hunting season

a gun shot 
hands clapped hard together.
red from the impact. 
there are deer everywhere. 
they get on their knees to try & hide
beneath all of our houses. 
knees popping snapping backwards.
a tree snapping in half.
where i'm from everyone hunts. 
everyone puts on bright orange suites
so they can see each other in the woods.
so they don't shoot each other.
that's not true though some people 
dress like the trees. 
they wear in camouflage. 
the woods stand like a crowd of people.
the gun shots come from the crowd--
from between shoulder blades & purses. 
i can hear each vibrate.
i eat onion grass on the back porch
& walk bare foot even though
it's october & the ground is chilled.
cold dirt is the most welcoming.
everyone is going to be eating deer soon
& turning it into jerky. 
in school other children 
offer each other fragments of meat.
dark tough meat. dried by butchers.
i will eat a piece. first pulling
the strings of muscle apart. woven with salt.
chewing. mashing the pink back 
into the jerky. peppered & almost sweet.
i think of the meat when i pace back & forth
in the grass. i see deer. they are all 
trying to be small. some lay on the ground 
behind my garage & others stand behind 
out pine tree. i tell them it's okay
that i won't ever eat parts of them again.
they don't believe me which is
what hurts the most.
i wanted to know what my meat 
would taste like if it was pressed like theirs.
i put on an orange suite--
pointed my finger in the shape of a gun
to make them fearful of me. i don't know
why i did this. 
it was cruel & i felt small
& they felt small. i got on 
my knees. i hear a pop. 
guns talking
in the thick woods. 
the woods chattering.
the deer asking me to lead them indoors--
to make brothers & sisters out of them.
i explained i couldn't do that--
there wasn't enough room & plus
they might have ticks. each tried
to become a shingle. each tried to become 
a branch. each prayed to be orange 
or camouflage like us.  
the cold dirt was aloud.
i taught them how to cry.

taking apart 

i bought heads of lettuce
for few weeks in a row instead of 
the pre-chopped up bagged kind of lettuce.
i carried them home from Stop & Shop
like infants-- cradling them
& inspecting their green folds.
i imagine them in a huge field where
all of them stand side by side.
what did they talk about?
using the word "head" to describe something
so loose. so easily pulled apart.
it's so true & in the kitchen i asked
each leaf to teach me how i might
pull myself apart similarly. i washed
the heads in the sink & thought of my mom
& the old farm. mom holding up
a purple-evergreen head of lettuce
& asking me to look at how beautiful it was.
in the kitchen she'd work one head
at a time--washing the lettuce
in the big silver bowl. in the garage 
there was a faded blue baby bathtub &
i'd ask her if she washed me in it
& she would say yes. smell of baby shampoo.
a lathering. i wanted to wash my lettuce
like that--like rich foam but that's 
not how you wash a vegetable. 
maybe they weren't lettuce--
maybe they were in fact children each
buried in leaves. it feels important now
to mention these were heads of romaine
& that as i took them apart the leaves go
smaller & smaller towards the center.
shaped more & more like canoes.
i float those canoes in the sink &
the sink over flows to i lay on those canoes
until they float all the way down the hall.
the heads of lettuce have no feet
to scurry like children should. they have no hands
to leaving finger prints on windows. 
they have no stomach to lay on the floor.
i tear the leaves to shreds. this is how
they become more manageable. 
my mother did the same-- ripping at
the purple lettuce's ruffles as if she was
destroying a dress. in the end there is
at least something to be eaten.
a process to complete again. i wipe
my hands on my thighs. i blot
the torn lettuce with a towel
to dry up the water. 

