last night we did face masks

pressing the wet paper sheets to our skins.
we'd bought them on the way out of target,
choosing each by their packaging colors.
i watched myself in the mirror to place
the mask just right. eyes emerging
from the two holes. mouth & nose
poking through openings. the mask 
obscured each detail. a table clothe
tossed over face. the light perfume 
of the oils. smelling like those white flower buds
we'd crush between thumb & finger
standing in the backyard as kids. 
then came the smell 
of a snapped watermelon 
& scent of fingers drumming
on something hollow. i stood there 
with my face hidden & watched you
do the same. stepping behind
a sweet curtain. we made jokes 
that when we peeled the masks off
our faces would be completely changed.
despite our efforts we couldn't 
imagine new faces on each other. 
we walked around the kitchen & the living room.
we checked the clock to see when 
ten minutes had passed & time moved slower
with the masks on. we leaned 
on the kitchen counter. i told you 
i wanted to feel relaxed & wondered 
what people did to feel that kind of 
loosening. i tried to just focus
on the mask's texture. 
that soft dripping
on each corner of my face.
flower petals stuck to skin.
face steeped in a lake water.
algae brushing the bridge of my nose.
a kind of floating. my face 
a new body of water with  a raft
pushed out into the middle. 
eyes as buoys waddling with each ripple.
i blinked my eyes open & 
there you were removing the sheet.
there was your same skin beneath
decorated with droplets. i wanted
to touch. dip my fingers into 
your surface. i joked 
i didn't recognize you as
i took mine off as well. texture lingering
on my skin. even as i lay in bed that night
i would feel that layer there. i would
want that kind of protection.
the thought that maybe the face 
is movable. a surface across which 
waves might pass. there's nothing wrong
with my face. i don't mind my face.
this is all about body & what
the writing on it means. i stop
on the bridge of my nose
to watch my eyes close.  

lamplight calligraphy & the bay window 

our dorm room junior year was too tight 
but i wanted to look out 
that kind of window every day.
a bay window 
sticking out from the house. 
i had a dream my mom came to visit
& re-arranged me by room. 
she planted
ferns in the carpet 
& left my bed askew.
the room in the dream wasn't 
my real bed room.
it looked closest to that dorm room
with its white walls 
& it's glass cabinet 
in the corner full of books.
even outside my dreams i have this fear
someone going to come & un-make my space.
is this because i haven't lived 
more than a year in a room for so long?
i wish i took more pictures 
as if somehow
a picture saves a space. makes fixed
a certain location.
we kept the blinds closed 
most everyday day.
the light was 
too bold and clear.
but really we didn't like 
how easily a passing human could 
look into our terrarium.   
i liked to feel safe & small 
in our room. on a beautiful night 
i might sit in my bean bag chair & witness 
you opening the bottom drawer 
of your wooden desk--- 
removing your three 
calligraphy pens & writing letters
on thick perfect paper. 
ornate letters 
with tails & fins & lush eyebrows. 
i always wondered how you chose 
what words to write. first your name
& then the name of a city 
& then the name of a tree. 
all the while
the window blinds were down 
& the lamp was on; glowing on top of the dresser. 
our room was so miniature that
i could take a step
& touch your elbow-- could 
peer over your shoulder to see 
what you were writing--
follow each move of the brush.
i don't know what this has to do 
with my mom pulling books from shelves 
in a dream but i know only you knew
that room like i did & i know 
that you might never see the room
i live in know & sometimes 
i wish we would have opened
the blinds more-- not for the light
but so people might gather
& look in to see us. a diorama
of home. this is how girls
love each other. this is how
a brush moves across a paper.  

nightlight

there were 2 nightlights 
in my bed room & each got brighter 
each time you touched them.
i crouch in the corner tapping
the warm opaque glass surface as the light
blooms from dim to bright to gleaming.
all around me the shadows stand up straight
in the brightness--growing bolder 
as the nightlight swells. one in each corner.
one behind the rocking chair & one behind 
the rubber tree & the fern. plants
pressing spinal shapes across walls--
across my face as a stood on the other side
resisting the urge to flick on 
the overhead light. what was there 
to be frightened of that the light
saved me from? i make slanted 
shadow puppets. i move the rocking chair
with my hand to watch the shadows
whip like windshield wipers but 
then the rocking becomes phantom 
& i'm terrified. i wish my parents
would stand in the corner like
those two plants. mom, the rubber tree.
dad, the fern. they stand there & tell me
to get into bed. i take the top bunk.
the metal bones of the bed high-pitched laugh.
i dream what horrors might
lurk on the bottom bunk. a skeletal human.
a streak of blood. with the nightlight
on as bright as it can be i watch the far wall
knowing that if there were something
waiting down there that at least 
i would see it's profile shadow. i see
nothing just the bones of the bed &
then my own form, sitting up. lifting
a hand. i open my palm as if to catch something.
light is falling from the ceiling maybe.
i wanted more nightlight. i still want
more nightlight. i want to fill each corner.
it's funner how the memory becomes the present
& life becomes a future. my shadow now 
is crawling back to me-- bringing a tangle
of wires & chords. i am sleeping 
in the complete dark of my room. 
no window. a shoe box.
my old self is crouched
under the bed. she's terrified. i use 
my phone flashlight to show her the room
& i explain there's nothing hiding.
she doesn't believe me-- reaches her hand out
a memory of the touch nightlights. 
buttery light slips between her fingers.
she is safe there is the glow. 
i lay in the dark, lifting my one palm
as if to catch something.

