transformation 

she would tell us to be achnors
every few weeks at swim class.
an exercise in breath-holding.
my swim teacher wore a cap. she tucked 
all her hair under the stretchy surface
so we never got to see how long it was.
i imagined two long brown braids.
we were to force all the air out of our bodies
& sink to the bottom of the deep end.
a class of children turned to stones.
feeling the weight of water pressing down 
on us. i was flattenned like a skate.
being under water with out people feels like
looking in their bed room window. 
i watched the other children 
& noted their pruning toes 
& their goggled-faces. their hair floating 
lightly above their heads. they could have been
drowned. they could have been dolls.
one boy always tried to speak. his voice
was eaten by the water. his words streched thin
& wobbling. inside myself i felt
the urge to open my mouth--fill lungs
with water. i steadied. crossed my legs.
the bottom of the pool was gritty & white.
it could be sand. this could be the ocean.
weeks later i would watch blue planet with my brother
& the narrator's voice would say 
that the weight of water deep in the ocean 
could crush a human body--break bones--
swallow skin. here i was surviving 
the whole ocean with other children. 
everyone trying to be the last one 
underwater. each of us kicking off from the bottom
one by one towards the surface.
an exudos of angles. i wanted to be last
but i gave in. clung to the wall of the pool
& remembered how to breathe. my short brown hair
dripped across my face & i removed my goggles
to come back to the world of air.
i asked the swim teacher if she had ever
tried this in the ocean. of course she said no 
but i still pictured all of us there--
sinking for days-- passing reefs & rock formations 
to reach the true underpining of it all.
when the last of us came up we went back to 
swimming laps. i always wanted more.
i wanted to spend class seeing just how far
we could all sink. a class of anchors.
bubbles trailing from our mouths 
like chains that might link us to boats.

epistemology

i'm living between 2 closets. one on the ceiling
& one on the floor. this is the closest to the truth
this poem will get. i wrote the name "ashley"
in my poetry notes & i wish i could remember
what that was supposed to mean. the one closet
is full of dead birds & the other one is full of
all the clothing my dad wants to own:
just 2 pairs of white pants & a few nice button-ups. 
the dead birds are all not quite dead if you
know what i mean. i'm keeping a great huge secret 
in the closets. it's so huge it brings the birds
almost back to life. my dad is in the closet:
physically i mean. he's folded himself like
a pair of pants. i'm sitting in between with 
nothing more to wear. if you live long enough
you will start to run out of clothing.
my brother said to me today that really 
the phenominon of clothing not fitting is 
pretty recent because everyone used to make their clothes
or have them made. this is true but 
people still out grew their pants. there were still
articles of clothing that became suddenly useless.
there's someone named ashley somewhere & they were
supposed to make it in this poem but now they're
walking around mahattan without an eternity.
maybe they're wearing dead birds from my closet.
maybe they died a long time ago & their mother 
sewed all their dresses. 
as if the poem will last. a poem is like 
a good pair of pants. i've watched my dad
make a pair last from 8th grade to now. 
the knees: thread bare. his knees beneath 
moving like two ghosts. the closests doors
open without warning. drop a dead bird here
a dead bird there. they are so much 
like baby dolls. i dress them in infants clothes 
& slip them back into the closet doors.
everything we know about each other
is dressed in clothe. i'm allergic 
to my room so i never leave. i want to learn
immunity from the coat hangers who 
take body after body & give them gravity. 
ashley is thinning now. collapsing into
a closet & falling asleep amoung 
the other metaphors.

