house of franks

last summer the apartment swam
with house centipedes. their feathery legs
carrying them like bird fragments 
across the ceiling & walls.
we named all of them "frank" for 
a reason i can't remember. there are
a few people who have called me "frank."
it is exciting to tell someone your name
& have them use it. i was trying out
names. i was asking 
how do i trust myself to know
what i should be called?
benny tells me i don't seem
like a "frank" & i wonder if there are
inherent qualities to names.
no-- more like if there's something 
a name gives you.
what did we give the centipedes? 
i'm sad to report i killed a few of them.
some out of fear & others more shamefully
out of anger. this was my rooms 
what right did they have scouring them?
i would tell benny i killed
a frank or there's another dead frank
on the bathroom wall & she & i
would gather together to stare 
at it's mangled shape. it's crooked thin legs
& distorted body. i'd take a lysol wipe
to remove the body & i'd feel guilty 
for hours. did the frank have baby franks
who were waiting for his return?
the last time people called me "frank"
was a barrista job. i had a nametag.
i'd sit on my breaks & stare at the tag 
clipped to my green apron. it's job 
was to make me into a frank. am i still
a frank? could i be one again? autumn came
& it tookthe franks with it. winter came
to harvest their ghosts. now it is april
& the bugs are coming alive. i am still
a frank in some corner of my body
& there will be more centipedes soon.
i tell myself i will become 
a more peaceful person this year & that 
i will try not to kill them when they arrive
with their speedy legs & near translucent forms.
picture me, holding one up by its leg
& looking right through it like a blurry 
pane of glass before releasing it
to the cool stone alley.

sarah's cooking show

on the television i watch as my younger self
instructs me on how to cook an invisible soup.
she chops onions with 
a flat hand. she minces garlic 
by rolling it in her palms. i had never known
all my childhood was being recorded
& broadcast each week. i had 
an audience then or maybe no one watched
& i danced in the dark quiet 
of the television box. she is a bright girl
wearing a flower print apron. i know
when she is holding a wooden spoon 
by the way she grasps. i make the same gesture 
to hold one as well. the smell of the soup
fills my apartment. it has fresh ginger 
& hints of indistinct spice. 
there are no ingredients to invisible food
so they come out different each time.
this was all supposed to be a poem 
about my mom. she is in the shot too.
she is making real food in the background
of every recording. she is stirring
silver pots on the stove. steam or fog.
heat or oven. the clang of metal
on metal. i used to believe her bones
were made of utensils. i learned my motions
from hers. immitation is often
a form of self-making. so, tonight
i immitate my younger self who is
just mirroring our mother so in a way
i am stil mirroring my mother
to make myself an empty dinner.
the soup has butternut squash &
invisible chicken which is 
vegetarian. the soup has a remote control 
& a pencil & a lock of hair. i was 
so small i had to pull a chair up 
to reach the counter. i look
into the camera. the camera is rolling
like a boil. i have nothing 
in common with my self at six year old,
not even gender. not ever teeth. 
nothing other than maybe
the creases of our hands & our need
to make nothing out of nothing.
somedays i feel like
a poem is delicious wild nothing.
she is finish now, pouring the soup 
for all of us to eat. my mom tastes it
& tells me it's delicious. i taste
my own soup & it is too bitter
or maybe too sweet. all over my house
are mounds of invisible sugar
so you never know when some might
snow into whatever you're making.
i don't have a video player. i don't have
a tv. so the show ends & my little self
marches back under the sink
cradling the tv with her. 
i tell her she should sleep now
for a few years-- that she should become
a soft memory. one of the memories 
that only registers in texture 
& sadness. i am sad about past 
as a whole. all the salt we taste
is from a time we cried. there is only
so much salt for each of us.
i try to save mine so i don't
waste it on the soup. i finish it
even though it is bitter 
& syrupy & really about how 
i love my mom & how loving her
makes me weak with yesterdays
& years & years agos.

