wednesday is rubbish day 

so we take our rooms apart
& set them out 
on the curb. everyone is doing it.
we mirror each other. i started
because i saw a piled of broken wooden chairs 
in front of the building next door. 
a truck will come 
& make everything beautiful.
i set out the broken stool but i don't want
the stool to be lonely so i add another
& another & another until i've laid out
all our chairs even the wooden one 
in the corner with the regal arms 
& the bean bag who wasn't bothering anyone.
this is a cleansing i tell myself 
& the neighbor people are working too.
someone tosses their mattresses down
on the sidewalk--stacks them one on top
of another. another person drops 
appliance apart appliance: a toaster 
a blender & a coffee machine--
the glass basin shatters. each glass fragment 
turns into sugar in the air. we all have
too many objects. i witness a man
reach into his mouth & pull out
a trombone & i remember that somewhere
my trumpet lives playing itself to death.
that murky bell a remembered hallway. 
there are children snapping crayons 
& old men tearing pages from books. 
we don't acknowledge on another
but we see what's happening. no one will be
the same after the garbage truck comes
& everyone is looking to be transformed.
i'll do anything for that feeling & 
so will they. what else can we 
rid ourselves of?
one woman takes the inserts out of her shoes 
& another removes the laces. 
all these parts. so many pieces. 
there must be something more
we can do without. light bulbs unscrewed 
& set on the sidewalk--they flicker with light
from all the tension & static in the air.
the trash trucks come from
the sky or at least that's what it seems.
we don't want to stand 
too close so we watch from our windows.
huddled closely as we witness them 
grip a hold of everything with strong gloved hands.
i order gloves to be delivered in 1-2 days.
maybe that's what gives them powers.
we will sleep tonight on blank floors.
something like starting over--
reborn into nothing. all our clothes 
turn to birds & fly out the open window.
the windows push themselves out 
& break on the cement below.
all over the townspeople are thankful
& share stories of everything they had 
that morning. we pray to the trash trucks 
to come again each day. to please
take everything. 
make us clean.

dad & i as stamps 

i'd like to just be a stamp 
pressed neatly in a row of dad's collection.
safe behind a plastic covered page. 
my world measured square. right angle 
by right angle. he keeps the book
shelved alongside photo-albums.
spin crinkles with each page turns. 
the stamps are organized by subject. 
flowers. dogs. buildings. 
vehicles. people.
i asked dad if you had to be dead 
to be on a stamp 
& he said he was pretty sure
you did. all the founding fathers
& their scowls pressed into the page.
the album open in his lap. open
on the floor of the sun room.
in bed with me. i had a few weeks
of loving the stamp collection--
carrying it with me all around the house.
i was looking in each image 
to imagine what existed 
out of frame.
i should have thought 
more about dad-- not everyone's father
presses images into neat rows & 
memorizes where each came from.
if i was one of those stamps
maybe he would hold me even now--
maybe he would trance his finger
around the parameter of my box
& wonder about what kind of
life i lived. 
most of the stamps 
had faded. yellowing & brittle.
maybe he wanted 
a square for himself--
to crawl into miniature. 
a self portrait.
if i could i would place his beside mine
so that in 2-d we might
know each other even if only
by proximity. i would give him
a forest background 
& a full tooth smile. 
i can't choose what i would want
behind me forever. a backdrop. 
maybe just one color. blue 
to fall in. safe, even in my falling
always returning 
to place my body
in that frame.

i lived at the end of a hall of girls. 

i lived at the end of 
a hall of girls. 
we shared two bathrooms in Wilkinson-- 
each with two shower stalls; i would wait
until i heard no faucet or shower-head 
& that's when i would slip
into the tile room. mist on the mirrors 
from other girls. girls coming & going,
girls laughing. girls with headphones in. 
freshmen year everyone was beautiful.
i learned people's names 
by writing them on note cards &
quizzing myself at my wooden desk at night.
my bedroom had one window that looked out
over the whole campus. the best nights 
were when my roommate was gone & 
my boyfriend wasn't there. i could
stand in the middle of the room
as if it were all mine. the sounds 
all mine. the cool carpet & 
smell of clean walls, all mine.
i sometimes pretended to be
a ghost who lived in the building
all alone. i had died here 
my freshman year & never left. i was
eighteen. everyone was an 
adult. there was something
disembodying about the showers.
almost always someone would
enter after me & start showering
in the other stall. i could hear
their shower flip flops squeak.
a bottle of shampoo opening. 
fingers through hair--scrubbing
the scalp. did she listen 
to me? we were separated only
by a plastic divider. 
we were there with bodies
& we were both portioned out 
into segments of rooms. into white 
dining hall plates. into patterns
to & from classrooms. our books
splayed like dead birds on our desks.
we were sharing the same 
staircase. we were on the phone
in the stairwell. my roommate 
had long straight brown hair & 
all her decorations were color coordinated:
orange & pink. she kept beer 
in the mini-fridge.
she called her boyfriend sometimes 
& i put my headphones in so 
i wouldn't hear. sometimes we showered
at the same time. i would try to 
finish before her so we didn't
walk out at the same time. 
that might have been the closest 
i got to any of them. 
the smell of cucumber melon 
& tropical breeze shampoos. 
the hot water pouring 
over our bodies.

