into my mouth / the cave again 

my teeth grow skyward 
out of limestone sculpted by 
years of pounding rain. i follow 
the water down through the cracks 
& into caves where a river forms 
reptile-like & slithering. the way 
water is full of sharpness & the way
stone is easily convinced of death.
i lay on my back & feel my teeth 
turn into stalactites. they turn
orange without light to encourage
their off-white shade. i used to buy
teeth whitening strips before
i was a cave. before i was a landscape
i used to want to beautiful
& i would press fake nails 
onto my canines & i would 
drink liquid eye liner until 
the pathway down to 
the deepest catacombs was
black & blinking. all kinds of 
creatures live in the spaces between
each tooth. i feel them exploring
i tell them to enjoy the surface
before the rain comes again 
& washes everything away. how long
will it take to erode my whole mouth?
how many more threads of light
will find their way into my throat
to thrum like a trapped bird.
i do not want 
to hurt any creature. i only 
want company. the cave
is always swallowing. animal.
water. stone. the smooth skin
of the throat. the shuttering
of eyes worn away & turned
into divots in my face.
there is nothing that can't be
weathered. how my teeth could be
mountain peak in another face
but here i am as the cave & 
there are bats swarming between
drops of rain. but here i am 
as the cave & i want to swallow
something new like a wedding ring
or a head band or even a brooch.
something to remind me of 
being a little human.
how there was a cave a few blocks
from our church. how the cave 
was small but glistening
& inside i walked. swallowed.
i never walked out & my family 
stood tall & became stalagmites. 
became my teeth. i drum on them
with my nails. dull tambourine.
walking into the cave again.
walking into my own face.
i'm looking for them without
a flash light. with only 
my voice & my hands along 
the smoothness & maybe they
aren't here anymore. maybe 
the rain made smoothness 
of them too.

words for blue 

inventing a new sky
the glow worms knot the ceiling with
blue fishing. a vibrant net in which
all my buzzing memories crawl to be stuck.
i invited the glow worms. i laid on the floor
of my living room & wept tears that turned 
iridescent & sapphire. i wept
glow worms & their braided my hair
& they told me i was a beautiful 
girl-boy but they would swallow me
if i wanted. a body as a mouth.
the stars as lures to pull you in.
i will not be a moth tonight. i will be
flesh & pink & a cave creature.
what can be caught in this mesh?
i put on fish nets to live like them. 
laying on the floor in my fishnets
& watching them work. i snag a 
beetle in my webbing & it wriggles
asking to be let free. i'll let the bug go
but before i do i slip them in my mouth
& i don't bite down. like holding 
a jewel under tongue. what do the 
glow worms know of patience? what do
they see in me in my house & my cave
where i control the sun light.
there's a window dancing but only 
in theory. a twinkling in their
spidering. i want so deeply i think
to be a glow worm. i want to catch everything
that tries to escape me. a ceiling
stuck with stray pages of books. 
the world under the bed begging 
for the luminescence. the glow worms
come down to get me like flower boys
might hold the train of a wedding gown.
i tell the glow worms i love their
handy work. i tell them i want 
to be tempted by their lures & their promises.
they fix me into their sky & call me
the moon of the cave & i do my best 
to become a sliver & then nothing.
the worms talk in a language of only
words for blue. teal. navy. cobalt.
i try to chime in & i say cerulean & 
the worms shake their heads & continue 
chatting. i let the words wash over me 
like poems moving too fast. i hope 
that i'm the only human they capture.
i want to be special. i want to one day 
learn how to be a glow worm & make a knot
on a lovers ceiling & show them what other 
kinds of sky there are. is this not
a romance between the light & the dark?
is this not what the cave asks for?
anything but a window for me.