sundae

at the end of each middle school year
i remember a tradition where students got to
make sundaes of chosen teachers.
writing this poem, i discovered 
there's a difference in spelling between 
sundae & sunday. etmologists think
"sundae" used to refer to ice cream left over
from sunday. all of my life
is left over from the week before
or the year before or the decade before.
i can still smell the middle school gym.
tarps on the floor.
a man kneels while three 7th graders
pour chocolate sauce all over his head.
the sauce drips slow across his shirt.
in my memory, all the teachers 
are dressed in their everday clothes 
though i know this isn't true. 
there's no way they just let their 
short sleeve button-ups & patterned ties
be ruined, or maybe there is &
everyone was un-worried about 
streaks of chocolate & globs of 
strawberry topping. i know i sat
on the bleachers. other students
stomped their feet to cheer 
as our teachers were covered. i am a ghost
even in my own memroy. what were we
trying to do? was it about power?
what kind of display? how should i make sense
of the scene now that i am older & 
have forgotten more than i thought i would
when i was thirteen & picked dandelions 
from the backyard? 
i imagined the sundae textures.
the caramel in between fingers. sweet residue
on lips. standing in a bathtube once
i poured a can of diet coke
across the tops of my feet & it felt
cool & bubbly. chosen students scooped 
mounds of vanilla ice cream & piled them
on our teachers' heads. one had four scoops
balanced there before they slopped down
onto the blue tarp below. grimaced faces
of teachers. clenched frists.
math teachers & social studies teachers
& teachers who were cruel & teachers who were 
forgettable. years after these displays
doing dishes at the restaurant
i made a point to grab handfuls
of uneaten ice cream, trying to search for
this sensation-- the one those teachers felt.
i think about waste & hungry people & america
& the nights at the end of the week 
when our cabinets where haunted with only teeth. 
do i want to be made into a sundae?
no, not in the same way though. i wouldn't want
to be seen. i would want it to be private.
by myself on a cool night in june
right when school would be ending.
dripping with syrups & sprinkles 
struck to my skin. the sweet creamy melt
of skin. the moon an empty bowl
through the window.

travel guide for midnight streets

here is where i watched the moon
stretch her legs & where 
the street lamp went dark above my head
& made my feel loud & alive.
my whole body becomes a piece
of cutlery, a wandering fork.
i think of this street as a series
of dining room tables. reaching out,
i try to feel for a table clothe.
everything is tulle.
dresses come back to life & stand
in the hollow of each alley.
i put up a hand to let them know
i am not interested in wearing tonight. 
each gust of wind flickers me.
everyone is a candle light. some houses
want to burn & other truly do.
a car is a carridge is a pile 
of horses. the birds sleep 
in mid air, hovering. trees full
of climbing. i try 
to keep myself inside at night.
it is best for me to head in early 
& dwindle in my own corner of things.
outside my sadness gets wide.
grows legs & wants to be walked.
i walk my sadness as far as the world goes 
but it is never enough especially not
on a clear night like this 
where the moon is comfortable
& the stars are also candles are also
a sea of eyes. blinking becomes impossible.
a whole lot of staring. i stare so hard
the images all turn photograph.
i have albums of my midnights.
a bat is traveling without beating 
its wings. moves like a love letter
between buildings. the road becomes 
a creek. i take my shoes off & set them afloat 
like little funeral rafts. i watch them 
rush away towards the ocean.
in the ocean it is always midnight
& in the ocean it is always a street.
i write too much about cool colors 
but trust me it is so blue outside
you might mistake a daffodil 
for a telephone. how does anyone
get home so late. another body 
strides with purpose towards 
his own quiet. i take that as a sign
i should go too. my legs carry me,
a heavy arch of bones, 
away from the spiraling street.
i lay awake all night lusting after 
the shadow drenched sidewalk. 

land of thread & tangle

i search myself for threads to pull.
a finger across a hip
around a wrist. the ridge of my shoulder.
the seam where my neck 
meets my head. 
my skin is made from a bolt of fabric
that changes patterns each day.
this poem is not about 
unraveling though it could be.
i pull out stray strings all the time 
from clothing & from my body.
once i pulled one out of my hat 
slow, as if i were extracting a tooth.
still, the whole hate peeled apart.
a severed heart. i keep both halves
in the closet in case they 
return to each other. but really
most of the time nothing happens.
i want to know where the threads
come from & what their purpose is
if not to hold a body together.
i'm picturing a realm of only loose threads.
all different colors serpent in piles.
the sun is loose golden yarn. 
sometimes i think about how
without muscle we would just lay like 
unassembled tents. i pulled 
one fiber from my ankle this morning.
i held my breath. green cord
from my body. i thought
haha maybe i'm a trap door.
i saw all my lovers falling into me 
& towards the world of thread.
who else is there? 
maybe my grandfather with his rickey cane 
& maybe mounds of trinkets:
horse shoes & book ends &
plastic spider rings. the cable
exited my skin easily. no blood.
just release. i checked my body 
for more but found none.
i inspect each day. i guess 
in a way i kind of hope one string
will sunder me apart. me: reduced to
swatches of clothe. neatly folded
i would like to be a quilt maybe
in my next life.