playing pretend

in the city today everyone plays pretend.
the food vendors hand out invivisble hot dogs 
people move their mouths like chewing
& they can almost taste the salty meat &
the sharp yellow mustard. 
others perch on non-existent benches.
we are unsure if they are supposed to be
people or the missing pigeons.
overnight everything material evacuated
& left us here. just our skin & our fingers--
a gesture can reveal routine & desire.
we kept moving without it all. i walk 
& the sidewalk is a sheet of glass.
there are holes in the sky where advertisements 
used to be so i stand there a moment
& try to imagine what they wanted me to buy.
my wallet is a nest of inverted eggs
all glistening with empty. we stand on
each others shoulders & ask for at least
just one cloud so we can pretend to see
something in it. the buses become 
herds of people who travel together
marching the streets that have become angles.
the geomtry is us-- our corners &
our heights. there was a formula once 
for how to get out of this but i left it
in a notebook & there are no more notebooks.
what is a city without trees? what is 
a city without piles of garbage & 
stray shopping carts? 
we fall in love more easily now
without nothing to buy each other.
we say i'll meet you when the sun turns 
flat & clear. seeing through the other side
we notice blankeness. it's not a simulation
if this is the only process left.
i eat bags & bags of chips--
telling myself that the first one
is barbeque & the next is sour cream.
there's no train to remove us from the city.
we are the city. you can't take the 
body out of the measurement. i weighed 
one-hundred thirty pounds last time
i checked. i have my friends picj me up
& weigh me with their fingers.
they say i am much heavier than 
i let myself believe. alone in my apartment
i keep a secret-- i do own one thing--
one last object. a spoon which 
i use to check my reflection. i see my face
long & stretched thin like a messy spill of pigment.
i touched the metal to my tongue. 
i tell myself how lucky i am to have this.
outside the people make car-horn noises.
the people make sirens & screams.
the people chew as loudly as they can.
i go out to join them.

wall flowers

alone i talk the flowers off the walls. 
they fall down one by one like children 
tumbling down staircases. our house 
had too many windows to clean. the flowers 
are all one species but various different colors.
all color goes back to yellow-- burning 
& untrue. i peel yellow out of my body 
& become a wall of plummets. i tell the flowers
each day buckles into the next.
my stream of consciousness is full of flowers--
all of them floating towards that great television
where the ocean used to be. she tells me 
i'm always waiting & it's true. there's always
another flower puckered there wanting 
to know what i am made of. i list ingredients:
flour, sugar, hail, glass, shards of canyon.
the flowers gave up their throats for beauty 
& i ask them to teach me how-- how to relinquish
that control over words & names. the water 
smells like lavendar & is getting deeper. 
where does color emerges from? i'm looking.
all the closets in my apartment 
are too full. it's sometimes hard to close the doors.
i would do anything to have a basement again.
the walls creep closer together each night
while i'm not keeping vigil. the flowers
turn to gnats--a rainbow of blur like
a living oil spill. fossil fuels know
all our secrets & that's why we have
to burn them all. the flowers too know what i mean
when i say i need to sleep. there are
only a few left--the floor scattered with 
their visages. their blinking teeth.
the bows of a thousand empty boxes.
i forgot to get you a gift for you birthday 
so you disappeared & i am sorry for that.
i lay on the floor with the carcasses
& wait for the wood to turn to water.
there's something good on TV but
we don't have cable. we just have
the haunting dark screen glowering 
over us. life is a series of entities 
watching each other for mistakes. 
i repin the flowers to the walls 
& start all over again.

apartment acotlye 

i used to wish i could 
take the altar server robes home--
staring at myself in the full-length mirror
at the corner of the sacristy. 
on the other side of the room
the priest would put on his vestments--
purple, long, & flowing. his movements 
like a lake dressing itself.
we never spoke-- just exchanges looks
through the mirror. his nod 
a signal to go light the candles 
on every corner of the altar.

i open my closet now & find it full 
of those off-white robes. 
all my other clothes gone. 
thank god, i think to myself &
i dress myself for mass with 
a brown chord around my waist. i walk around
my house as if it's a church--
carefully, pretending everything 
is holy & made of gold. the cabinets 
are full of hosts. the windows 
have turned to stained-glass & 
the street lamps outside cast strange 
shadows onto the wooden floor.

i try to remember what it is
an altar server is supposed to do.
i remember washing the priest's hands
before communion-- cool pitcher of water 
pouring over his wrinkled fingers.
i fill a glass with water & pour it
all over myself. i'm ready 
for god now. i'm ready for a sacrifice--
something biblical. the priest would
flick the water off his hands before
rubbing them dry with a towel i'd hand him.
i took my duties seriously
as if one acoltye held the whole mass together.

drying myself i search the apartment
for a bell. something to ring to signal 
life's importance. i find no bells so
i clink together pots & pans. a chime.
a ringing. this wakes god up & he presses his face
to the window-- only briefly. i find
the mark of his breath there. 
i am a good server. i am a ghost here
in the church. i light dozens of candles
& the flames laugh. i take off the robe
& put on another.