at the drive through cathedral 

everything is 1$ for the rest of the hour. 
it's a special. i feel in my pocket 
for quarters. thumb 
to metal. the ridge of that change. yes i do 
have a dollar i think & i roll down the windows
to steer down the central aisle. the people
in the car in front of me look like they 
want a marriage. the priests are putting it
in a little card board box with a toy. 
they're adding bottles of holy water
with new recyclable caps. i try to look up
at the ceiling because everyone's told me
there's a beautiful mural. it's all a blur.
i probably need glasses but honestly i can't
afford them so for now i'll make up what 
the painting is: people eating maybe or
maybe an orgy of seraphs or maybe just a mixing 
of clouds at the close of a day. 
the stained glass windows are digital now
so they shift every now & again. i play 
a game with myself to guess what biblical scene
a screen might show next. i hope it will be 
the miracle of the wedding at cana but instead
there is moses brandishing his tablets
as if they're a menu. i want to buy
a nice blessing. something thick. 
something to hold me over. i don't usually come
to mass at all but if i was going to i figured
something quick to get it over with.
dad & i used to time mass down to the minute.
getting back in the car, checking the clock.
one hour. fifty-nine minutes. forty-five minutes--
that's a record we'd say. get in & out of god
as quickly as possible. if you stay too long
he'll ask you to do something & i already have
way too many things to do. i drive up
to the altar where the priest is with his notepad 
& i forget what i wanted to pray for.
he says i look like a need a confession
& i don't-- i don't want that not right now.
it takes too long to confess. i say i just need
one small prayer. something warm & golden 
like french fries. something crisp 
in my mouth. i tell him i'm hungry &
don't know where to eat & i tell him 
i have a knot of dead stories in my throat 
the bible has planted in me. i want to grow
into something orange maybe or at least 
glowing. the priest tells me to open my mouth
& close my eyes. i listen. i obey him.
after all, there's a line of cars behind me
& i'm holding everything up with my 
indecision. he puts something warm in
& i chew. maybe it was bread. maybe this is
how they're making prayers there days.
he puts a toy in my hand (a little plastic 
st. mary. i put her on my dashboard & 
don't look back as i leave. i hear 
the next car ordering an anointing 
of the sick. i could have ask 
for that too. i'll come back 
i tell myself & grip the steering wheel
& drive.

please chew & swallow 

i open the fridge to find it 
full of mushrooms. all kinds. the dazzling 
of spores spread into the living room
like gold dust. i wonder who did this
& if they want to be paid for their work
or if they're more like a saint,
delivering without needing anything in return.
i make a bouquet of mushrooms & then
a crown. i am a beautiful mushroom human.
i pick up a huge cap & snap it in half
to feel the texture of the fungus. 
i dated a guy who lived near a mushroom field
& the smell of manure burst on a hot day
& the mushrooms curled out from under his 
fingernails for me to harvest. he was 
the one who wanted to marry me-- wanted 
an arch of white mushrooms to walk under.
he put one in my mouth & said eat. 
i'm grabbing a mushroom from the fridge 
& biting down on the head. i take 
a paring knife & slice off just the tip
of my finger to check it i've become 
one of them but no i still bleed. i still
have that dripping fluid. the veins 
of mushrooms are made of dirt. the hearts
of mushrooms pump gold through the air.
i open my mouth to release spores.
i'm planting mushrooms all along the walls
of my room where i will take the next lover
& the next lover & the next lover
& ask them to please chew & swallow 
this kind of flesh. i slice a cap 
in half though & it does bleed
just like my finger did. i tell the mushrooms
to take no hints on how to be alive
from a human like me who dreams only
of crawling into the refrigerator. 
what can you i do with all this dispersing?
i'm spreading. a hall of mushrooms.
a house of mushrooms. a family portrait
of mushrooms. this kind of budding 
can reach back in time. there i am
four years old filling a bath tub with 
caps, laying in there face up & 
watching the ceiling's 
mushroom brown gills breathe. there i am 
with a birthday cake of mushrooms. 
the blood turned styrofoam & still.

