i lied, i don't need a house 

i tell you what i want is
picture frames so we go walking through
the craft store to the back where the frames bloom
in all shapes: circle square triangle 
octagon rhombus. wracks of frames
to walk through. i decorate spaces 
with thumb tacs & i tell you i want 
something more permanent. i want everything 
bordered. i want to make countries 
out of my possessions-- out of myself.
we step through picture frames & pretend
they're each a doorway into a new dimension 
where we are less poor & living somewhere
without a cold winter. sometimes i mistake you
for my father. you look nothing alike 
but you serve the same purpose. someone for me
to want to be closer to. i want a frame
for my father-- a circle for him to 
curl up in & sleep. i safe way for me
to point him out to guests. we're out here
pretending i have a house to decorate.
i'm living inside a frame. there are ones
with gold leaf wrapped around wood.
there are shadow boxes  with depth 
to contain a whole crop of baby shoes.
but i'm looking for a frame made of bone.
four femurs perfectly aligned. i want
to use my own. i want to slip them 
out of my skin but i only have two
i will need yours as well
then we can live in the frame together 
& take turns hanging on the wall
in the living room. everyone i know
lives in such small spaces. 
i want to make a gallery of them 
& explain the details of their
glossy eyes. i'll do it while you're 
asleep then. you won't feel it--
if anything you'll feel the peace
that shapes offer. the symmetry.
i'll frame everything i own. kitchen implements.
books. fingernails. hats. floss. 
inside i'm a very formal person. i crave order.
i crave nails in the wall. i leave
my bed out on the curb & replace it
with a picture frame. my desk with a picture frame.
come visit me here & see me wrapped 
in gold leaf. i am a thin layer 
of precious. i am hanging a portrait of
a father at the end of the hall.
something to always be walking towards.
keep hammers all around the apartment.
yes i lied i don't have a house. hammers around
the apartment in case something 
crawls out of place. i'm buying the tinniest frames
for each fly carcass. for each finger.
for each miniature desire.

my brother turns 20 & i put on a dragon suit 

i'm in the back yard wearing a dragon suit
made out of whatever dragons are made of:
aluminum foil & rust. it's someone's
birthday & i know this only because the sky
in ripe & emerald-- ready to be eaten.
i too feel ready to be eaten. what kind of food
do you eat when you want to feel 
made of sugar? there are sculptures 
of dragons all along the roof of a mouth.
the kids are the size of jupiter beetles.
the kids are running & unstoppable. what is a 
dragon to do? i could eat them yes
but humans taste like mint. the truth is
i'm only ten years old & the green is laughing
at me all around for being so young 
& so wary of grease & bruises. i'm hear 
to be fought. the children shout
kill the dragon & brandish their guns.
point blank. the parents don't want there 
to be any chance the birthday boy misses.
i have bullet shells for teeth. i have a brother
turning three years younger than me.
nothing haws ever been auto-biographical
after all i'm a dragon not a brother.
will they chew shreds of the metal?
will they cut their mouths?
yes it is true it's just a suit but 
i can feel the dragons when i wear it--
i can fell their thrashing & their
need to cut clouds in half with scissors.
the truth is no one should ever have to grow up.
i breathe fire & by fire i mean i breathe 
knots of hair. i lay on my back & wait
for my brother to be as old as me &
me to be as old as him-- no i mean 
for me to be older & older & older.
i walk outside in the dragon suit & i tell strangers 
that it is someone's birthday. none of them
give me presents because everyone is selfish
or maybe someone they know's birthday is today too.
sometimes when i dress up like a dragon i believe
it might be better this way. i could
eat the voices of crowds. i could live under the tree
in the back yard & wait for it to turn to icing.
autumn is snapping its fingers in my throat.
i am cold & wrapped in metal. i chained myself
to the dirt for authenticity. the children
are smacking the daytime moon 
for candy. i hope they 
feed me some. 

self portrait as particles

i don't want to get caught in the filter
with the rest of the tap water & the taste
of the algae lingering in each pipe. 
i'm collecting myself in sediment-- the smallest
particles. here are the flecks of 
of my body meandering till they remember
they can become rock. everything comes back
to sand & stone. i dig to figure out how far down
this surface goes until i hit a solid hard sheet.
in this lifetime i am captured. a net of fish
being pull from a sewer drain. a whole knot
of thrashing. in my hand i tried to separate 
grains of sand from each other-- tried to hold
just one in my palm by they cluster in groups.
in the cupboard i could be a wonderful 
fragment of rice. i could hush as i fell 
onto myself with the bodies of all the others.
there is something miniature in me.
i want you to 
reach your hand in & tell me what 
you hear. is there grinding or pouring
or a mixture of both? i take a box cutter
to a stream of water & slice. i let the water
bleed copper & red. there are pipes carrying 
sand back to the ocean. there are beaches 
of rice, warm & supple to the touch.
my foot prints themselves become
oatmeal & i fill a bowl. how all these grains
where once a field were once 
a seed. there is wavering here.
i want jars for all this. if i am 
detained in the end-- don't try to find me.
take your box & shift in the river
for gold instead. reach your hand 
in the mud & the clay. i turned the faucet on
& gravel came out so i filled a glass 
& drank. what will they build with
my freckles when everything else 
is just as buzzing? i'm purchasing
tupperware to be kept in. a rain stick 
flips over & sings. the sound of nails 
falling off a wall. the sound of fingernails
dissolving in a strong breeze. not 
disposable but disperse-able. fill my pockets 
with wheat. the space under my tongue
a silo stocked for winter. i am holding
it together. i promise into another phone.
i am holding steady i say with my mouth 
slipping down the drain. when you drink water
i hope you don't have to taste me.
if you do, know that i am green & i am 
trying to remember.