ring-holder 

two statue white hands poised side by side.
empty & grasping lightly at the ceiling.
smooth & simple fingers. i was sure
these were women's hands 
when i found them in the attic 
that afternoon. it was like
running into a family member. i slipped
my own hand around the still white plastic.
the hands were mounted on 
a little black stage to help them stand up tall.
i asked my dad what they were & he said
they were ring-holders.
i began to wonder if they belonged to
one of us. if one of our hands had flew away 
from our bodies. turned into doves
as we slept. turned to tarantulas & 
scaled the walls. i clutched my hands together
as if to hold them in place. in the bathroom 
i stood, to get a better look at my own hands.
my crinkled knuckles. dirt under 
each fingernail. the hands were 
nothing like mine. i wondered how 
my hands would look mounted on 
a little black stage. i clapped for myself
in the bathroom for the acoustics.
imagined myself standing in a tiny church 
without my hands. God placing my hands 
into a tiny black box. what use were hand
anyway? they crept all over. they felt separate
from my body. i decided to talk to the ring-holder. 
i asked them what kind of rings they 
wanted to hold & they whispered
i want a beautiful wedding. here comes
the bride. here comes the bride. 
their voice was the texture of 
fingers brushing against each other.
i cried & told the hands i was never 
going to love someone that much.
they ran their fingers through my hair.
the laced gold rings in between strands
& drew their fingertips across my scalp. 
i felt wonderful. i laid on my back 
in the attic where the air was musty & greenish.
the light shown in through the small
corner window. i raised my hands up 
towards the ceiling-- grasping handfuls
of roof--watched as my fingers filled with
rings. gold & copper & green & silver &
studded with jewels. it took me all night
to pry them all off. all the wedding rings 
of all my family members past--
all those bonds glimmering in a pile
on my bedroom floor. over time 
each ring expanded & thinned to nothing.
i thanked god each day until they 
disappeared. i still check each morning
to make sure my fingers 
are attached to my wrists.

we're experiencing some delays

a train stops underground & becomes
a lady bug with seven spots. we cling
to her back as she walks on the ceiling
of the tunnel. the walls of our old house
were full of lady bugs & i thank her for
visiting the city. she flew all the way here
from pennsylvania. i thank her for 
good mothers. the other people who were
on the train car with me are startled.
the hallway shakes. we're in an air b&b now
& i'm making dinner for them. i'm telling them
a story about how scared i am of centipedes.
i'm shucking ears of corn. another man is 
standing by the counter. he is now my son
& i tell him he makes me so proud. he cries.
i hand him a knife & tell him it's time
he learned to carve the ham. we can't find
the ham so one of us lets loose a snake
hoping it will be drawn to the meat
but instead it just hides & we've lost
the ham & the snake. my son is 
dissappointed in me. i hate being
a father so we're on the sidewalk together.
someone opens their brief case to reveal
a pile of spoons. they clatter 
to the sidewalk. she plays the spoons
against her knee & i cover my ears.
the clacking reminds me of
horse hooves. we're on a horse
with eight legs & its scurrying down 
the dark tunnel. we al remember we just
want to go to work. that's all we
ever wanted & the horse is trying
to get us there. we cling tight
to the horse's long black mane.
a girl tells a story about being young
& collecting plastic horses. her collection
mobilizes to find her. they carry her
from our midst & we try to say goodybe 
but she covers her face & insists that
this is not the last time we'll see her
even though we do not know each other
& we do not want to know each other.
we're on the train again finally & 
the windows fog up with all our fears.
we draw pictures. i write heart after heart.
one man draws penis shapes. a girl
writes "none of this is true" over & over.
we want to stop her. we know it's
a spell but we don't want to accuse her
of being a witch. not after everything
we've been though. she is gorgeous.
we see out reflections underneath 
the fog & realize we weren't going
anywhere after all. we lay on the floor.
we sing songs in each other's voices.
the train starts up again & we plead
with it to stop. no no let us be no one.
let us do nothing forever. but the city
remembered us & to be remembered is 
that hardest burden to bear. i tell everyone 
they are brave. they hang their heads.
they say "we are not brave
we are experiencing some delays."

