girl / sleepover/ locker room/ birthday

we're pouring foundation 
into medicine cups to drink.
mirage of grape as purple as a pupil
can be while still being a camera lens.
there's something to be swallowed
in each pigment. there's a bag of
makeup in the bakery & each cookie
is a cake of eye shadow. we rub
macaroons on our eyelids & gingersnaps
in the crease. we take small spoons 
instead of brushes & we contour our faces
to look more like plates ready
to hold a nice breakfast. a fork
scraped across an eye shadow palette
a fork ringing between teeth. there was
a sensation of cherry & she asked 
if i had ever done this with a girl before
& i said no & she told me to try
to hold my face still while she traced
the circumference of each eye. 
ice skating rink.
soup bowl. place-setting. 
she painted symmetrical black wings & my eyes 
called like crows so loud that i woke up
my parents & had to hide in the hall closet
with her & all the mis-matched towels.
some people paint their face like
a door knob. 
some people paint their cheek bones
like saucers. 
i have tea cups under my tongue.
she takes her thumb & rubs it under my eye 
to remove the black smudge. she is gentle.
she has nails. she wants to make 
a whole china set out of me complete 
with napkins. 
another girl folds herself
& lays in my lap & i fold myself & lay
in another girl's lap & there's a whole
bathroom full of girls 
& we're getting ready
for who knows what. it might be prom
or a wedding or we're all escaping or 
it's a dinner party & they're going 
to serve the entree on our noses.
i practice holding my breath. i practice 
holding my eyes closed for a brush. 
i take a knife & smear butter across
my friend's forehead just like she 
asked me to do. we're a cluster
of dinner rolls 
& when we're pulled apart
there will be steam & sweet air.
i tug on an elbow a cheek a jaw.
i tell them to make me into 
something worthy of devouring.

on air 

underneath the earth
i used to work for a radio station
& we'd take a metal elevator 
to sink deeper into the dirt
to dig for microphones. shovel to
coal. a black chamber for smearing
our fingers culling for a good
wire to start with. we could feel
the listeners call in as the tunnel shook
with wanting-- as their questions 
burned in our throats like matches 
had been struck against our tongues.
someone told me when i was small
that i had the voice of a radio &
so i followed it this far & i practice 
my voice in the elevator with that other
people who have shows to broadcast.
we never talk to each other--
we talk over & over & over 
competing for the boldest sound
in the shaft. no one listens to radio
anymore so we have to talk to ghosts
& rocks. surprisingly the rocks are
usually the ones with questions.
they ask who are you?
who gave you a tongue?
what kind of stone did you use
for your teeth?
i respond a piece of word
it dropped from a cloud
limestone & slate.
on a bad day i might just talk into
the microphone & pretend i'm alone
in a room with my dad
& i tell him i want him 
to tune in-- to put this head
to the floor of the earth & 
ask me question after question 
about my life. who doesn't want to 
be the subject of an interview?
i press the microphone into 
the skin of my arm,
the tops of my feet-- i feel
the texture of that mesh before
re-burying the device.

a family tree in wax 

we all buy wax lips
& compare flavors. yours taste like
cherry & mine taste like metal & 
maple syrup. dad won't tell us 
what flavor his are & he puts
them in his mouth right away
chewing the hunk of mouth.
thick & candy red.
everyone seems to have a pair today 
as we walk through a buzzing field
& i'm jealous because i like to be
original. i wanted to be the only ones
with these today. skunk cabbage 
chirp with august & the birds
are wearing wax lips & the fish
in the stream are wearing wax lips.
this has to be a joke. my father chews 
this whole time & so he doesn't talk 
which is why i think he's chewing
in the first place. my brother & i
look great with our lips & 
i think of boys i will kiss when 
i'm older & i wonder if he thinks of girls.
we stare straight into the sun just like
no one is supposed to. our mouths wilt. 
god with his pot of boiling wax 
works all night & all day to 
keep enough candles perched 
on the face of the sun, replacing them
as they flicker out. he lets his son
blow out the whole thing when night comes
& he uses the leftover wax for lips 
& bottles full of sugary juice. in fact,
just about everything i love is made of wax.
i kiss the back of my hand.
i eat a handful of grass. the birds 
kiss the branches they're perched on
& the trees themselves bloom with the same
lush lips. i ask them their flavors
& everyone talks at once except 
for our father who crouches down in the water
& lets the moss caress his features.
he wants to be cool & smooth. he wants to escape
the desire to melt & meanwhile his sons
are out in the heat losing their tongues
to the trill of insects & the needs 
of birds. i never intended to 
taste like this. what flavor? my brother
asks me again & now i have to say 
raspberry & yogurt & yes blood & he agrees
he tastes metal too & we wonder aloud
if our grandfather also tasted metal 
& if our parents taste metal
& if our cousins taste metal
& if our aunts taste metal.
we know we should take the lips off
but instead we walk into town
to parade them-- to show off
our mouths. everyone tells us 
we practically look like twins & we grin
on the inside because all we have 
are lips. at home when we finally take them off
the house is still full of the sound
of gnashing & chewing &
so we join in & put our whole mouths
inside out whole mouths 
& devour.

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.