turkey club sandwich 

we're stacking jelly packets at the diner
& i'm trying to line them up by flavor:
grape, wildberry, strawberry. little stacks.
there's no an even number of each type
so i have to substitute some of the towers 
for butter packets. i'm with giulio or my dad.
he is my boyfriend or my father. he's ordering
an egg sandwich or a club sandwich. 
on the window rain comes down in questions.
soft but unanswered. will you become a woman?
will the airplanes try to take off?
will the far end of the driveway flood?
i think of going out there barefoot
maybe even in a bathing suite. laying down
in the black grit of the driveway. 
how the driveway puddles are always warmed
by the blacktop's heat. i am trying
to order something & faltering because 
my mouth wants rain water & my rain water
i mean my mouth wants to eat everything.
i order maybe a short stack of pancakes 
or maybe egg & cheese on a bagel or
just a thin salad with one hard-boiled egg on top.
the salt & pepper shakers mutter to each other.
we are not a good pair. we are very much 
in love with something not each other.
a boyfriend is often a catalyst for
some kind of loathing whether it's the self
or a window. he holds my hand across
the table. why am i dating anyone?
why am i alone? why does my father 
eat like the food is vanishing? bite 
after bite after bite. he gives me 
his pickle spears. he teaches me you can
ask for chips instead of fries & then
how to dip fries in ketchup. 
he licks his thumb. he laughs.
i wish there were planes taking off
out the window. the white plates are
heavy & i listen to sounds of clicking 
behind the swinging doors to the kitchen.
how a restaurant kitchen seems like
a marvelous place to live. the metal.
the glinting. the smell of meat
hitting the pan. a shimmering of oil.
a place to go alone. loving where
i don't belong. two glasses
of diet cola. lemon clinging to
the lip. his foot brushing 
my foot underneath the table.
a life underneath the table. 
i think of taking the fork & eating
from his plate. dad hands me
a quarter of the sandwich, held together
by a blue tasseled toothpick. 
he helps me bite down & asks me if 
i think it's good. i think it's good.
it's so good. the fresh bacon. 
the layers that make a turkey club.
toasted bread. note of mayonnaise.
i want to be skewered like that.
a tower. giulio clears his plate
& i want nothing & everything of his teeth
after watching him eat. it's funny
how i love him & he's nothing like
my dad. it's funny how it can keep
raining without stopping--
without getting bored of itself. 
my paper napkin lays down in my lap 
like a girl. my fork across
the plate. his eyes like drains.
like places to rinse myself.
what do i want from his mouth?
what do i want from my own?

last night we did face masks

pressing the wet paper sheets to our skins.
we'd bought them on the way out of target,
choosing each by their packaging colors.
i watched myself in the mirror to place
the mask just right. eyes emerging
from the two holes. mouth & nose
poking through openings. the mask 
obscured each detail. a table clothe
tossed over face. the light perfume 
of the oils. smelling like those white flower buds
we'd crush between thumb & finger
standing in the backyard as kids. 
then came the smell 
of a snapped watermelon 
& scent of fingers drumming
on something hollow. i stood there 
with my face hidden & watched you
do the same. stepping behind
a sweet curtain. we made jokes 
that when we peeled the masks off
our faces would be completely changed.
despite our efforts we couldn't 
imagine new faces on each other. 
we walked around the kitchen & the living room.
we checked the clock to see when 
ten minutes had passed & time moved slower
with the masks on. we leaned 
on the kitchen counter. i told you 
i wanted to feel relaxed & wondered 
what people did to feel that kind of 
loosening. i tried to just focus
on the mask's texture. 
that soft dripping
on each corner of my face.
flower petals stuck to skin.
face steeped in a lake water.
algae brushing the bridge of my nose.
a kind of floating. my face 
a new body of water with  a raft
pushed out into the middle. 
eyes as buoys waddling with each ripple.
i blinked my eyes open & 
there you were removing the sheet.
there was your same skin beneath
decorated with droplets. i wanted
to touch. dip my fingers into 
your surface. i joked 
i didn't recognize you as
i took mine off as well. texture lingering
on my skin. even as i lay in bed that night
i would feel that layer there. i would
want that kind of protection.
the thought that maybe the face 
is movable. a surface across which 
waves might pass. there's nothing wrong
with my face. i don't mind my face.
this is all about body & what
the writing on it means. i stop
on the bridge of my nose
to watch my eyes close.  

