i grew up in a house with animals in the walls 

i grew up in a house with animals in the walls.
that deep thrashing marked by scritching.
claws against dry wall. the flurrying of 
a wing. the weeping of an animal tongues.
my wall paper was covered with knotted vines
& if i wasn't careful they would reach out to
wrap themselves around my ankles. i told the 
walls i am not an animal & the walls would
retract their foliage. the animals were hungry.
starving. how did they get in there? how does 
anyone get stuck on the other side of 
a wall in a house? i stole a hammer from
my father & punched a hole just big enough
to slip food through. sour cream & onion chips
sunflower seeds & peanuts. the animals munched
& i stayed up all night listening closely for 
the sound of their teeth. chewing chewing.
a thick pink tongue like a whole other creature.
then of course there was the night where
the animals would call. practicing their voices
& throwing them through the skeleton of the house.
i would pace the halls waiting for it to stop.
i would wish i could be one of them & crawl
into the bones of the house to be wild. 
none of this noise ever woke up anyone else.
i listened to my dad snore along with 
the noises of the other inhabitants. i was 
the ghost in the stairwell. standing there.
not ascending or descending. stuck like a 
light fixture trying to determine whether or not
it would be worth it to live as a human.
that urge-- that need to scream. i knocked
on the walls & the animals hushed. i said 
could you please shriek as loud as you ever have?
i wanted everyone to wake up. i wanted them
to feel the animals in their bodies like i did.
the scream came & made wind chimes of my ribs.
i felt a hollow rolling like a bowling ball
on a hard wood floor & then the volume as
the creatures voices each became more audible.
i rushed back to my room to put my ear
to the opening. i wanted to
be rattled & rattled i was. a tuning fork.
the cheeks of drum. the animals putting their lips
right in front of my ear. my body as a 
receiver. my mom turning over in bed.
dad snoring. the silence after a too loud fracture.
nothing. no one roused. my speaking into 
the hole thank you thank you & the animals
returning to their usual patterns of sound.
i tried to tell them there's animals in 
this house but no one wanted
to listen so i put my hand over the hole
& told them there was nothing to see.
i scritched at night with the animals.
i chattered & crawled & never slept. not once.

like meat 

it rains too fast for the ground.
water coming down in birds-- wings sprawled out--
a spattering on side walk & road. cars begin to drown--
their headlights like eyes peeled open. i walked home
from the grocery store with the water 
up to my waist & then my neck & then i'm
underwater. everything 
holding it's breath. i held my breath for a whole hour
& took a huge gulp of air when i got home
my plastic bags full of water & zucchini & mushrooms 
& peaches bobbing up & down. i've been practicing
how long i can survive underwater. i tell my skin
to grow gills but it refuses. underwater 
a shark passes me weeping to try & make salt water.
i live on an island which never sounds like
something that can be real. what's keeping
the soil afloat? we have to adapt if we're
going to survive the next few decades. 
i promise you there's going to be water. 
the ground asks if it can make another lake.
i live by the side of a lake & the ducks 
paddle by with their webbed feet & their 
green heads. i should have feathers by now.
i should have some kind of survival.
i buy water wings & the rain is dropping
pigs from the clouds. the rain is coming down
like hunks of meat-- is snapping umbrellas--
is snapping the sidewalk. what is left
underneath the side walk? 
not the ocean but something deeper.
a kind of flat nowhere. a plane 
in all directions. do i live in a world
with people or water? i am a kind of 
rain drop drowning in the alley to my house.
i live on the second floor which means
we have some time. i open a window
to get some fresh air & i see people
on rafts. i see the lamp posts
peering out from thick water like
hippopotamus eyes. there are animals here
& by animals i mean there are people
like me under the water. this is where
a mermaid would come in. i take out
my underwater camera & dip it into 
the murk. all the shot come out green
& grey & blurry. i shouldn't have 
begged the rain to stop. i have to go
i should be practicing holding my breathe.
if i love someone underwater is that 
the same as on land? will our words be 
eaten in the pressure? how little 
i know about a life with this kind 
of plummet. tree learning to swim.
their fruit floating beside them.
i pluck a green-red apple from 
the water. this is how we eat now.
the sun comes out & the rain continues.
warm rain like a spigot. hot. steam.
soothing. fogging all the windows.
where are you then? are you coming 
or are you water now too?

