briefly, dad & i became grave robbers

& replaced each body we stole 
with piles of produce. six watermelons.
eighteen pears. a bucket of apples.
several giant metal bowls of blueberries.
all of these equal a person. skeleton 
frame work scaffolds. my dad with his
snow shovel & me with the good 
metal shovel dipping in the loose dirt.
one after the other. neither of us
were sure what night this started but
i think it was him who put his hand
on my back in the deep night hours 
& asked me if i could get in the car.
when your father asks if you 
can do something 
you always can & you always are grateful
for his moment of need for his recognition
of your body as a body. our bodies
were not the same as the ones we unearthed 
& that is significant. i won't ask you
what it means to be dead--
that too easy-- what does it mean
to be dead with your father?
we took the bodies on honeymoons & 
gave them fast cars. we painted their faces
& told them they were going to have
vibrant furious futures. we lied 
& said they absolutely looked fine.
dad especially liked to tell the younger men
that they should get an education 
like he never did. lots of guidance.
this is what we all want to give.
what do you understand about decay?
i sometimes think about 
the fruit in the earth & the bodies 
going on to live their fragile lives.
the melons melting in the box &
the berries growing white fuzz.
of course we let the bodies go
at the end of the night
took them to the lookout at the edge
of town & told them to walk far far
away form us. they were obedient.
they were cautious
but most became bones before 
our car pulled away. i would have never asked
dad why we had to do this but
i came closest to driving home 
with the dirtied shovels in the trunk
& less fruit than what 
we came with.

the story goes an innocent left his hand print 
on the cell wall before being sentenced to hang an hour later 

on the way back to the car we debate
whether or not the hand print on the cell wall
was real. a marking of dirt. five fingers.
palm. much bigger than my own. father hand.
bear paw. root system. anchor ache icon.
large enough to cup a toad or a frog.
large enough to grip a wrist tight.
the jail in jim thorpe is open for tours
& we followed our guide like curtain ghosts
through the thick walls of the jail while
she explained that each door is made
of two hunks of oak & sheet of iron. 
we debated if the hand print was real
& i say it must have been at some point 
that there must have been at the very least
one hand print that wouldn't go away
but the one now i don't seem to be able
to believe. the print is circled 
in green. the guide says there were
once forensic tests that proved
there's no DNA on the hand. just dirt.
just dirt. i think about how 
solid a motion placing
a hand on a wall is & how 
if it were me 
becoming a ghost 
that i might be tempted to place
hand print all over the cell--
that i might paint stand on my bed
& press a hand to the ceiling.
we walk in & out of stone rooms.
we wander through a dungeon where
bodies lived in black murk. we peered
through a one-way mirror & spied 
on the emptiness. the fake gallows 
in the center room stood
like a tall stagnant monster &
our tour group stared up at 
the fake nooses they proved.
a noose should
snap your neck as you fall by 
the tour guide tells us they 
didn't always work.
there is writhing here on a tour
i take with a group of friends
in a humid august day where
there's a hoard of trees outside waiting 
to speak with their insects.
i am a boy leaning on an iron railing
& there are hands scurrying across
the walls like spiders 
made of dirt.

alternate sources for the news 

all the satellite dishes
open & close like fly traps
catching radio & bad news on their tongues.
hard to swallow. shimmering word.
they gulp men sitting at desks with 
prediction about future terrible storms.
there will be one every year for next
hundred years that will threaten 
to knock the house off its stilts
or so the words say as they funnel into 
the great plants. the satellite dishes
have roots plugged deep into 
the veins of the house like single hears
protruding from all the houses.
i find broken ones in dumpsters &
on curbs & i fix them all to the wall
of my bed room. i sleep in a cage
of ears & i tell them nicely
that they must tell me all the truth
they've heard. they watched the sun
turn into a lighter with that
bit of blue fire at the neck.
they watched children in town 
pick up candy wrappers & eat them
for the faint taste of sugar.
the dishes know something larger
is coming like a piano dropped 
from a cloud or a whale washing up
on the front lawn but again
these things are just omens.
my collecting of dishes
is also an omen. everyone's life
is a series of omen if someone
provided us with the correct sacred texts.
the satellite dishes say i place
too much faith in their ability 
to remember & i feel 
the same way about myself. 
others place too much weight in my ability 
to be alive. i find a trumpet &
turn it into a satellite dish
golden & ready to catch anything.
everything comes from top down
from cloud to grass to ocean.
there's run off made of oil. there's 
a cyclone blinking rash red.
the dishes sometimes take turns
trying to scared me. they make up stories
among themselves but i can always tell
when they're lying. they tend to 
take long pauses & look at each other.
at night i teach the dishes to close
like grey flowers & they blink closed
but wake me up in the morning 
talking all at once
story after story after story
men climbing the sides of buildings 
& geese flying south again & 
children turning into fire hydrants again
& the big storm of the century
brushing its wet hair into the ocean.
i dip my fingers in the dishes
& ask them if they like it here & they say
they love to have company
to be all together as the world
prepares to end 
over & over.

