i'm haunted by my god 

i'm playing mancala on your back 
with frozen droplets of water. 
this is where winter will soon leave us
with a cracked window. a slit of frozen 
air. i will wrap myself in all the blankets
i now keep on the radiator & i will become
a bear. my claws will leave permanent scratches
on the wooden floors. on fridays we
burn our clothes. on mondays we sew all day.
we spend the weekend growing fur
& shaving it off in the sink. i am scooping
hair from the drain & watching it carefully
so that it does not turn into 
a new animal. you have to be careful
with your own debris. the game involves
letting the pieces melt on your skin.
how the back curves less like a valley 
& more like an ocean shelf. i'm collecting 
blushing leaves as if they will
never come back. i am making necklaces 
of them & perching with my legs
dangling out the window. when i pray 
i do it somewhere in my throat as if
there's another mouth down there.
one that's desperate & can only 
ask for love. that mouth is wax &
full of sugar. that mouth is 
snowing teeth. that mouth is opening 
& almost singing. how could i begin
to explain how many CDs i'm keeping secret?
what you're probably wondering is
how i play the game on your skin
& the answer is there are many reasons
to play a game. i play because 
i love touch & i love pretending
you are covered in melting scales.
it snowed hard that summer but no one else
but me saw it. we road our bikes
in the snow. we wore flipflops
in the snow. we climbed a lighthouse 
& watch the white grin around us 
like a world of perfect teeth but 
all you saw was august. once my hair
did turn into an animal. me & you chased it
up & down our short hallway with
the net we thought we'd one day use
to catch butterflies. now i sew leaves together
& tell them to become butterflies. yes,
the animal. it scurried & eventually 
fell apart. i put the hair in a ziploc bag
where nothing can live very long.
it is important to keep track of
every bit that's fallen off your body.
we are buildings at best & at worst 
we are mancala beads slipping from side 
to side across warm skin. searching 
for a divot to sleep in. i'm taking my bed tonight 
& setting it free. pushing it through
the window & letting it fly to the ground
below. how else will it learn how to 
use its legs? everyone is going around
telling me it is going to be a harsh winter
& i laugh because i won't survive 
a harsh winter--not with so few clothes.
not with my sadness talking all day long
from a mouth in my throat-- not with god 
painting all the leaves just to take them 
down he is just like my uncle & his 
half-finished canvasses. end the world
already. give me flyleaf 
of snow. i'll be here letting my movements 
melt on your skin, using the curve
of your back to walk underwater
where the snow is an ache.

i take you to the zoo to make you beautiful 

i want to dip your hands in mauve
to show you how kind certain shades 
can hum-- can live under the fingernails. 
i want you to like purple as much
as i do. not because it's queer but because
we're not sure where it came from.
i'm taking you to the zoo
of colors. it's far away like everything 
worth visiting-- tucked in between corn fields
& hills that roll like a taffy.
we are chewing road. we are reaching our hands
out the window of a car that drives itself.
i look at you & want to pluck 
different colors from your body. i want
the brown of your hair to keep
in a fish tank on my dresser. i want
to make seeds of your irises & plant
bushes to sprout eyeballs like berries.
i'm sorry so sorry that i am such a strange person.
at the gate a machine strips us down
to grey scale. holds our pigments
in a box till we return.
we buy baggies of feed to nourish 
the colors--small paint pellets
that we cup in our hands-- careful
not to smudge any on ourselves.
you say you want to show me 
the yellow that used to come
in through your window in your
childhood bedroom. it sits 
in a terrarium. it doesn't move much
until it notices you which causes
the color to whine & scratch at the side
of the enclosure. you want to take it home
with us but i tell you that they're
dangerous. a color can 
destroy you with nostalgia-- can demand 
you step back through a memory.
you press your face to the glass before
we move on. the colors all remember us 
& i find the purple i was looking for--
the one i thought might make you 
never want to leave me. it emerged first
from an advent candle but then the color
returned in a summer eggplant & then 
again day after day for week in the sunset 
one august. how the color sung to me 
& told me to use it as a tightrope.
you don't see it though-- you don't 
feel the throbbing this purple means
& i tell you to touch it even though
we're not supposed to. your fingers
across its skull. a shuttering.
your bones giving in to the tone.
you, becoming all mauve-- down to your thoughts.
i watched the color eat you & you become 
a candle & an eggplant & a sky.
i take you home in a basket. i plead 
for you to tell me that story again
of the day we went to the zoo.