what i mean to say is please don't ever stop

your head turned into
a pinwheel so i spun it. hanging over me.
plastic blades of a new kitchen appliance.
the over head fan gone whimsical.
what i mean to say is that you whirled
& i tried to explain what it's supposed to mean
to have a skull. i gave example words like
stone & rock & sturdy & solid but you
tumbled & the smell of fresh grass poured in.
you stuck yourself out the window 
of the moving car & shook with air.
meanwhile even the late dandelions 
turned into pinwheels & there were no
tufts of dandelion down to find in 
the scruff by the side of the road. 
tiny pinwheels growing up 
from the dirt. birds trading beaks 
for pinwheels. a turning body. 
the use of air to stay alive. i hold my breath
when we cross under bridges & 
you spin the whole way. i want to
hold you still & have you remember me
of the pressure to fall in love
that only comes in late august--
the way the whole earth turns 
into a pinwheel because it will be
dying soon. am i the only one who 
imagined that all the seasons happen
at the same time everywhere on earth?
somewhere right now it's raining impossibly.
somewhere right now you are not 
my lover but a plastic trinket 
in my fist. what i mean to say
is please don't ever stop. keep 
whirling. i need it more than you know. 
the blurring of your two colors.
a helicopter can't find enough air
to stand up. a biplane's face full
of teeth. inhale & blow against your
features. the hush of eye brows growing.
i will take you out to the back yard
where the grass hasn't been tended.
i will stick you there feet first
& sit beside you until you're
ready to stop. i will explain 
this is where i run away to when 
all the air escapes the house. i can't
flutter like you. i have important
bones. i have steering wheel for
a pelvis. are you listening or just
taking advantage of the gust?
the stray cats with this pinwheel
meowing & the sun even--
even the sun trading heat for
plastic. cheap beautiful toys all 
stuck in the cosmic. your face still
like that-- still a folded loosed flower.
the last dandelion in my mouth.
chewing the hairs.

waning 

a long thin thread hung across the path
as i walked under the bridge last night.
i resisted the urge to walk on it
to become a tight rope walker
watched by the waning moon.
i wanted to tap the thread with one finger
to continue it's maker. i thought of
all different kinds of strings
of me sitting on the floor of an old bedroom
trying to tune my tired guitar & of 
the broken sewing machine spitting thread
in bunches out the other side fabric. 
as i continued i noticed these clear webs
strung all around. from lamp posts.
all knotted in the branches of trees.
even around the necks of mail boxes.
there must be one great weaving spider
out tonight. at first i think of her 
as the size of a quarter. one of those spiders
with a plump round body as if they were
a berry. then i consider a weaving creature
the size of a human nesting under the bridge.
how lonely that spider would feel in a world
of two-legged monsters who want nothing
to do with thread. i take out my sewing kit
& dip my needle into telephone poles
stringing together the office buildings on main.
this is a note to the largest spider
in the world that she is not alone in her
desires for more seems. i take the sewing machine
outside & mend the cracks in the alleys.
i run the machine all night in the hopes
she would come & join me. i would tell her 
than i was once a spider too. i would show her 
the other six legs i have hidden inside my body.
i would break my guitar again just to free 
the strings. i would plead that show me
where she hides so that no one can find her.
how can one pull a string from their own body
& not dissipate? i'm getting smaller i can feel it.
not shrinking but undoing. i'm attaching 
a string to each tooth so that when i open
my mouth there's an instrument to make new sound.
i return to the place under the bridge
& the string is gone. maybe snapped by another 
human roaming this clear cool night or maybe
taken back by the spider. 
i leave the sewing machine
out on the curb for her. 
i find a loose thread
coming out of my finger. 
i snip it off.