from strangers 

i soaked sponges in sugar
& left them out for 
the neighborhood children & by children
i mean gnats & flies & ants.
small & innocent the crueler things
of the world. i lean down to watch
their mandibles working-- licking flakes 
of sweet crystal from the sponge.
the sponge is one stolen from the ocean
or at least the closest thing to the ocean:
the kitchen sink where everyone 
goes to be baptized. blue soap. hot water.
plate after plate after plate. 
i stuck my hands in the bad of sugar
because it feels like sand because
i could pour it out on the floor of my room
& become a white beach.
you should never accept candy 
from strangers but what if the stranger
is tall & beautiful & what if the stranger
is clearly looking for quiet company
on a thursday night & there is no one else around.
if you eat sugar & no one sees you do it
did you really eat sugar? is the candy
made of glass or crystal or sand.
don't accept sand from strangers 
if they told you it was 
supposed to be sugar. the bugs come
& eat from my hands, picking up
just one grain at a time. 
across the street a few kids buzz
in a lamp light with basket ball & i want
to be full of wings & legs like them.
i want to video games to pluck
from the grass. i want to by school supplies
desperately at the end of august.
is this much of our lives supposed to
be devoted to wanting to return 
to larva? i feed them sugar from sponges 
because they will enjoy it more than 
i ever could. i consider crawling into
one of the sponge's pours & waiting there 
for a year or two till all this life
passes over--till i'm forgotten & i can
emerge as a spool of dust as a plate 
in the sink as the blue blue soap 
pouring over a forehead as God tell us
to wash all the grease & the sadness
& replace it with white sugar.
i walk down the street
hoping one of the strangers will offer me
something sweet or sticky. i don't make
eye contact because that would be
too forward. i put the sponge in my pocket
in case they end up being hungry.
they pass by & pass by & pass by.
are they waiting for me too
& will be perform this dance 
of missing each other forever
or will one man one night come
unwrap a cherry hard candy 
& carefully place it 
in my mouth & tell me 
to follow him.

how to make a home 

i take sliver clothe scissors
& cut blocks of fabric out of dusk. 
i tell a cloud to hold still & a plane 
buzzes like a fly or maybe is a fly 
carrying a hundred or so people to another tree
or town where night isn't coming yet.
i want to make a wedding dress 
from the crepuscular air; full of gold 
& orange & thread of purple that don't belong.
i want to live on this street forever &
by forever i mean as long as it will hold me
& as long as it's still summer & i'm still
too young to keep track of time & too young
to want to be dislodged. maybe i am old.
maybe i'm ancient & made of rocks & that's
why i want to be a mountain or a cliff. 
each patch of grass is full of sewing needles.
each street lamp has a veil tangled
with moths & other cluttered insects.
i use deep navy blue thread. i use 
a patch from the knee of one of my old pants.
i throw all my all clothing to the curb 
& tell the trees to try it on. the trees 
don't think any of it will fit but they try
anyway--my old dresses & my old head-bands
& my old skirts on their branches. they want me
to stay outside forever & never have a house
or a growing up & i explain that i've had
so many growings up that i can't keep track--
that i'm done with them. that i want to 
be heavier & covered in bark not skin. 
they want me to try on leaves & moss. 
they want to show me how a branch could sprout 
from my chest-- how my skin could
give way to foliage & how a flower might
emerge from my neck each day if i talk to it right. 
i bring my jewelry which
turns into beetles & centipedes.
i pluck needles from the dirt & work 
with the fabric. no one is getting married
but this is a wedding. i hear bells
of carapaces & the ringings of a comet.
i hear bees tucking each child into 
a nook in the nest. i hear a satellite 
telling a bed time story to no one or
anyone who will listen. i'm in a wedding
where the flower girl is just a basket
hovering somewhere above the clouds.
the clothe is softer than any animal--
the clothe is always humid & cool.
i am dressing in some kind of ending.
yes there is only one trumpet 
lodged in the throat of a bird who 
never wants to disturb anyone. yes there
is a dress too long to be made & the chatter
of branches each wanting to dress human--
to come down on the sidewalk & hold hands
& push strollers & walk dogs. a plane
lands in a tree & the people get out.
a car's headlights break loose & 
scurry into the grass all blaring &
un-hide-able. i don't know which family is mine
& if they would listen if i told 
them this story. i knock on front doors 
& people walk out but just see
a neighborhood staring back at them.
i tell them my name but they close
their doors. i collect broken glass
for new teeth. i find a sock for a tongue.
i wear the dress made of falling asleep 
& everyone turns over & it's only
me awake.