family reunion on the second floor 

there is a fire but only on the second floor 
of my great-aunt's house. they don't use
the upstairs anymore & the whole floor 
slowly grows farther & farther away 
from the rest of the house. the stretching happens 
only on the inside. 
outside the house is quiant & beautiful.
the fire is also beautiful. i burns everywhere 
& only i know about it. i don't want to scare them.
my aunts are too old for the truth 
fire will bring. it flickers across the banisters 
& toils in the middle of their beds they no longer use.
they sleep in their easy chairs--
tv still on-- tv drowning out the smell
of burning. old stuffed animals burning.
curtains burning--even the faucet in the bathroom
drips with fire. what is fire
asking of them? the first time i saw the flames
i tried to put them out but these days
when i visit i try to talk to them. 
all the ghosts are in the fire. grandfathers 
& grandmothers & dead dogs all winding
between each other. they all want to eat
pears from the tree in the backyard.
they all want permission to go downstairs 
& i tell them to stay where they belong.
i lay in the bathtube of fire 
& i can hear a re-run of a baseball game
on the television downstairs. crack of 
a bat. a player running as far as he can.
if i'm being honest i know 
very little about my aunts & even less
about our family. so then why does the house
show only me this fire? the flames don't destroy me--
they lick my face. they try to turn me
into another ghost but my skin refuses fire.
maybe it's because i am an outsider.
my flesh prickles with light. they are going
to sell the house soon but we don't know when.
the future is wide & burning. they tell me 
the same stories over & over. they fall asleep
for blotches of time. they recognize me yes
but they don't know what i mean
in this house. sometimes i worry 
that i started the fire & just don't remember
but fires are always being born.
i kiss the fire goodbye before i leave.
it rushes around me. the second floor grows
a little bit taller.

display 

macy's window displays opened wide for me 
each morning for me before i walked up 6th avenue.
it's amazing how at any time of the morning
everyone is frantic in the city. brief cases 
full of diamonds & paper weights. men whose reflections
died years ago. i was bright & full of buttons.
i was a glistening dot of salt. in the displays
i took on whatever role the manikins suggested.
they took off my feet & told me to sit.
they dressed me in purses-- expensive purses
with royal names. lifting my head 
from my body they decorated it with sunglasses.
no one stopped to look in at us. outside 
the days whirled by. the sun leaped & leaped 
over his own shoulders. buses full of only tigers
let off right in front of the store. 
in the display i was beautiful. mural grew
from each angle of my joy. a pink siren 
whirled. a mosaic of all kinds of blues. 
in the photographs i was a model. someone pose-able
& ready to be anyone. i became a sun hat.
i became a beautiful girl with long straight hair
& a green lip stick twisting back & forth.
we were all so stunning. we were going to win 
some attention. i was going to
never go to work again. the buildings shrunk 
to the size of people. a field of people all peering in
to see the macy's display. none of them could name
what had brought them there but they were eager 
to purchase something. their wallets were
full of dragonflies. their hearts were full
of smog. new york city gets more beautiful
when you're behind a layer of glass. 
i invite a select few people to join me.
i dress them. we have to sell it 
though i don't know what "it" is. 
we would figure it. the buildings were
jealous. the stop lights turned to necklaces.
they wanted to be worn. every single bicycle 
became two blush compacts & the riders
painted their faces with those hues. 
i was never ready to leave but 
the sidewalk reminded me of desks
& so i would climb out & sell nothing
& walk block after block with 
everyone else.

close ups

i asked for a magnifying glass
because i wanted to burn ants like boys on TV.
i crouch in the mulch by the edge of playground 
& watch the ant hill bleed bodies
into the grass. school lets out at three pm.
streams of ants all rushing. dads factory 
lets him out at three-thirty pm. he doesn't
carry a lunch box like other men. maybe, like the ants
he chew on the edges of things. there are all kinds
of mounds to climb in & out of. choose your
rushing. i can see the ants clearly through the glass. 
all if them are boys. you can tell by how
they walk over each other. you can tell by
their scurrying. i poise the glass above
like god. all of their scribbled dot heads.
i try to search for their eyes but instead
i find their abdomens--they move like
dancers. the ants are dancing i think 
still holding the magnifying glass.
it is true that the glass makes a spot
of heat & maybe if i had more patience i could
focus it & burn the mound. i can't do it.
i try to hold still but my hand always
starts to shake & i wonder what's wrong with me. 
i imagine all these magnifying glasses
waiting up there behind the clouds.
god gets a good look at us. notices our shoe laces
& our fingernails. my pupils become as large as ant heads
& i walk with them. i carry a crumb 
over my head like a sacrifice.  
i feel the world getting hotter 
before i catch on fire. no one is holding
the glass. the school shutters
like a house. the molded earth shifts 
under our sneakers. all of us boys
looking for the glass. i tell them nothing
despite their clamoring. the heat becomes 
intolerable. we all lay down &
that's when i go-- 
a bloom of smoke & flame.
combustion. the other ants screaming 
with their pin-prick voices. each of them:
flashes of fire only seconds later.