in blanket & skin

we pressed each other into sleep.
a grey blue room. your hand the same 
size as mine as if we slept ourselves
into each other's bodies. a red shirt
on your closet door. me watching your
posters while you became a fold 
of skin. a burst of a gentle warm water
pouring from my forehead & you telling me
it was okay to just go back to sleep again.
first we stayed there a year & woke up 
to check each other's faces. pools of water.
you boy of ripples. you fragment
of everything. the three books on
your night stand getting soaked from
all that blue. the kind of brief love
that requires more slumber. you said
we should go under. i held my breath 
& swam in your curly hair. beautiful 
beautiful human. we stood up one day 
on the bed & made a fire there though
my water put it out. ash & smoke.
your window open & the curtains blowing
as if they wanted to show us a stage.
there was no street or no city anymore.
we went back to sleep & i dreamed of
moving into the same body & having
the same life. this isn't
romantic this is drowning & desperate
& need as sharp as it comes. 
i asked one century if i could kiss
your chest & you said yes. i made 
a valley there to sleep in. i asked to touch
the lines where your skin had healed.
the scars like two loose telephone wires.
from outside birds came to perch there
& i swallowed another i love you because
i knew it was too fast. we waited 
another hundred years sleeping & sleep.
your cat grew up into a tiger. 
your desk built itself with us watching.
the shirt on the door knob became a bird.
i told you i don't ever want to 
crawl out of bed without you but there we were
driving looking for a mac & cheese spot
you stumbled upon alone once. i hated
that you had been alone once.
upon realizing the place was closed my car turned back
into your bed & there we were again.
i was taking off my shirt & saying
i'm sorry i am so needy. you kissed my collar
still wet from my own fountains. 
another hundred years passed & the room 
was another blue & you were gone & i was
kissing my own joints saying
come back come back. i wanted to cut off
my body & leave it in the water
to distort like the warping wreckage of 
a ship. no i want to hang it on
a doorknob. i want you to pull me out.
i wanted you to point to all these places
on my body & tell me i would be a 
kind of skin one day. every time
i tried to say i love you the love turned
into "live" i live i live i live
you in each blue open window.
i live all winter alone in blanket & skin.

the rest of my life

i know we used to have a bread machine
& but i'm not sure where it disappeared to.
mom would pour all kinds of things into 
the basin of the device: brooches, lockets,
thimbles, tacs, pressed rose petals, & so on & so on.
the machine would sing like a bird trying
to sleep & we would all plug out ears in the whole house.
hours later a world of bread would be ready.
my favorite was sourdough because of the vast
tunnel one could find in a loaf. i would take
my flashlight & trek inside once everyone else
was in bed. i loved that there was 
nothing to find in there. empty airy corridors
white & clear. i knew in the morning mom would
take the big knife with the angry teeth 
to make slices of the bread. my spelunking was
a kind of elegy-- a farewell to the unique structures
of each individual loaf of bread. i used to wonder
what might happen if i fell asleep & stayed there
all night. would mom accidentally slice me
along with the bread? would they weep as they
ate each chewy slice of bread topped with cold
squares of butter. then of course there's 
the question of the machine. would it feel 
responsible? i wonder if my mom got rid of it
because of me & my dangerous tendencies. or maybe
she broke it with her ambition-- filling the hull 
with all kinds of beautiful objects like 
bracelets & door knobs. no matter what that bread
always tasted like someone should live 
inside it-- like it belonged to someone.
do you feel like you belong? i don't know if i do
but i know i felt like that inside those loaves
with my flashlight thinking to myself 
i will stay here for the rest of my life. i wish
i could remember the last bake & what if felt like
to roam inside. i wish i could remember 
a funeral we had for the implement. is it still there
under the cabinet unused after all these years?
i have so many trinkets that would be perfect
for a long baking: spoons & tea cups & 
a book that i finished & enjoyed. i know i could
get my own machine sure but it wouldn't know me
like this one did. it wouldn't know what kind
of openings i can fit into. it wouldn't remember 
the family scattered around the living room 
gnawing on slices of sourdough bread. sometimes
i open my mouth & there's a postage stamp of butter
from dreaming too loudly. sometimes i try to crawl into
other spaces to make up for a lack of sourdough bread.
i try shelves & the crease between the floor & the wall.
none of the are the same. i feel like i should be
a child still or at least that i should want children
but here i am. i take out my flashlight & use it
to make a shadow puppet version of myself.
he is hungry & up past his bedtime. he will stay up
& wait for a cavern just his size. he will crawl into
the bread machine myself & feel his body
transformed into hole after hole. someone will
come & climb in him before he's sliced
& served with cold butter on his tongues.