my grandmother went to italy 

& brought back only two pictures.
she removed them from her purse 
like playing cards. one of her, 
standing beside the leaning tower of pisa.
another of her made small next to
the vatican. she told us 
she didn't like it there like she thought she would.
it had been decades since she'd gone. a life time. 
i wasn't old enough to ask her more. 
the pictures told a story of how
our homes shift without us. i could have asked
who held the camera for both pictures.
if she asked a passerby. i could have asked
if she had been lonely there-- if she remembered 
the language or if it had vanished over the years.
every word is the ghost of who taught it to you.
a portrait of her mother & aunt hung in her apartment.
the two of them in italy in lovely ruffled dresses.
they would climb onto a boat & become
transformed by water. my grandmother was 
an apostrophe of a woman. 
the wind walked through her. in the rain 
she wore a plastic bonnet. in the heat she flicked a fan.
i can see her ambling on the outskirts 
of a tour group. all of them laughing.
all of them young & forgetful. even the old ones
feel young to her. she said to us
that she didn't need to go back again.
she stacked the two pictures.
tucked them away in her purse & 
i've never seen them since. 
they slipped away somewhere between 
the nursing home & the apartment.
she remembered less & less of italy
until it became a symbol. the world can become
very tight very quickly. the photographs
float somewhere face-up. maybe there are people
who held her camera who hold the cameras
of other lonely tourists
searching for something they cannot name.
i would like to be one of them.
to take just two pictures 
& then tuck them away.

tropical melon paradise body spray 

i kept tropical melon paradise body spray 
in my locker. i picked a locker tucked away 
in the back corner. sweat is cruelest 
to high school girls. the smell of our feet.
our sneakers blushing with grass stains.
i wrote my locker combo on a sticky-note
slipped in my backpack. as the year went on 
the note became barely legible. the note
folded & torn into pieces. i taped the combo 
back together. we played basketball. we played
ping-pong. i dreaded  
step aerobics. the rows of girls
following the gym teacher. she had 
a tight pong tail & defined leg muscles.
all of us in sync performing motions
almost as if we knew each other. girls 
all in the same grey & blue gym uniform. 
my hands would shake after. i would
run brush through my hair. the strands 
gone stringy & greasy from exertion. 
pressing down the head of the body spray 
& feeling the mist land on arms & 
shoulders & back. arm "pits" suggests 
that there's somewhere on the body
where you might fall in. i was 
ashamed of the stains on my gym shirt.
the light grey was unforgiving. 
more body spray. i bought the spray 
at CVS. i knew i needed something 
to cover myself with. it was like
wearing a second dress on top 
of the first one. the spray suggested 
a run away island where girls
lay all over & never have to run laps 
& never have boys stare at them while they run.
the girls on the island pluck melons 
from trees & share the fruit with each other.
they drip with sweat & they love the sweat.
their sweat is sweet. their sweat is
beautiful. other girls would probably tell me
the spray smells "sickly sweet" if i asked
but i love it. during the fall & spring
we play outdoors. in winter we use 
the gym. the boys class wears the same
uniforms. we are separated. we are 
cut down the middle. we play golf.
smack the small white balls into a net.
we go to the weight room. learn what 
our muscles mean. the equipment smells 
like rubber & bodies. i smell myself 
to make sure i still smell like 
tropical melon paradise. i lift
heavier & heavier weights. my limbs ask me
to be a stronger girl. leg lift.
leg press. arm curl. squats. 
we were becoming something between 
seeing each other strain. i closed my eyes 
sprayed my body & for that second
my skin was nectar.