i crashed my car four years ago

the metal is somewhere else by now.
tired gold paint. the smell of cigarette smoke 
sewn into the seats. it was my grandmom's car
& i have one memory of her driving it--
working the cigarette lighter & rolling down
the window to let out a breath of smoke. 
my grandmother, a dragon, i thought. i was small
& headed to her house for a sleep over. 
i google what happens to junk cars 
& the internet explains to me in a calm & patient voice 
that they are shredded for the most part. 
they cull the wreck for usable parts. 
for metal. did they melt down
the plastic inside of each door? did they 
notice pennies i had dropped? did they 
pocket them & use my old change towards
a soda somewhere? a toll road? 
these actions must be
completed by angels somewhere on a sturdy cloud. 
maybe they were sick of dealing with
human structures & asked for something more 
mechanical. removing the souls from the cars
before they smash the bodies-- souls made of
murky air resembling exhaust fumes. 
the cars speak only in broken 
over-head sentences-- my voice mixed with 
my grandmother's. she is buried somewhere.
parked underground where the dirt around her
will get cold as metal. she is not driving.
she possibly has no recyclable parts.
i hope to die like that car then maybe.
i hope there are beings who search my form
for items they might want to use. take my femur
for a picture frame. take my cartilage & make
a shark. take my teeth & build a very small piano.
i don't know. i want god to be creative.
the metal is somewhere else, yes, maybe another car
that drives & the family inside has no idea.
has no idea the metal was loved before 
by another human who would lay in the back seat
looking up at the ceiling. who would lay there
waiting for a rain storm to pass thinking about
how he was grateful for the car's shelter.
the water droplets on the windows racing each other
to their own conclusions. the ghost of 
a grandmother lighting a last cigarette & 
swallowing the smoke instead of releasing it
from her mouth.

i lied, i don't need a house 

i tell you what i want is
picture frames so we go walking through
the craft store to the back where the frames bloom
in all shapes: circle square triangle 
octagon rhombus. wracks of frames
to walk through. i decorate spaces 
with thumb tacs & i tell you i want 
something more permanent. i want everything 
bordered. i want to make countries 
out of my possessions-- out of myself.
we step through picture frames & pretend
they're each a doorway into a new dimension 
where we are less poor & living somewhere
without a cold winter. sometimes i mistake you
for my father. you look nothing alike 
but you serve the same purpose. someone for me
to want to be closer to. i want a frame
for my father-- a circle for him to 
curl up in & sleep. i safe way for me
to point him out to guests. we're out here
pretending i have a house to decorate.
i'm living inside a frame. there are ones
with gold leaf wrapped around wood.
there are shadow boxes  with depth 
to contain a whole crop of baby shoes.
but i'm looking for a frame made of bone.
four femurs perfectly aligned. i want
to use my own. i want to slip them 
out of my skin but i only have two
i will need yours as well
then we can live in the frame together 
& take turns hanging on the wall
in the living room. everyone i know
lives in such small spaces. 
i want to make a gallery of them 
& explain the details of their
glossy eyes. i'll do it while you're 
asleep then. you won't feel it--
if anything you'll feel the peace
that shapes offer. the symmetry.
i'll frame everything i own. kitchen implements.
books. fingernails. hats. floss. 
inside i'm a very formal person. i crave order.
i crave nails in the wall. i leave
my bed out on the curb & replace it
with a picture frame. my desk with a picture frame.
come visit me here & see me wrapped 
in gold leaf. i am a thin layer 
of precious. i am hanging a portrait of
a father at the end of the hall.
something to always be walking towards.
keep hammers all around the apartment.
yes i lied i don't have a house. hammers around
the apartment in case something 
crawls out of place. i'm buying the tinniest frames
for each fly carcass. for each finger.
for each miniature desire.