biting down

i feel my teeth with my tongue
& wonder how many cavities i have waiting.
when i was younger i imagined them as
little burned holes as if my teeth were
made of paper & someone had taken a match to them.
now i think of them more like craters--
like a meteor shower visited my mouth 
while i wasn't paying attention. 
i haven't been to a dentist
in years so every time i pass a dentist place
i walk a little quicker. i don't
want anyone else searching in my mouth
but me. sometimes in the mirror
i inspect those creases between teeth.
sometimes i fish between them & pull out
stockings & necklaces & telephone wires 
lodged there. the gap between my front teeth 
is tight but, like the alley way to our apartment,
i think i could linger there. back against
the wall of a tooth. i could wait there
for something to pass & by something 
i mean myself. i mean sometimes i happen
in waves--a sense of crashing 
in every single bone. the tongue made
of sand & the rest is the deep. 
there are fish that function as organs.
i am often a sad person making myself
feel more sad 
in the name of something. love maybe?
no, nostalgia. 
i don't know yet 
why i'm like this because
i don't want to know. i walk on teeth tops. 
stepping stones. slightly slippery. 
my mouth: a pink garden. i lean 
closer to the mirror as if it will
let me inside-- as if i could press
my teeth to the glass & understand their
crookedness. their twisting. their glossy
bodies. how each is threaded into my skull
with a matrix nerves. light fixtures,
glowing faintly. in need of changed bulbs.
there was one boy i dated whose teeth 
would always clack mine as we kissed.
when it happened we would hold
our mouths a moment, 
feeling that dull pain & then 
we'd go back to kissing 
like nothing had happened at all. 
the cold makes them shutter.
i would watch my uncle bite 
butter pecan ice cream-- his teeth
raking the frozen surface while i ate
mint chocolate chip slowly & carefully
so my teeth didn't touch the surface.
there's a series of bites
that make up how i loved this guy.
a bite i left on his neck & one
on his shoulder. i bite the back 
of my hand to feel the teeth to feel
the ocean to feel the deep beneath it
& all those fish throbbing in the water
& i bit that boy because he asked me to 
because he wanted a mark-- something 
almost permanent. maybe he really just
wanted to ask for my teeth & settled
for the next best thing. half moon. 
row of pockmarks. crescent 
on the back of my hand.

the field behind our creek made a universe.

lips of skunk cabbage all flapping
& asking for their tongues back--
nests of grass tangled with each other
like legs after a warm bed. 
green fingers fluttering free in the dirt.
i planted clipped nails & asked them 
to become trees but nothing happened.
wanted part of me to bloom. 
cut my hair in the stream hoping
the stream would turn into hair--
a torrent of strands to be braided.
dipping fingers in the cool clear water
i fished out glossy ripe planets.
i found men the size of mice &
fed them sunflower seeds. tell me 
what you think a universe is made of?
i'm guessing palms or knee caps or
maybe wrists. something capable 
of movement & touch. something capable
of holding. the field would hold me
& tell me secrets in the form of 
bird calls. the field would push
rocks out from her chest-- each 
having once been a heart full of water.
trees fell on their own time
without consideration of gravity--
slow declines the way a child reluctantly 
makes their way into bed. i was a brother 
i was a son i was a daughter i was a
sapling hollowing out. i escaped
all identifiers to be part of the field.
do you remember the moment when
you became aware that the grass is
full of bugs? i was laying 
in the field & men crawled in my hair.
it was gross but i let them because
they had glossy exoskeletons that looked
like they'd taken a long time to make.
i buckle under the smallest of truths.
i have very little i can't be made to
give in to. the field knew this 
& told me i should be a firmer creature
but i just laughed & laughed. i just
made slippers of creak water. i just
plucked bird voices from the sky
& turn them into knickknacks. a universe
is something to be folded. something 
that could or does own a crease. 
when i left i would fold four times--
one across the length of the stream
& another fold down the middle.
place the field & all under my tongue 
where i'd try to pray it into 
a pearl but instead it became glossy 
calcite. a sharpening. the grass 
like thin daggers & the water a flowing
of shards. how a universe might also
be something to be changed. how the terrain 
asked me again & again to leave &
even the men crawled out of my hair.
i have scars on my fingers 
from tearing at that ground.