keys to a car i no longer own

i consider becoming a pick pocket
every time i walk in the city.
it's not that i want to steal anything 
but just that everyone is so close together 
& i want to know what they might be carrying.
just a few days ago on my way home 
the Q train got held underground. 
everyone stared up at the ceiling 
listening for the conductor 
like the voice of god.
there was a man holding a guitar case 
& a girl cradling a doll who wore her same outfit.
we were all very small. 
miniatures even.
one man removed a clementine from his pocket
& i wondered if anyone else was harboring fruit.
i sucked on my tongue with hunger.
my mouth was crowded with faint tastes
of the apple i'd eaten hours ago. 
in my pocket i had keys to a car 
i no longer owned & keys to an apartment 
i had just moved out of. if someone stole them
they'd get no where & i smiled thinking this.
another man in a long coat kept his hands
in his pockets the whole time.
i was scared of him like maybe 
he clung tight to a knife or a gun.
i am scared of what i cannot see.
i am scared of everyone's secrets
& maybe i am scared of pockets &
what might fit in them.
at 4:30 when i left the office each day 
the side walk was always rushing.
i'd close my eyes sometimes just to hear
the sound of all those feet.
we were a great machine at least 
for the moment. we were carrying everything.
packs of gum & pocket watches & 
monthly long island railroad tickets.
i almost asked several times if 
someone would please slip me in their pocket
& walk me to penn station. tucked in there
i would feel safe & enclosed for once.
new york is a diorama looking at itself. 
new york is a the colony living
inside the shaft of a telescope.
maybe microscope. how far away is god?
replace god with conductor. 
it took about 45 minutes for the train
to start up again. 
we should have emptied our pockets
on the ground. shown each other everything.
any one of us could have fallen in love.
any one of us could have had the same items.
the man standing in front of me
nearly nods off to sleep three times.
his back pocket was right in front of me
but of course i didn't touch it.
the world is too dangerous for that.
i like to think i was sleeping there
inside his pocket or maybe that he 
also had keys to a car he didn't own anymore.

i'm turning into my dad 

that year he started working the night shift
was the same year we put curtains up
in the living room. they smelled too new.
the upstairs tv played static & my brother 
& i sat in front of it, 
pretending to see stories before bed. 
we didn't have cable yet or a computer.
we wore over-sized t-shirts as pajamas
& traversed the house--stamping it with our 
bare feet. dad worked as a janitor at the factory. 
that's what he told us. i never saw
the inside of his building 
or even the door he walked through 
to enter. i'd lay down
on the bottom bunk & listened
for the front door to close 
as he left each night.
i tried to imagine the halls. did he walk 
with a bucket & mop? did he polish windows?
a circular motion rubbing at the glass.
a circular motion scrubbing the ground.
the only janitor i knew was the one
at the elementary school. 
he had a scratchy looking beard & 
sometimes he ate lunch with us. 
i wondered who dad at lunch with 
& if any other dads brought their children.
were there other janitors? 
i never asked him any of these questions.
i wore one of his old shirts to bed
& waited on the sofa in the morning 
for him to come home. static on the tv.
i memorized a joke to tell him
about the static but forgot it the moment
i saw him. his rumpled blue coat
& his mess of grey-black hair. 
he asked why i was up so early
& i said i was waiting for him. 
the curtains were green & sheer. 
almost like the veil of my communion dress
hanging in my closet upstairs. 
he sat beside me. i saw him
on his hands & knees now
trying to get a stain out of a linoleum floor.
his faint reflection in the floor.
the gleam of florescent lights above.
i asked him how work was & he shrugged.
back then i assumed children took the jobs
of their parents so i was trying
to learn what my life would be like
when i was a night janitor. i looked forward to it.
i thought maybe he got to work 
entirely alone. maybe the plant was peaceful at night.
maybe he could talk to himself
& hear his voice echo around him. 
he ruffled my hair & told me he was going to bed.
the sun peered through the curtains
gold & too bright. 

yard sale 

each april was a celebration. 
we undid our spaces. culled our rooms
for value. i carry a bookend, 
a lamp, & a stuffed giraffe
to the front yard. we're setting out blankets
for the smaller items & dad is pushing
the old mantel out to the grass.
uncle rich manages to lug the piano 
from his side of our house into the yard.
he presses the out of tune keys. 
he doesn't know how to play. he asks dad
how much he thinks the instrument might be worth.
he doesn't think it's worth much because
it's got chipped keys & water damage.
everything is worth less than you want it to be.
my brother brings down a hamper full of 
toy sharks. he explains that each is worth
no less than two dollars. he cries
& says he doesn't want to sell them.
i swallow any sentiments i have 
for the good of the yard sale. cars pass by 
all of them too fast. i always imagined
more people stopping than who end up
actually coming to look at our items. 
these people don't appreciate who much of our lives
we've put out here, i'd think.
i stand at the end of our driveway 
& wave at every passing car. i stay out there all day,
sitting on a plastic folding chair while dad
searches the house for more to add. he brings out
the fish tank. he brings out the stone cross
from the wall of the kitchen. he brings
shutters & the faucets off sinks.
he says we need more if we're going
to catch anyone's eye. i join him. 
i take apart my bunk bed & yank clothing
off hangers. a mound of our belongings.
i price each item in my head.
i tell dad i'm asking only for 
reasonable amounts--that i'm not
going to be greedy. a man 
pulls his red car to the side of the road.
he looks nervous as he sifts through
all our belongings. we are too eager 
& we scare him away.
as he drives off & we remark to each other
that maybe he would have stayed if he'd seen
the coat wrack or the lamp. yes those
are beautiful. yes those were ours once
before we emptied the house.
i tell dad that i want to make just
a few dollars 
& he says that's all he wants too.
the day passes & we contemplate 
cutting the tree in the yard down 
to sell the wood. we might try
laying on the blankets ourselves.
we consider the house behind us
& if it's worth keeping.
dad sells the mantel & helps a man
load it into his pick up truck.
we cry with relief. dad gives me 
five dollars from the sale. the sun starts
setting. bright orange. dad pretends
to buy an old stuffed dinosaur of mine.
i thank him for his business. 