my brother turns 20 & i put on a dragon suit 

i'm in the back yard wearing a dragon suit
made out of whatever dragons are made of:
aluminum foil & rust. it's someone's
birthday & i know this only because the sky
in ripe & emerald-- ready to be eaten.
i too feel ready to be eaten. what kind of food
do you eat when you want to feel 
made of sugar? there are sculptures 
of dragons all along the roof of a mouth.
the kids are the size of jupiter beetles.
the kids are running & unstoppable. what is a 
dragon to do? i could eat them yes
but humans taste like mint. the truth is
i'm only ten years old & the green is laughing
at me all around for being so young 
& so wary of grease & bruises. i'm hear 
to be fought. the children shout
kill the dragon & brandish their guns.
point blank. the parents don't want there 
to be any chance the birthday boy misses.
i have bullet shells for teeth. i have a brother
turning three years younger than me.
nothing haws ever been auto-biographical
after all i'm a dragon not a brother.
will they chew shreds of the metal?
will they cut their mouths?
yes it is true it's just a suit but 
i can feel the dragons when i wear it--
i can fell their thrashing & their
need to cut clouds in half with scissors.
the truth is no one should ever have to grow up.
i breathe fire & by fire i mean i breathe 
knots of hair. i lay on my back & wait
for my brother to be as old as me &
me to be as old as him-- no i mean 
for me to be older & older & older.
i walk outside in the dragon suit & i tell strangers 
that it is someone's birthday. none of them
give me presents because everyone is selfish
or maybe someone they know's birthday is today too.
sometimes when i dress up like a dragon i believe
it might be better this way. i could
eat the voices of crowds. i could live under the tree
in the back yard & wait for it to turn to icing.
autumn is snapping its fingers in my throat.
i am cold & wrapped in metal. i chained myself
to the dirt for authenticity. the children
are smacking the daytime moon 
for candy. i hope they 
feed me some. 

self portrait as particles

i don't want to get caught in the filter
with the rest of the tap water & the taste
of the algae lingering in each pipe. 
i'm collecting myself in sediment-- the smallest
particles. here are the flecks of 
of my body meandering till they remember
they can become rock. everything comes back
to sand & stone. i dig to figure out how far down
this surface goes until i hit a solid hard sheet.
in this lifetime i am captured. a net of fish
being pull from a sewer drain. a whole knot
of thrashing. in my hand i tried to separate 
grains of sand from each other-- tried to hold
just one in my palm by they cluster in groups.
in the cupboard i could be a wonderful 
fragment of rice. i could hush as i fell 
onto myself with the bodies of all the others.
there is something miniature in me.
i want you to 
reach your hand in & tell me what 
you hear. is there grinding or pouring
or a mixture of both? i take a box cutter
to a stream of water & slice. i let the water
bleed copper & red. there are pipes carrying 
sand back to the ocean. there are beaches 
of rice, warm & supple to the touch.
my foot prints themselves become
oatmeal & i fill a bowl. how all these grains
where once a field were once 
a seed. there is wavering here.
i want jars for all this. if i am 
detained in the end-- don't try to find me.
take your box & shift in the river
for gold instead. reach your hand 
in the mud & the clay. i turned the faucet on
& gravel came out so i filled a glass 
& drank. what will they build with
my freckles when everything else 
is just as buzzing? i'm purchasing
tupperware to be kept in. a rain stick 
flips over & sings. the sound of nails 
falling off a wall. the sound of fingernails
dissolving in a strong breeze. not 
disposable but disperse-able. fill my pockets 
with wheat. the space under my tongue
a silo stocked for winter. i am holding
it together. i promise into another phone.
i am holding steady i say with my mouth 
slipping down the drain. when you drink water
i hope you don't have to taste me.
if you do, know that i am green & i am 
trying to remember.