lamplight calligraphy & the bay window 

our dorm room junior year was too tight 
but i wanted to look out 
that kind of window every day.
a bay window 
sticking out from the house. 
i had a dream my mom came to visit
& re-arranged me by room. 
she planted
ferns in the carpet 
& left my bed askew.
the room in the dream wasn't 
my real bed room.
it looked closest to that dorm room
with its white walls 
& it's glass cabinet 
in the corner full of books.
even outside my dreams i have this fear
someone going to come & un-make my space.
is this because i haven't lived 
more than a year in a room for so long?
i wish i took more pictures 
as if somehow
a picture saves a space. makes fixed
a certain location.
we kept the blinds closed 
most everyday day.
the light was 
too bold and clear.
but really we didn't like 
how easily a passing human could 
look into our terrarium.   
i liked to feel safe & small 
in our room. on a beautiful night 
i might sit in my bean bag chair & witness 
you opening the bottom drawer 
of your wooden desk--- 
removing your three 
calligraphy pens & writing letters
on thick perfect paper. 
ornate letters 
with tails & fins & lush eyebrows. 
i always wondered how you chose 
what words to write. first your name
& then the name of a city 
& then the name of a tree. 
all the while
the window blinds were down 
& the lamp was on; glowing on top of the dresser. 
our room was so miniature that
i could take a step
& touch your elbow-- could 
peer over your shoulder to see 
what you were writing--
follow each move of the brush.
i don't know what this has to do 
with my mom pulling books from shelves 
in a dream but i know only you knew
that room like i did & i know 
that you might never see the room
i live in know & sometimes 
i wish we would have opened
the blinds more-- not for the light
but so people might gather
& look in to see us. a diorama
of home. this is how girls
love each other. this is how
a brush moves across a paper.  

nightlight

there were 2 nightlights 
in my bed room & each got brighter 
each time you touched them.
i crouch in the corner tapping
the warm opaque glass surface as the light
blooms from dim to bright to gleaming.
all around me the shadows stand up straight
in the brightness--growing bolder 
as the nightlight swells. one in each corner.
one behind the rocking chair & one behind 
the rubber tree & the fern. plants
pressing spinal shapes across walls--
across my face as a stood on the other side
resisting the urge to flick on 
the overhead light. what was there 
to be frightened of that the light
saved me from? i make slanted 
shadow puppets. i move the rocking chair
with my hand to watch the shadows
whip like windshield wipers but 
then the rocking becomes phantom 
& i'm terrified. i wish my parents
would stand in the corner like
those two plants. mom, the rubber tree.
dad, the fern. they stand there & tell me
to get into bed. i take the top bunk.
the metal bones of the bed high-pitched laugh.
i dream what horrors might
lurk on the bottom bunk. a skeletal human.
a streak of blood. with the nightlight
on as bright as it can be i watch the far wall
knowing that if there were something
waiting down there that at least 
i would see it's profile shadow. i see
nothing just the bones of the bed &
then my own form, sitting up. lifting
a hand. i open my palm as if to catch something.
light is falling from the ceiling maybe.
i wanted more nightlight. i still want
more nightlight. i want to fill each corner.
it's funner how the memory becomes the present
& life becomes a future. my shadow now 
is crawling back to me-- bringing a tangle
of wires & chords. i am sleeping 
in the complete dark of my room. 
no window. a shoe box.
my old self is crouched
under the bed. she's terrified. i use 
my phone flashlight to show her the room
& i explain there's nothing hiding.
she doesn't believe me-- reaches her hand out
a memory of the touch nightlights. 
buttery light slips between her fingers.
she is safe there is the glow. 
i lay in the dark, lifting my one palm
as if to catch something.