color contact lenses & transformation 

eyelid peeled back
i sat on the floor of my bedroom
trying to place the color contact 
onto the surface of my eye.
a holy blue. electric blue.
it wasn't that i wanted
blue eyes-- it was that i wanted 
unnaturally blue eyes. junior year of high school
was a year of transformations.
i wore cosplay outfits 
in my bedroom while doing mundane tasks
like answering emails or 
organizing my bookshelf. 
it was a unique task to take a picture 
of myself with my phone;
no forward facing camera i had
to contort, hold the phone above me.
sometimes i'd imagine being two people:
a photographer & a model. their conversations
unspooled from my head. is anyone
not lonely in high school? i let 
whole animes play out between
a few nights. i dreamed of new ways 
to have a body. i saved images 
of cosplayers on my desktop
like a photo album or a destination.
is anyone not lonely now? this poem
is maybe not for them. sometimes i
dressed up as boy characters.
sometimes as girl ones. i used to think
it was about gender but now i think
the practice was about going
elsewhere. becoming anything but 
this body. i brushed my wigs 
carefully: the red one, the blue one,
the yellow onw, & the white one.
i tucked my hair under wig caps
& touched my rounded head 
in my full length mirror. i wanted
the contacts to fit so badly.
my eyes watered, dripping down my face
& leaving little trails in my foundation.
i couldn't get them in no matter
how many times i pushed & pleaded with 
my skin. the contact was thick &
would not stick to the surface correctly.
never before or after have 
considered so closely the texture 
of my eyes. two marbles 
in my face. when i gave up 
i put on my person clothes 
& took a walk up the street. it was 
humid june by then & all the grass
was dry & dead. i told myself
when i got back to my room
we would try again, yes & this time
they would fit right into place
& i would see myself in the mirror
changed.

my life in advertisements

recently, i've found my life
in several commercials. i'm in the background
of a crowd or there's stock photage of that one
birthday at mcdonalds or those are surely
my hands. mom used to make us mute 
the television during commercials.
i would watch the silent bodies
with their mouths flapping like tunnels.
a train is always at the back of everyone's throat.
being born is a checkbox that says 
i have read the terms & conditions.
everyone is selling something 
whether they know it or not. i walked around
all day with a jingle about roasted chicken
fluttering through my heart. i want to 
be on an ad in one of those subway posters:
my body made large & important. i saw 
a poster with a huge whale on it but i forget
what it was telling me to buy. the image
made me want to plunge into the ocean
& see how large i could swell. 
my father was on a flashing billboard
promoting metal bottle caps. 
the caps were placed over his eyes.
i didn't call him but i took a picture
with my phone. everyone is a camera lately.
this is not a sponsorship. video of me kissing
my first boyfriend on a swingset 
in the park is on a condom commercial
which is ironic because we never used one.
i have been a very precarious person
in need of extra products. my feet
are not suited to beauty, they have
little hairs on each toe & i used to 
trim them. i buy a pink razor even though
i'm a boy because i like the smell it leaves
on my legs. watch as 
a projection of a man unwrapping a candy bar
glows across my face. my uncle was
in several reese peanut butter cup ads.
the floor of his car, a sea of discarded wrappers.
stepping inside, the faint scent of
chocolate & peanut butter. who doesn't want
be unwrapped? i miss my quiet bed room
before my computer perched like a bird 
asking questions. i tell the screen
that yes i would like to buy all items 
& all services if i could. 
i contemplate whether or not to but
new body wash. i sometimes scrub my body 
with conditioner to feel smooth.
no, no i don't actually do that
i just want to. the distance between
want & can & should oscillates.
i want to be a worse person but who knows
what is being recorded. before a youtube video 
i watch my mother baking a funfetti cake
for my tenth birthday. she's selling
pillsbury. maybe we did nothing 
out of love. i learned how to love
from a series of images, some of them 
ads muted on the tv. a boy kissing 
a girl. a girl i imaged 
was a boy. diamonds on their hands.
a sunset. a car ride in an endless
wilderness.

cycle of salmon 

i wonder if salmon are aware 
of their orange pink flesh inside them.
i looked at the cuts at whole foods yesterday
& they sat beside a little pile of grey shrimp.
a woman was ordering crab legs by the pounds
& i thought of all the legs skittering
across the smooth grocery store floor.
somewhere in the world there are salmon
fluttering around. swimming up stream.
laying eggs in their home waters.
completing a cycle. we are all completing 
a cycle. right now i am participating in spring
& resisting the urge to pick daffodils.
summer is a future yellow.
i have eaten salmon maybe twice & never 
on purpose. i'm a vegetarian now 
which means i have lost touch with 
the textures of sinew. i have not
picked a bone out of my mouth in years.
i always thought vegetarianism would 
make me more mystical-- that i might
close my eyes & feel the salmon rushing.
i only feel my own blood & smell grocery carts
as they wince at the scene. no one has any right
going to a whole foods to find food.
i cradle three green bananas. i am 
a salmon here. i picture the folds 
of my meat. the white lines in the flesh.
sometimes i think meat looks like
fabric. a pattern. a seamstress sewing
the insides of salmon. i have thought
fish were dumb for awhile now. it's something about
their eyes. when i had goldfish 
i worshipped their gaze & the open-close
of their mouths. i have become less wise
& less trustworthy either that or 
i have never been. completing a cycle.
this summer i will hopefully become someone
who doesn't go to grocery stores for comfort.
my father does this too. someone might say 
why did you wait so long to meantion
this poem is about your father?
because a father lurks just beneath 
the surface of a river full 
of salmon.