the dentist in the other room & everything you ever wanted 

there's a pair of mauve rubber gloves 
rooting in the mouth for a golden fork
between teeth. the dentist with his own mouth 
concealed by a mask paces between rooms--
tapping the walls with a single finger 
telling the house to open wider 
wider wider. he actually doesn't have
a mouth beneath his mask-- just lips
painted on with nail polish. he's far away now
on a different moon than ours & the light
he breathes comes from a shut down star.
do you believe in purple? in lavender 
& all its freckles? do you hear the sound
of teeth on the window outside? they're all
made of ice. the fork is going to be used 
to eat everything you could never have
when you were little. there will be plate
after plate of pale gold tasty cakes 
& eclairs sweating in the heat of
your wanting. the fork has fingers for
dipping-- a torso dug deeper into each bite
a neck for sugar. gloves asking you
if you remember where you last 
used your mouth & you censoring the answer 
because you have a feeling your mother
is closer by than you think
because the ears of parents are in
full bloom like fungus all along 
the staircase. the finger-tapping
of the dentist chimes from way off
in a different landscape. you'r on a train 
or maybe not. the gloves try harder
ask you to turn over on your side 
& remember who fed you. a whole cat
climbing into your mouth to put back
your tongue. a whole raccoon scavenging 
in between molars for a glint of glitter
to feel beautiful. what kind of men wear
mauve gloves? what kind of gloves
smell this loud & purple? you wanted 
saving. you wanted a beautiful clean surface
to start over on. you close your eyes 
& you know you lost the fork yourself 
a very long time ago but it's easy 
to not admit these things--
it's easy to ask for help with 
something impossible to recover. 
somewhere the fork is running her fingers
through someone else's hair-- is putting 
them to sleep past their bed time
is letting them eat whatever they want.

television & birds in the walls of a dead house

my brothers & i take 
vows of silence for a year--
learn to catch our voices before
they leave our mouths like 
stray moths. the birds aren't talking
to each other they're talking
to God & God has better songs.
he has his headphones in.
i open my mouth & only fog pours out
a great clouds sulking all through 
the streets. my brothers & i compare teeth 
& compare the shapes of our hands
pressing fingers to fingers.
some of us have long hands meant for
plucking root vegetables from
the dirt. there's a television 
dying in the walls of the house
& none of us have the tools to free it.
the television feeds us muffled headlines
& we can tell there's been another shooting
somewhere & we can tell someone is angry 
& someone is scared & their voices 
sound only like birds in the walls 
of the house. i want to tell my brothers 
i hate the news but we can't speak 
not for the rest of this year so
instead i find them in their rooms
& press my hands to their backs as if 
to tell them we both have bodies 
full of this silence. the silence buzzes 
in each beam. the silence perches 
in windows--is contagious & has plumage.
it's really for the best though & 
i start to forget how the mouth should move
to make words. i wake up
with a beak--my brothers all have 
different styles. mine resembles 
a common blue jay & there's cardinals 
& plovers & hawks. the TV warns us 
about screw drivers & how easily they can
punch holes through a house. the TV warns us
about birds & how easily a human can decide
they no longer want to have a tongue.
my tongue wriggles in the dirt outside
with the others. our silence has a temperature
our silence has weight like foot prints 
in mud. our silence has long hair that's
easily combed. our silence has hairy legs 
& walks far away from the herd. i had something
to tell them but i forgot so i did 
what i always do & i came & laid down
in the same bed with them all. i clapped my hands 
to get their attention & we pressed hands together.
some of them disprove of clapping, they think
that counts as speech too. i think 
i would die if i couldn't at least
do that.

we built mazes around our turtles.