a trail of ants walks out the bath room window

their bodies form a string so i pull it. 
the house is made from folded paper 
& the room turns inside out
into a blow-up box. i put my lips 
to an opening & empty myself of air.
without air i am a just a knot 
of clothing. my skin turns to mist.
the ants are making patterns all over
the walls. they're making trap doors.
they're making promises now too--writing
words with their bodies. they explain to me
that they never believed in humans
until they saw me with my hands &
all my crying. i sit on a windowsill 
& contemplate jumping but the world outside
turns all to paper. folded street lamps
& folded sidewalks. nothing to 
break me on. i am an egg now. 
there's an expatriation date 
stamped on my teeth. i ask strangers 
to read it aloud to me. i have 
4 days to be eaten so i'm looking
for a good huge man. a man who understands
ants & who considers insects each morning.
i want a man who folds houses,
whose thumbs have made creases.
the asphalt is crawling ants--
all of them hungry for sweetness.
what will you do with your desires 
to shatter? who will fold you a house?
all the glass becomes water.
puddles on the floor. i drown 
in one of the puddles but not before
i walk on water. the ants follow me
across the water--their light bodies
refusing to sink. what do you really know
of a mouth? everyone i've ever known
wears a paper one. it falls off
in the rain & they have to make new ones.
the last boy i loved folded me
mouth after mouth after mouth.
i asked him if i could please
love him forever but forever became
a string of ants in my mouth.
he pulled the string. i turned
inside out. he became a bright window 
i now peer out of. i now sit 
on the edge of. there's a constant
sense of falling in my body. 
i want meant to be water. 
i am water.
the ants scrawl prayers 
on my palms.
i read them left to right
left to right. i am being
saved. i am making a god
out of glass. the house becoming
clear glass windows. the sun 
a wade of bright insect
screaming into light. there's 
a man laying down in my bed 
but i don't recognize him.
i cup my hands & fill them 
with water. i'm going
to baptize him. i pour the water
on his forehead & he disperses
just like i knew he would. just like
all men want to. 
they're experts 
at escaping.

when i'm old & have too many

i hope to have a stand at an antique market
when i'm old & have too many small sincere items.
dad & i would get up early on a saturday.
blue morning. the sun peering over all our objects.
we'd to go exploring the piles of antiques 
spread across adamstown's gravel parking lots.
a sea of trinkets resting on wooden tables 
& quilts. dad sifting through plastic tubs 
of old coins. he was trying to find just the right one.
he'd pick one up at a time & say 
not it, not it, not it.
i would find a toy stand 
& look for a bin of action figures.
my tiny soft hands rooting between plastic bodies.
it never occurred to me back then that those coins
& those toys belonged to someone. 
someone held them between thumb & finger 
with purpose. tucked coin in a back pocket.
walked the toy people 
across a living room carpet. where i'm from
we don't own anything notable
though up the street someone sold a boat.
it lay rusting in their front yard for weeks 
before someone bought it for scrap metal.
we take pride in our antique market finds.
a neighbor of mine had plastic cows
all over her kitchen as decorations.
another one collected old milk bottles.
he planted flowers in all of them each spring.
dad & i once found a giant stuffed trout
that i hugged all the way home
as we drove winding pennsylvanian roads.
what i'm trying to say is i want to die
by giving away whatever unique pieces 
i happen to own. i want to set my books in stacks
on a bright april morning & let strangers 
pick through them. all my old stuffed animals
tired & sun worn but still useful.
at the antique market nothing is useless.
the vendors walk with each other 
to the breakfast food stand & order hash browns 
& egg sandwiches. dad & i eat too.
sit next to each other. discuss
what more we'd like to find.
dad wants a world war 1 bayonet
& i want a nice felt hat. i will be sitting there
in a folding chair at my stand,
selling myself a hat with white fake flowers
sewn into the rim. she will pay in crumpled dollars.
a gust of wind will try to blow the hat
off her head but she will catch it.
i will wave 
as she leaves to show our dad.
i will go home with all the trifles
that no one chose. load them up in a truck.
this is a chance to pick each one up again
& remember what it meant when it was 
new in my fingers. i will consider
giving up & not selling any of my remaining items
but i'll remind myself 
that this is how people like us
are remembered. a quiet scattering.
dad & her drive home. she sets the hat
in her lap.