canoes in the dark 

the cars on the road out side my house 
become canoes in the dark. gliding bodies
through the dark water. i wasn't thinking 
about drowning i promise, no i was thinking
about a lake growing inside my throat the way
a tulip bulb might bloom-- arms thrown wide
& lips dislodging themselves from an owner.
i consider singing to the canoes but 
my reflection peels free of me-- slipping
out of sight. a cockroach of an animal.
i have been trying to catch her for years--
press a pin into her chest & call her 
a specimen. the clouds up there are 
brothy & golden. oh street lamps 
craning your necks-- is there something
you search for each night on the sidewalk 
or is it shadow you're interested in.
it is easy to forget you loved anyone
when the wind it wild & tossing leaves 
like blank letters. there are puddles left over
from the storm yesterday & i press my hand
into one to feel that coolness-- 
the water before it shifts into ice.
i am a brave human for not getting in
a canoe & drifting as far away from here
as i could. will the desire to escape 
every leave me? how far away from here
could i move & still dream of other 
beds floating on other planets. the moon 
has a tongue tonight & she uses it
to lick the salt from the sidewalk. 
i bend down to kiss her ankles
& the bracelets there are damp 
like the dew mess grass. i could call anyone
& tell them to come look at the migration
of canoes-- could even tell them to 
fall into one with me & undress
in that swaying. but i want to watch
the boats by myself. sadness is impossible
& yet always dripping. the lake spewing 
feathers. the lake with rocks 
on all the sides. i cough on it
& spit out algae in strands. webs of green.
what do other people do when they 
out into the night? do they, like me,
walk the same paths they've cut into 
their town or do they step into the water 
& drown gracefully before 
a canoe scoops them up & cradles.
back in my room i shake the water
out of both of my eyes & out comes 
fish scales & salt. the moon huge
in the window. wants to come inside
is climbing in a canoe. pleads with me
to escape.

bus tour 

the double-decker buses in manhattan 
are getting taller. a new level 
is added each day. now they're almost the size 
of sky scrapers. 
i noticed this only faintly
on my walk to work 
until a bus-tour sales person 
places a pamphlet in my hand 
& tells me i have to get on board--
tells me i want to go somewhere. 
i listen to her because this morning
every mirror i've looked in 
was fun house;
my skin turning liquid in its own reflection.
i look at my reflection 
on the bus windows. i am slivers. i am 
murky. a lava lamp of a man. oozing.
i climb aboard 
& the bus is full of ghosts 
just like everywhere i've gone recently.
i'm not a ghost but everyone else is.
i should have gone 
to work but then again
even my building might turn into a bus
by the end of the day. 
we're all infected 
with touring. we want to tour our own lives.
everyone on this ride has a backpack 
but we don't remember why. 
the sound of
zippers slithering open. are there snakes
in our mirrors. 
i climb the stairs taller
& taller until i get to the very top 
of the bus. dipped in cloud. 
i remember being very small 
& traveling to the city on a class trip--
i was disappointed that i
never saw a double-decker bus 
& look at me now--
living on one. the bus is moving though we're 
too high up to see where. our tongues
wriggle out of our mouths to become
the snakes they always wanted to be. 
i laugh viciously knowing i didn't call in sick
knowing that no one will noticed till
the end of the day that i didn't arrive. 
the buildings are full of working. my fingers 
are full of working & the bus waivers like 
a stop sign in the wind. all the while
the tour guide gives us the history 
of the world, starting with prehistory.
he describes the dinosaurs 
who might have lived in new york city 
& in doing so some of them
wake up. they break out 
from under the asphalt.
i watch them from the window & i'm convinced
they're not just breaking out of the street--
they're bursting 
from under my skin. we are 
soft creatures. we are easily climbed.
i imagine walking to the top of every single 
building in the city just 
to collect jars of cloud. 
i tell the bus i want to leave
& to my surprise it listens 
& lets me off
on some corner. 
people are pushing past me
to climb into the bus. 
the buildings are
wilting like cut flowers 
& so there's 
nothing left to do but find a nice place
to sit down. 
stare up at the clouds
& watch the buses drive through them.