all day strangers try to read my palm

first it is a woman at the grocery check out.
she reaches out for my hand & tells me
she could know my future if i just permit
one touch. i want to let her. i want to 
so badly but i am too terrified. a prediction
can turn months into dominos. i once predicted
a snow storm & tried to pray my powers away
as thick stone-colored snow filled the porch. 
with my groceries in the backseat of my car
all sitting like a family, i inspect 
my palm's creases. pink divuts. a furrow.
a mess of lines. it is a struggle
living always in a present tense. this is why
i prefer writing poems about the past:
there was a little girl & she fell out of a tree.
then come the people on the street, 
stretching out their hands to grasp mine.
they beg for just one caress. i tell them 
this much touching is forbidden. i hold my hand up
as a signal for them to cease but
it just makes them lean in to try & see
the lines. one man points & says:
two children. another perons insist:
no five children. i close my hand
into a fist. a first is equivalent to 
a front door swinging open. i had a nightmare recently 
that the front door of the house would not lock.
every few minutes someone comes
knowing on my door, asking to read 
my palm. i want to take a knife & peel 
the lines away to leave a blank hand
unworthy of divination. the walls of my apartment
even begin to fold & ridge: my palm's pattern
replicating itself. everywhere i touch
i am touching my own hands. my hands are rough.
when did i stop being a gentle person?
my hands smell like sunflower oil &
april rain. it hasn't been april in years.
i unlock the front door & all the people enter.
my house is entirely unprepared
& i am embarassed by its smallness. 
i make them form a line to touch me. yes it is 
what i suspected. they are all angels
come out of curiosity. angels in fact
do have blank hands having never been 
mortal. i ask them why they've come to me
& they simply reply that they will 
come to everyone one day. i have to admit 
i welcome their touch. it isn't often
that a stranger takes your hand in theirs 
& considers its bones. weighs it like
a heart or a stone. i imagine a sky full of stones
instead of clouds & stones underneath my skin
instead of a skeleton. some promise me
i will die young. others swear i will
live old enough to see the star collapse in on itself.
i let the future perch like a coat wrack.
when they leave, i trace all the lines in my hand
with a ball point pen. i pretend they are rivers 
& i am a more signficant kind of land.
outside it finally rains 
like it wanted to all day.

my brother as a vampire hunter

out the front door in the middle of the night.
i stand at my window to watch as he
ambles out of view just over the hill
towards the cornfields. i have never
seen a vampire but i know they are
more afraid of us than we are of them.
he collects flasks of holy water. he practices
making the sign of the cross. daylight is 
a pocketknife in the windows. he prays 
the 'our father' under his breath. 
always tracking the next one. plays his violin
to lure them out of hiding. i don't agree
with any of it. who is to stay 
we will never be vampires? i would keep
to myself. most of them keep to themselves
or so i believe. have you ever met a boy
in the night & thought maybe he might
want to drink your blood? it might just
have something to do with walking 
as a girl. he tells me some vampires 
even lay face down in the woods
hoping the moss will grow over their bodies.
of course i fall in love
with vampires. i conjure a fantasy of one
arriving each night to bring me 
roses. we would not speak, we would just
kiss in the door way. i would 
invite him inside. tell the vampire
my brother is a hunter. we would both
find this sexy. fear is often 
the most erotic possibility. my brother has
never killed one. he sharpens stakes
in the basement using dad's wood saw.
my parents encourage him. they tell him
they're glad he found his calling.
i'm scared of the burning in his eyes 
while he reads the obituraries
hoping to find a new lead. the life of 
a vampire hunter is a hungry one.
i ask him if he still wants to be a priest 
one evening as he gets ready 
to embark. he says that this is
a kind of priesthood. he peels apart
hearts of garlic to fasten necklaces.
he makes me one & hangs it on my door.
i put it around my neck. who knows
where or how he looks for them.
he carries a lantern out in front of him.
the whitish glow blares against
the faces of each farm house 
he stumbles past.