we built mazes so vast they would never
escape & there was wall after wall 
after wall of obstacle & kitchen appliances
plugged into infinite outlets--
a mixer stirring the air & the turtles
didn't know the other one was there too.
they walked slowly, claw foot claw foot 
scritching along the floor without 
opening their mouths to make words.
i encouraged them from the clouds--
i told them if they only said the word
we would remove them from the labyrinth.
threats have never made anyone talk though
especially animals. my sister & i sat on clouds 
made of knotted maple cotton candy.
we discussed more ways to get the turtles
to understand what we wanted. only now
am i reminded of the story of the tortoise
& the hair & how we prove it wrong
as our two turtles ambled aimless
in the hallways of contraption. there were
walls made of ice & walls made of crying 
& walls made of our neighborhood where 
we were the weird kids eating Cheese-zits 
from the scraggly grass-- sometimes breaking them
to share sometimes keeping a whole nest
to ourselves. the smell of ice got stronger.
we both wanted to let the turtles out
& laying in our separate beds we would feel
their lumbering bodies as if they were
crawling through our veins. so we would go,
taking turns to check on them
to see they were still in their corridors 
to see they were still not using words.
i spoke softly saying repeat after me
i am a reptile & my blood is cold.
the turtle opened its mouth & said 
i am versatile & made of mold. so close
so close. i wanted to wake my sister up
but i also needed to be the only one 
who knew my turtle had spoken & i had
taught her. i was the good mother.
i was the fissures of an egg. i ask the swing set
in the backyard why god picked us
to be the strange ones & he responded 
with a shrug so i let the turtles go--
telling them not to walk near the busy street.
my sister was furious because we were supposed
to make them learn-- to make the turtles
finish the maze but they weren't even close.
i didn't want to watch them struggle.
the toaster plugged into my arm pops 
& the television breaths static. there are
so many outlets around here & the turtles are going to
love me forever because i am the one who
told them to go & be free from this science fair.
i shrank myself down. i put on a shell
& took the maze for myself. my beautiful 
inescapable garden. this is mine.

burial for a single branch 

in heaven the trees arrive 
upside down. they're pieced together 
slowly, one limb at a time
as their bodies on earth rot.
angels & people come to sit beneath the trees
each day & observe how they're coming in--
if any of them are finish. they bring
lawn chairs & they point up, hoping
to catch a whole limb appear & speculating
about the fall of the limb down on earth.
trees were the first animal
i ever feared the death of.
i put my ear to trees trunks & hoped
to hear them growing. my dad once 
remarked one of my favorite trees in the park
was already dead & i tore pieces of bark off 
as if to try & wake the creature up,
as if pain might rouse the oak & make it
decide to live longer, but he was right
& the whole tree was rotted to the core.
what scared me most was that there didn't 
seem to be a reason anyone could point to
as to why trees died. in heaven
they are equally as uncertain & they remedy
their uncertainty by watching the forest come in
all together. company is most important for forgetting
there are so many things we don't know
which is to say, people are a lovely distraction. 
i climbed the small quiet maple
in my aunt's front yard 
& tore off brittle dead branches 
near the top & one angel noticed the first 
tiny vein of a branch emerge in the sky.
i asked everyone if they thought 
the tree was going to die & they said
it was lush & healthy so i
buried that single limb in the yard
& returned to check on it each day.
i listened to the tree who whispered 
in a language i couldn't recognize.
maybe i was hearing heaven's chatter
about the single thread-like limb 
in the clouds. what i'm trying to say is
each tree is terrifying. i worry they're
all dead where they're standing.
i worry they're like stars & how some stars
are likely dead. when the trees bloom 
i worry most that their knees will buckle
like a tossed bouquet. why, of all things,
would trees have to die?
what god would plant them
upside down in heaven?

bathtub full of white plum tree flowers 

a long time ago a beast died 
& tucked its teeth inside every plum--
flat & rigid. this was done with 
the intention to cut-- to slice
mouth open who wanted something 
bruised & sweet. plums fall from my thighs.
plums cascade from the bathtub where 
i scrub a my bones. a voice says i should
use the soap to get it out-- that there 
is nothing that water cannot cure.
i feed a plum to a fly & watch its
mandibles working. i ask the fly 
if it's sweet & the fly agrees yes it is sweet.
i believe all seeds were once sharper 
& sitting in a mouth. there is a kind
of fury to fruit blossoms-- that overwhelming
white of plum tree blossoms. they fill
my bed room every time i'm hungry.
they fill lover's mouths when we're
too close to happiness. i could love 
every single plum if given more time.
if given more mouths. i think of Cerberus--
the three headed dog & how many plums
i would be able to eat with his body.
do the heads divide emotions up?
one for shame one of sorrow and one
for hunger. sometimes i have three heads.
sometimes i have more than that. 
sometime i plant the seeds of plums
hoping a monster & not a tree will grow.
sometimes a monster does grow 
& i scratch it behind the ears & feed
it everything i have because 
you have to give yourself over to monsters--
that's what they're there for. 
i eat a cold plum in my kitchen 
& feel each of my teeth as they 
ask to fall out. i tell them no
i tell them i need teeth & they ache
to be seeds. i tell them to just let
me finish eating this one last fruit 
& then they can go free & do
whatever they please.