i hear carousel apples in the window

with all their mush & their laughing.
this means november is coming 
heavy as wet leaves. 
carousel apples are perfect 
for applesauce you know?
put them to sleep 
with the rest of the children
in the crock pot & wait
a whole day to return to them.
i haven't eaten applesauce 
in a long time but i think about it often--
think about how at school lunch 
they would sprinkle a bit of cinnamon 
on top of a styrofoam bowl of applesauce
& how its sweetness would hurt my teeth.
plastic spoon to mouth. how 
every single memory is about eating.
my mom kept the little cups 
in the same drawer as fruit cocktail.
aluminum foil lid pulled back.
i would press my tongue to the surface
imagining drinking from a great lake
of applesauce. but, 
back to those carousel apples--
they crawl like mice into my apartment.
i run my fingers across their bumpy skin 
& tell them bed time stories. 
their favorite one is about how 
for a few years of middle school 
i was obsessed with baking a pie 
& entering it in the county fair.
i carved all kinds of apples. 
made flakey crusts
& filled them. got sugar underneath
my nails but never entered a pie. the house
filled with pies-- 
so many pies we invited
neighbors to take them. 
the apples like
this story because it is 
a triumph of quantity.
i tuck them into bed with me 
& tell them to be careful 
not to fall off the side
during the night & bruise. i show them
my own bruises from falling 
off the bed at night & they ask me 
what on earth i dream about. i explain 
i don't dream usually 
i just have nightmares.
i eat one of them before bed. i eat
standing up at the counter in the kitchen.
don't worry. they don't mind. 
they're honored to be devoured. 
teeth through skin. 
dull red. white soft flesh.
i swallow piece by piece. eat right through
the middle. seeds buzzing in my chest.
the leftover carousel apples sing.

bubbles float on 9th avenue

above the heads daily foot-track. 
i try to find a source. each moves
like a cradle. like there is something
inside the bubbles that we cannot know 
& it needs to be rocked gentled.
i consider myself inside one of them
because i'm always looking for 
somewhere else to locate my body.
i dream inside matchboxes & Ziploc bags.
i want the wind between the buildings
to be muffled through the bubbles skin.
i am walking towards penn station where 
a train will push my body fast enough
to get home. each rail car a kind
of bubble only without the blink
of rainbow & without the same obvious threat
of rupture. if i linger too long
i'll miss that train & the world will end.
i will become a bubble floating outside
in the july heat. i will beckon 
people walking by. i plot along,
using the curb as a sidewalk & passing by
people will less urgency in their gate.
other people are briefly considering
the bubble though no one tries
to pop one & no one tries to fit themselves
inside one. i think about how brave
a bubble is in new york city's movements.
i want to buy bubbles. just one little tube
with the wand in the lid. i think about
sitting on the porch with my brother
in july. suds on my fingers. blowing carefully
so as to make as large bubbles as possible.
us grabbing them like clear fruit as if
we could teach the bubbles to be solid.
i reach up to one of the bubble on the street. 
the cars shout at each other in their 
metal throats. everything is touching shoulders
& then there's these bubbles. as if there
is nothing to be bothered about. i have
to hold one. i have to. i am a short man.
i am a small man in all of this. sweat blooms 
along my forehead. i strain. i want to graze
the bottom of the bubble but it sneaks just
out of my touch. i have to keep moving
so i do & i don't look back but i invent 
a version of the story where i touched the bubble
& it did become solid. a sphere of glass.
that i pocketed that sphere & took it home
to release it in the parking lot
behind our apartment where no one ever walks.
maybe a part of me was cruel. maybe i wanted
the bubble to be lonely like i was or maybe
i wanted to keep it for company.
maybe those are both the same thing. 

family of stickers 

my great aunts would get stickers 
in the mail & save them for me. 
like having two grandmothers.
their cloud-like hair. 
their pink painted mouths.
stickers with portraits of
carnations. red. yellow. orange. roses. 
rippling american flags.
running horses. a miniature square
of beach 
complete with three shells &
a starfish. stars. trees.
what word can i use
to explain an image so common 
that it means nothing & everything.
that's what these stickers were.
an image repeated 
five to a row.
each time we'd visit they'd present
the stickers to me. sheet after sheet.
some wearing shiny silver edges.
they'd hold the sheet up 
to the dim light of the dining room. 
our thin pink reflections 
in boarders.
red table clothe. portraits
of relatives on every end table
some of them framed in silver.
the big bay window showering
the stickers with light. 
i wanted to make family of stickers.
i would go alone with my stickers  
in their big house. alone to peel
the first one off a sheet.
how carefully i'd work
peeling corner up first--
watching the slice of image 
pull free from its adhesive surface 
before planting it on a patch
of my own skin. maybe the back
of my hand. sometimes looking
in the bathroom mirror i would
place one on each cheek
staring at myself a moment or two
before removing the stickers.
the sticking to skin & the tug
of hair as each was removed.
what did these fragments 
mean to me? were they part of
my body? did i want
to crawl into one of their
clear scenes. an urge for simplicity.
to be contained in just one chamber.
in the rec room we would all sit
& listen to the aunts talk.
their words rippled over me
as if gazed into the sheets
of stickers. i should have offered 
it to them as well. i should have
put stickers over their eyes 
& on their cheeks. they also 
probably dreamed of those landscapes.
what stories they told?
those are gone now but i could
still take their bodies
& press them into a sheet
of stickers. repeat my great aunts 
across a sheet. their faces.
their hands. their mouths.
their bodies as flowers.
maybe a pink rose or even 
a field of lavender. 
running horses. 
a rippling flag. 