comet in a velvet ring box 

what i can't find is evidence that
any heavenly body has ever been named for someone.
i had always falsely thought 
halley's comet was named after
a scientist's daughter named "haley."
i invented a story where he sat this girl
on his lap while they peered into a telescope 
& he told her this rock will orbit earth 
with your name. she would say prayers to 
her comet. she would look for it in the murky sky
as if it might be visible only to her 
because it wore her name. this is of course
something i invented. the comet was named
after the scientist whose ghost has
crawled into that rock after all these years.
out of all the comets & moons & planets
how could each scientist have always 
missed that opportunity? i want give away
moons. i want to put comets in velvet 
ring boxes. slip planets in to lockets.
when i look up at strange objects
my impulse is to call them the names 
of people i no longer know or people
who are distant. i sit down on a bench
between buildings where people seldom walk at night 
& i ask mars if i have permission
to give him a new name. the planet shrugs
& moves like a lady bug between stars
so i reach out & pluck him out. the planet
doesn't resist & i whisper his new name
because, dear reader, i don't want you to know
who i want to gift a planets to. that's too vulnerable
for us right now, i'm just getting to know you.
if you had a daughter would you name
a comet after her? if i had a daughter i would 
take her down to this street & give her a butterfly net.
i'd show her how you fish a meteor or a comet
right out of the sky & the hunk of space 
would throb in the net, uneasy until she'd name it. 
are no scientists romantic like this? are there rules
about naming that i have not been given? 
i won't take this back. mars is crawling up
into place with a name i can't say & i'm going to 
go through one planet at a time.
i want you to go out & take one down
tomorrow night & ask its permission
to give it a new name too. hold the planet
in your hands. it might be warm or cold 
or wriggling. listen to it's surface &
remember all the people you wish you 
would have known more. recently, i feel 
you can never know anyone enough. after all this
would anyone name a planet for me? is one already 
up there keeping my word safe in its mouth?
this has something to do with 
being saved. this has everything to with
trusting rock & stars over skin. their lights
move gnat-like in the darkness. i catch one
& name it my own name (don't tell anyone) 
for myself because
i am selfish or maybe because i am afraid
or maybe for none of these reasons & i has 
want to say my own name & have a body up there
turn in recognition.

i eat the same thing 

everyday because
banana & peach & measuring cup. i crawl
into a bowl. i crawl out. 
i thump a spoon
against my tongue. 
i scrape a fork across
the sidewalk. i drag my nails through 
a patch of dirt & stone. i eat the same 
thing everyday because of ribs 
& the centipedes they suggest. i eat the same
thing everyday because of something
my parents did that i can't remember.
i buy shovels to try & remember. i go to
a supermarket full of orchids to try
& pick something new to eat & i meet 
all the more-beautiful people who eat
only flowers. they put samples in their mouths
& wait for the petals to dissolve. 
there are white-pink orchids 
& purple-yellow orchids & orchids made 
of glass. people carefully sliding 
each face into their mouths. i eat
the same thing everyday because 
the supermarket tells me to. i eat the same
thing everyday because i have hands
& i can't imagine living like these people
who eat flower after flower.
i stay at the store for hours not to browse
but to watch people eat. they seem like
they have never used utensils--
that maybe someone has always held 
a flower & told them to open wide.
i tell myself to open wider &
i think of the way snakes unhinge 
their jaws. i want to unhinge my jaw
& eat everyday--the whole fucking day.
no minutes left ticking in the dirt
just a gaping whole where the day 
was supposed to be. they offer me flowers 
to try & i refuse but they insist.
they say the flowers will 
make me feel better-- that i would be less 
morose if i ate more flowers.
i eat the same thing everyday because
the sun is loud & as indecisive as me.
i accept a flower & stuff it into my pocket.
i set the flower on my kitchen table
& cry at the flower who doesn't know
how to cry back. i tell the flower i eat
the same thing everyday because i'm scared.
i tell the flower i eat the same thing
everyday because rain is turning 
into seed. the supermarket snores 
loudly so i open my window & tell it 
to please please stop 
that i am trying to get
some rest so i can wake up 
& eat the same thing tomorrow.