biting down

i feel my teeth with my tongue
& wonder how many cavities i have waiting.
when i was younger i imagined them as
little burned holes as if my teeth were
made of paper & someone had taken a match to them.
now i think of them more like craters--
like a meteor shower visited my mouth 
while i wasn't paying attention. 
i haven't been to a dentist
in years so every time i pass a dentist place
i walk a little quicker. i don't
want anyone else searching in my mouth
but me. sometimes in the mirror
i inspect those creases between teeth.
sometimes i fish between them & pull out
stockings & necklaces & telephone wires 
lodged there. the gap between my front teeth 
is tight but, like the alley way to our apartment,
i think i could linger there. back against
the wall of a tooth. i could wait there
for something to pass & by something 
i mean myself. i mean sometimes i happen
in waves--a sense of crashing 
in every single bone. the tongue made
of sand & the rest is the deep. 
there are fish that function as organs.
i am often a sad person making myself
feel more sad 
in the name of something. love maybe?
no, nostalgia. 
i don't know yet 
why i'm like this because
i don't want to know. i walk on teeth tops. 
stepping stones. slightly slippery. 
my mouth: a pink garden. i lean 
closer to the mirror as if it will
let me inside-- as if i could press
my teeth to the glass & understand their
crookedness. their twisting. their glossy
bodies. how each is threaded into my skull
with a matrix nerves. light fixtures,
glowing faintly. in need of changed bulbs.
there was one boy i dated whose teeth 
would always clack mine as we kissed.
when it happened we would hold
our mouths a moment, 
feeling that dull pain & then 
we'd go back to kissing 
like nothing had happened at all. 
the cold makes them shutter.
i would watch my uncle bite 
butter pecan ice cream-- his teeth
raking the frozen surface while i ate
mint chocolate chip slowly & carefully
so my teeth didn't touch the surface.
there's a series of bites
that make up how i loved this guy.
a bite i left on his neck & one
on his shoulder. i bite the back 
of my hand to feel the teeth to feel
the ocean to feel the deep beneath it
& all those fish throbbing in the water
& i bit that boy because he asked me to 
because he wanted a mark-- something 
almost permanent. maybe he really just
wanted to ask for my teeth & settled
for the next best thing. half moon. 
row of pockmarks. crescent 
on the back of my hand.

the field behind our creek made a universe.

lips of skunk cabbage all flapping
& asking for their tongues back--
nests of grass tangled with each other
like legs after a warm bed. 
green fingers fluttering free in the dirt.
i planted clipped nails & asked them 
to become trees but nothing happened.
wanted part of me to bloom. 
cut my hair in the stream hoping
the stream would turn into hair--
a torrent of strands to be braided.
dipping fingers in the cool clear water
i fished out glossy ripe planets.
i found men the size of mice &
fed them sunflower seeds. tell me 
what you think a universe is made of?
i'm guessing palms or knee caps or
maybe wrists. something capable 
of movement & touch. something capable
of holding. the field would hold me
& tell me secrets in the form of 
bird calls. the field would push
rocks out from her chest-- each 
having once been a heart full of water.
trees fell on their own time
without consideration of gravity--
slow declines the way a child reluctantly 
makes their way into bed. i was a brother 
i was a son i was a daughter i was a
sapling hollowing out. i escaped
all identifiers to be part of the field.
do you remember the moment when
you became aware that the grass is
full of bugs? i was laying 
in the field & men crawled in my hair.
it was gross but i let them because
they had glossy exoskeletons that looked
like they'd taken a long time to make.
i buckle under the smallest of truths.
i have very little i can't be made to
give in to. the field knew this 
& told me i should be a firmer creature
but i just laughed & laughed. i just
made slippers of creak water. i just
plucked bird voices from the sky
& turn them into knickknacks. a universe
is something to be folded. something 
that could or does own a crease. 
when i left i would fold four times--
one across the length of the stream
& another fold down the middle.
place the field & all under my tongue 
where i'd try to pray it into 
a pearl but instead it became glossy 
calcite. a sharpening. the grass 
like thin daggers & the water a flowing
of shards. how a universe might also
be something to be changed. how the terrain 
asked me again & again to leave &
even the men crawled out of my hair.
i have scars on my fingers 
from tearing at that ground.

