is coming 
to contort us forever.
there is a photograph to be taken 
with sunglasses swelling larger & larger.
a shoreline severing a hand. i lock
the front door & plug my eyes. 
everything is dripping from the night before.
a wild horse the size of a mouse
roams across the ceiling. i close my eyes 
until the voice scurries 
back where it came from.

elegy for a box of crayon 

i found a box of crayons 
open on the sidewalk: red crayon snapped
& blue crayon crushed. i passed it on my walks 
around & around my block. i am 
an orbiting animal. i like my patterns.
open, a flip book of the crayons 
degenerating. crumbling into 
waxy grit. the cardboard box 
wilting into muck. i think of the crayon box
even when i'm not on a walk. 
in a dream, i reach for the yellow crayon
& i scribble in the sun until 
it has all those little pointy rays
everyone is always drawing the sun with. 
really, the sun is a radiant rubber ball
waiting waiting to bounce. a playground
thrums in my soul where i send my fingers 
to try & finally learn the monkey bars.
i was too fat for monkey bars
when i was little. instead, my dad held my waist
& let me pretend to swing from them.
a pack of crayons bloomed in my pocket.
i wake up with orange in my mouth 
& i spit it out in the sink. 
all the cars are becoming more 
poorly drawn. have you ever tried--
really tried to draw a horse?
they have terrifying architecture.
the crayons are fading rapidly.
i visit them more & more. i loom 
over their desctruction. this is not
a huge pack of colors. this is 
just the basics: rainbow. gay pride.
the crayons are rooting for me 
even in their demise. a car passes me.
another & another i feel like
an animation. someone is drawing
every single frame. bent over a desk.
i hold up my hand
& see the wobbly lines. yellow 
is the kind of color easily forgot.
everyone wants to be blue but i know 
i'm realy probably green or even 
indigo. maybe i'm being too generous.
maybe i'm yellow. the day will come
when the crayons are completely dispersed.
i'll look at the ground & see nothing
but a smudge beside
another smashed snail shell. 
behind my eyelids, someone is scribbling blue.
i am grateful for their diligance.
i can't color anything in to save my life.
i live in a room of half-filled-in objects.
my bed: pale at the top. my dressed,
empty in the back. under my door
a green crayon rolls. i draw myself 
a potted fern. it's not too bad.
the fern speaks on in shades of green:
neon, evergreen, mint.