all you ever need is a cardboard box 

all day people tell me they miss me
& i turn into a vase of poppies.
i should ask them what they mean but
instead i go visit the ruins of my old houses.
holograms of rooms i used to live. 
here is a video of the past standing
tall & shimmering. a poppy's face 
can make an excellent bowl
to drink from. after you leave somewhere 
it is best to knock the whole thing down 
so that your ghosts can bloom up like mist.
when i leave this city what will i do?
there's too much stone. in the attic
of my parents house my brother & i would
build cities from card board boxes.
i would tell him that everything
a person could ever need is a cardboard box.
i filled a box with blankets &
crawled inside. imagined a kitchenette
in the corner. imagined cutting a window.
the road outside becomes carpet & so
i leave my shoes on the curb.
i walk barefoot like i'm preparing
my own body for a funeral. 
what do i mean by ruin? i mean wilting 
& i mean buckling. there's a crooked pipe
sticking out of the ground where there
used to be a house. i tell them i haven't
gone anywhere. that i'm just becoming
more murky--that i'm just possibly 
made of more & more water. they stick
their fingers in me. i'm yes a pond.
i'm yes a kind of 
dripping. there are ruins
of ancient cities. there are fallen
pillars on their sides like torsos.
there are words carved into stone
broken like bread. i'm eating stone.
i say yes, i'm right here-- 
will you hold onto
one of my endings? & it is a metal 
wind-up bird & it flutters in 
their hands. if nothing else 
i want a cardboard box to fill
with cut flowers-- all sideways
& distressed. all of them poppies.
all of them missing myself. i miss
myself too which is what people mean
when they tell me they miss me.
the truth is friend, that no one 
at all has told me they miss me.
do they miss my arches? do they want
a good slab to stand under?
i am going to knock over the vase
myself & there will thank god
be a flowing. which sounds like
a flowering but is not at all 
a flowering. i am deflowering 
the city. i am replacing each 
building with cardboard. i am 
replacing each memory i've ever had
with an empty vase. i could
crawl inside if i wanted but
then everyone could see me. 

a single leaf 

i make the first tear down
the middle of the leaf, right along
the little spine. i steal them from
bushes by the red brick apartment complex 
up the street. i like to walk & consider
all the people coming in & out of their 
dwelling places. i wonder if any of them
pull leaves from these bushes. if they also 
like the texture. i promise i'm not 
a destructive person but that's not
entirely true. if i could i would 
probably break more glasses-- steal them
like leaves from the high shelf 
& toss them out the window. for a split second
i could make believe they were birds 
& somewhere between the ground & the ledge
they would flap & save themselves. there is
a lot of falling going on. i count the ledges
in my house. i tear the leaves until 
there's nothing left to tear. flecks
of green scattered on the sidewalk. 
i tell the bush i'm sorry that this 
is just something i need right now.
to feel this injury. to consider 
my own spine & how thin it could be
if i were to one day grow from a 
feeble branch. if i were to one day 
shutter in the november wind waiting
for the warmth of fingers pressed 
down on me. would i expect care? 
would i expect laceration? i do this.
i do. i sit & i hope to be torn apart.
i pick a porch & become a knot of mums.
i call the numbers of old lovers & 
hang up before they can answer.
i imagine their fingers around their phones
as if ready to rip them apart. the leaves 
produce a sticky residue. blood i think
feeling guilty. i think of my own 
blood & wish it was green.  
wish it were less so that 
i would make less mess. wish there were
men hiding in the bushes 
for me to reach in & hold in 
my hand. wish they would tell me
to injure them kindly & i would show
them just where to tear me in return.
we come apart symmetrically
just like leaves. i search the bushes 
& no one waits there so i climb.
i sing my apologies to the plant.
to tell the plant to 
hurt me if it wants but it 
does nothing. let's the wind 
trace a finger across each limb.
i ask the wind to touch me the same
& it does.