a field of hair

our house is full of stray hairs 
so i collect them. i started awhile ago
by just laying the hairs out flat on 
my book shelf but now i tend to them.
now they're a field. now they wave 
in the breeze of my fan. now they're vast
with their varying shades of brown.
i like to believe if i had them DNA tested
they would find these hairs belonged
to three or four tenants before us.
long black hair. short bleach blonde.
i inspect the root. the white tip 
from which the hair's plucked.
a bit of skin or something else. 
i run a hand through my own hair 
& feel all the roots. my brother & i
would take turn pulling out each other's
hairs when we were small. i'm fascinated by
this kind of crop. the thinness of each strand.
i could make instruments but i choose to 
harvest the hair for a landscape.
i take a brush & comb the hairs.
i take a bit of shampoo & i 
wash them gently so as to not 
pull them free from their dirt.
i add my own hair on occasion,
kneeling before i remove a strand.
a knot of fishing wire. something to be
strummed. the bow of a violin is made
of horse hair & i wonder if someone
is keeping a field of horse hair too.
course & thick. i'm not going to share
my collection with anyone. i want it to be
something they find when i die.
i want them to stumble inside & get caught
in tangled of each other's hair.
there's so much of it around this house.
i get on my hands & knees & check
the baseboard. check the space between
the carpet & the door. hairs come free
& ask to multiply. all hair wants
is to be a full wide head. i don't
have a skull but i do have a block of dirt.
i wish i could give all the dirt
new skulls to spread across. maybe a field
of skulls for hair to snake across 
reptilian in its need. i feed the field
my own hair when there's no more 
to be found. i pluck it out by the root.
i offer up the sting. i sew the strand
in between others & there is a great sigh
& a great thankful ache. a scalp
quivering like the face of a drum.
maybe one day i'll show you.

i thought i grew up in town of cows 

my neighbors were cows
& they went out to graze early.
despite my efforts i could never wake up
before them. i would go out to the yard
first thing just to find their whole families 
chewing grass & buttercups. their tails
swung like pendulums. their huge wide eyes
saw everything. i was convinced they could gleam
the past & the future. they remained stoic
& for a long time i believed my neighbors 
didn't like me. i brought them morsels 
as peace offers: the ends of green beans 
& wheat crackers but they refused 
to eat from my hand. it probably has something
to do with pride. cows are proud animals.
no one believes me that i grew up
in a town of cows because i live in a city
full of humans & pigeons & the occasional 
rabbit or squirrel. i introduce myself 
by describing the cows. i explain that they
have four stomachs for digesting grass & that
they are not the best at tending their gardens.
in my town, cows made quilts & hung them
on their living rooms walls. in my town
a cow sold apples at the farmer's market
& another cow scooped ice cream at 
the malt shoppe. yes it was strange 
growing up there with my human body
& my human skin but no one ever seemed 
to notice & i simply didn't point it out.
i assumed until i was older
that i just was a cow like anyone else.
i got down on my knees & chewed grass.
i crave that greenness even now where 
the grass if riddled with garbage.
me & the neighbor kids trotted through our yard
mouths full of onion grass & weeds.
there was something delicious 
about realizing nothing & believing 
the whole world was the same.
the neighbors rolled their grill outside 
each may & brought it in early october.
the neighbors sang songs near bedtime
to help their young children sleep
& i was jealous of them. where i live now
there are no cows & i search for them sometimes,
hoping a figure approaching in the dark
will turn out to be one. they're always human.
i even returned to my town to find
all the cows gone & human neighbors 
in their place. when no one is home
i get down on all fours,
pretending to be one, mourning their 
patience their vast bodies.
no one knows how much i miss them.