a string 

i am tying a string 
to your ankle & telling you to swim.
telling you the cave goes deeper still
& i want you to fit yourself 
through smaller & smaller openings
in the rock. together we watched
a video of divers in underwater caves--
two humans turned slick & seal-like
in their wet suites. boxy goggles.
oxygen tank. bubbles escaping 
from their mouths. sometimes when 
i breathe i try to catch the bubbles.
i try to turn them to glass 
& keep them on the shelf. a display case
for each exhalation. as always 
i take things too far & i tell you
we need to go right now--
we need find a submerged cave
to thread ourselves through.
how my fingers have trembled as 
i've tried to thread a needle-- 
the head a kind of thin catacomb.
i take your body & thread it 
through stone. i begin to wonder if
there are caves in my body & if
in those caves you are there
brushing your fingers against 
the walls-- string tracing 
each corridor. i told you to
do this. i told you i wanted 
a lover on a string-- someone 
who i can pull out if they get
too deep. we watch the divers in silence 
as if our conversation could break
their concentration. 
as if the recorded bodies
can hear us-- as if they are 
performing for a couch full of lovers.
what i should of asked you 
is what the divers are looking for--
if they think they might find
a fragment of themselves deep
in the water-- through small openings 
& tight spaces. if somehow 
they believe they're excavating 
their own bodies. does the water 
turn deep dark blood after a certain amount
of time? is all water blood?
there you are & i should
go in after you. i should tie a string
to my own ankle & trade places with you.
i should trust you--should
take turns performing something fearful
but i just want to watch. what does it mean
that i like to observe tremendous
danger? i pretend the divers 
are weaving something with their strings.
i pretend the strings are getting
knotted & they don't know it yet.
they will come alive yes maybe 
in a fish net or a quilt crochet 
the beating of their legs.
the divers get out alive & we hug them 
& we lay them out to dry. you come
out alive & dripping. your wet suite
slippery on our hardwood floor.

in want of purple clouds & more mornings 

i'm not sure how anyone can sleep in.
i can remember this was something i did
use to be able to do. there was this one morning
in a bed i don't remember in a room i don't
remember but yes it was the house on main street
& there was wallpaper with green vines. 
i woke up & ignored the sun through 
all three of my windows. i woke up 
& i pulled the covers over my head 
to make a sort of wanton of ravioli
of myself & i slept & slept. i swam 
in & out of dreams. there was one where 
i was at a doctor's office & they were
feeding me lollipop after lollipop 
& then another where i was riding the swing
at the park & reaching higher & higher
with each motion. today i wake up
& i listen to the fan on top of my dresser.
i press my face into the pillow & consider
what the sidewalk might want for me
& if i can trust a memory from my 
six year old self or if it is just
something i've invented after years
in this body. there were other mornings
too though, i reason. there were
saturdays in high school with the window cracked
& the sound of horse hooves on the street
asking me to consider the hills & 
the farmer's market up the street.
i tuck my legs closer to myself.
i pretend momentarily to be 
a mollusk. a hermit crab maybe.
i will never have to wake up & move 
about the world & pull clothes on 
& ask the mirror what i should look like.
i close my eyes & live in my finger tips.
my room has no windows now & i wonder 
what color the morning sun is making
if it remembers purple. if the grass has
dew or frost. if it is really this 
late in the year & we let all the leaves die
again & we let all the warm 
out of the dirt again & there will be
bare brown branches soon to remind us
of our skeletons. am i really 
made of bark? is this where i should
wake up? did i ever get up
from the morning in the house on main street?
maybe this is still me & i am still there
& i am still arranging my pillows
& i am going to slip back into a dream
where the swing at the park squeaks 
as it takes me up into 
the (hopefully) purplish clouds.
there is always something to look forward to
in color. there is always going to be 
another july. i cannot explain to you 
what i need sometimes but i do know 
that maybe i once had it & i slept
similarly to how someone might drown 
by mistake. i'm holding my breath. no i'm just
standing up. i'm just a tree with blushing 
orange leaves & i pick them from my hair.
no i am a boy with one pillow
& a grey warm blanket i step out of. 

hiding 

if i were jonah hiding from god 
i would have stayed in
the belly of the whale.
or even better
maybe i would have
sunk to to the bottom of the ocean
& become a starfish--moving my limbs
carefully across the ocean floor. 
i understand the impulse 
to want to hide from
everything. to want to 
fold the world flat & stuff it
into your back pocket or 
wad it up & chew until
there's nothing but pulp.
i should print less things out
on paper & save the trees
who have always been on my side
hushing in the wind & encouraging me
to become taller & rooted &
less human. i need bark & leaves. 
i'm fascinated 
by destruction. how i could tear a hole
in the carpet right now so easily.
i could crawl under there then 
& that could be where i hide
from god. but he has to get tired
of all that 
surveillance. there might be
heavenly cameras by now
or maybe that's just the job
of angles. all i'm saying is 
i don't want to be watched.
i'm going to make several mistakes 
in a row & disliking myself 
comes in waves. like jonah 
i climb into boats & push them 
off the dock. like jonah 
god asked me to do one thing
& i ran away & now i can't remember
what i was supposed to do.
i do want to be a good human & 
sometimes i worry all the good 
in me is dissolving--
flowing from the open pours 
in my skin. i don't want to be
a human swallowed by a whale
i want to be as small as krill
or plankton-- knotted in the baleen.
i want to be easily consumed 
by the creature. part of her diet.
to sleep between god's teeth.
to be wedged. i dream all day of 
these comfortable crevasses
i could seek. i could get up right now
& walk out of the whale's mouth 
but then he would see me in my 
pajamas & he would tell me to
take all my boldness & all my shimmer 
& become a gill. i want to breathe
without the threat of the sun.
i want to the deep deep ocean where
every fish is full of fangs.
there is jonah now knocking at my door.
he's going to ask me to 
listen to his story again. 
everything biblical is about retelling--
is about reminding the body of 
the origins of its feet or its fins.
i place on hand on the carpet &
wish that when i tore it open 
there would be a great ocean 
underneath with bruised waves
& jonah floating face-up--
staring at me & telling me 
there no where to go. i don't
believe him. i know i have been hidden
& i know where i can hide again.  

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.