i hear carousel apples in the window

with all their mush & their laughing.
this means november is coming 
heavy as wet leaves. 
carousel apples are perfect 
for applesauce you know?
put them to sleep 
with the rest of the children
in the crock pot & wait
a whole day to return to them.
i haven't eaten applesauce 
in a long time but i think about it often--
think about how at school lunch 
they would sprinkle a bit of cinnamon 
on top of a styrofoam bowl of applesauce
& how its sweetness would hurt my teeth.
plastic spoon to mouth. how 
every single memory is about eating.
my mom kept the little cups 
in the same drawer as fruit cocktail.
aluminum foil lid pulled back.
i would press my tongue to the surface
imagining drinking from a great lake
of applesauce. but, 
back to those carousel apples--
they crawl like mice into my apartment.
i run my fingers across their bumpy skin 
& tell them bed time stories. 
their favorite one is about how 
for a few years of middle school 
i was obsessed with baking a pie 
& entering it in the county fair.
i carved all kinds of apples. 
made flakey crusts
& filled them. got sugar underneath
my nails but never entered a pie. the house
filled with pies-- 
so many pies we invited
neighbors to take them. 
the apples like
this story because it is 
a triumph of quantity.
i tuck them into bed with me 
& tell them to be careful 
not to fall off the side
during the night & bruise. i show them
my own bruises from falling 
off the bed at night & they ask me 
what on earth i dream about. i explain 
i don't dream usually 
i just have nightmares.
i eat one of them before bed. i eat
standing up at the counter in the kitchen.
don't worry. they don't mind. 
they're honored to be devoured. 
teeth through skin. 
dull red. white soft flesh.
i swallow piece by piece. eat right through
the middle. seeds buzzing in my chest.
the leftover carousel apples sing.

bubbles float on 9th avenue

above the heads daily foot-track. 
i try to find a source. each moves
like a cradle. like there is something
inside the bubbles that we cannot know 
& it needs to be rocked gentled.
i consider myself inside one of them
because i'm always looking for 
somewhere else to locate my body.
i dream inside matchboxes & Ziploc bags.
i want the wind between the buildings
to be muffled through the bubbles skin.
i am walking towards penn station where 
a train will push my body fast enough
to get home. each rail car a kind
of bubble only without the blink
of rainbow & without the same obvious threat
of rupture. if i linger too long
i'll miss that train & the world will end.
i will become a bubble floating outside
in the july heat. i will beckon 
people walking by. i plot along,
using the curb as a sidewalk & passing by
people will less urgency in their gate.
other people are briefly considering
the bubble though no one tries
to pop one & no one tries to fit themselves
inside one. i think about how brave
a bubble is in new york city's movements.
i want to buy bubbles. just one little tube
with the wand in the lid. i think about
sitting on the porch with my brother
in july. suds on my fingers. blowing carefully
so as to make as large bubbles as possible.
us grabbing them like clear fruit as if
we could teach the bubbles to be solid.
i reach up to one of the bubble on the street. 
the cars shout at each other in their 
metal throats. everything is touching shoulders
& then there's these bubbles. as if there
is nothing to be bothered about. i have
to hold one. i have to. i am a short man.
i am a small man in all of this. sweat blooms 
along my forehead. i strain. i want to graze
the bottom of the bubble but it sneaks just
out of my touch. i have to keep moving
so i do & i don't look back but i invent 
a version of the story where i touched the bubble
& it did become solid. a sphere of glass.
that i pocketed that sphere & took it home
to release it in the parking lot
behind our apartment where no one ever walks.
maybe a part of me was cruel. maybe i wanted
the bubble to be lonely like i was or maybe
i wanted to keep it for company.
maybe those are both the same thing.