canoes in the dark 

the cars on the road out side my house 
become canoes in the dark. gliding bodies
through the dark water. i wasn't thinking 
about drowning i promise, no i was thinking
about a lake growing inside my throat the way
a tulip bulb might bloom-- arms thrown wide
& lips dislodging themselves from an owner.
i consider singing to the canoes but 
my reflection peels free of me-- slipping
out of sight. a cockroach of an animal.
i have been trying to catch her for years--
press a pin into her chest & call her 
a specimen. the clouds up there are 
brothy & golden. oh street lamps 
craning your necks-- is there something
you search for each night on the sidewalk 
or is it shadow you're interested in.
it is easy to forget you loved anyone
when the wind it wild & tossing leaves 
like blank letters. there are puddles left over
from the storm yesterday & i press my hand
into one to feel that coolness-- 
the water before it shifts into ice.
i am a brave human for not getting in
a canoe & drifting as far away from here
as i could. will the desire to escape 
every leave me? how far away from here
could i move & still dream of other 
beds floating on other planets. the moon 
has a tongue tonight & she uses it
to lick the salt from the sidewalk. 
i bend down to kiss her ankles
& the bracelets there are damp 
like the dew mess grass. i could call anyone
& tell them to come look at the migration
of canoes-- could even tell them to 
fall into one with me & undress
in that swaying. but i want to watch
the boats by myself. sadness is impossible
& yet always dripping. the lake spewing 
feathers. the lake with rocks 
on all the sides. i cough on it
& spit out algae in strands. webs of green.
what do other people do when they 
out into the night? do they, like me,
walk the same paths they've cut into 
their town or do they step into the water 
& drown gracefully before 
a canoe scoops them up & cradles.
back in my room i shake the water
out of both of my eyes & out comes 
fish scales & salt. the moon huge
in the window. wants to come inside
is climbing in a canoe. pleads with me
to escape.

bus tour 

the double-decker buses in manhattan 
are getting taller. a new level 
is added each day. now they're almost the size 
of sky scrapers. 
i noticed this only faintly
on my walk to work 
until a bus-tour sales person 
places a pamphlet in my hand 
& tells me i have to get on board--
tells me i want to go somewhere. 
i listen to her because this morning
every mirror i've looked in 
was fun house;
my skin turning liquid in its own reflection.
i look at my reflection 
on the bus windows. i am slivers. i am 
murky. a lava lamp of a man. oozing.
i climb aboard 
& the bus is full of ghosts 
just like everywhere i've gone recently.
i'm not a ghost but everyone else is.
i should have gone 
to work but then again
even my building might turn into a bus
by the end of the day. 
we're all infected 
with touring. we want to tour our own lives.
everyone on this ride has a backpack 
but we don't remember why. 
the sound of
zippers slithering open. are there snakes
in our mirrors. 
i climb the stairs taller
& taller until i get to the very top 
of the bus. dipped in cloud. 
i remember being very small 
& traveling to the city on a class trip--
i was disappointed that i
never saw a double-decker bus 
& look at me now--
living on one. the bus is moving though we're 
too high up to see where. our tongues
wriggle out of our mouths to become
the snakes they always wanted to be. 
i laugh viciously knowing i didn't call in sick
knowing that no one will noticed till
the end of the day that i didn't arrive. 
the buildings are full of working. my fingers 
are full of working & the bus waivers like 
a stop sign in the wind. all the while
the tour guide gives us the history 
of the world, starting with prehistory.
he describes the dinosaurs 
who might have lived in new york city 
& in doing so some of them
wake up. they break out 
from under the asphalt.
i watch them from the window & i'm convinced
they're not just breaking out of the street--
they're bursting 
from under my skin. we are 
soft creatures. we are easily climbed.
i imagine walking to the top of every single 
building in the city just 
to collect jars of cloud. 
i tell the bus i want to leave
& to my surprise it listens 
& lets me off
on some corner. 
people are pushing past me
to climb into the bus. 
the buildings are
wilting like cut flowers 
& so there's 
nothing left to do but find a nice place
to sit down. 
stare up at the clouds
& watch the buses drive through them.

routine with toe bones & pacing. 

sometimes i waste water on purpose, leave 
the sink running all day long. it's like
spilling lake after lake. we had a project
in elementary school about conserving water
where we were supposed to tell our families
to take shorter showers. to check for 
leaky faucets. i told my brother to hold up
his hand & i noticed all the leaks
between each bone. this is the same for me--
for everyone in my family. shedding water.
puddles on the carpet & droplets 
on the kitchen floor. no i don't actually
leave the sink running. we would have to 
pay for that but in my chest there's a sink
that's pouring out. i twist the handle to try
& make it shut but no-- the knobs don't work.
there's overflowing. there's drowning.
as part of my routine i try to screw
all my bones back into place. i start
with my feet, holding one high in the air.
in the closet, my father has steel toe boots
& i put them on to go stomping 
on the ceiling. it helps to wake me up.
i am a metal storm cloud. i am grey 
& dripping. i don't know if we're geysers
or wells but each of my family members 
has always looked like somewhere to fall into.
i keep an inflatable life raft in the cupboard.
i fill the steel toe boots with water
& drink out of them. i am always the first one
awake. i can spill my water in peace. 
in school they told us we're running out
of water & i wondered if one day 
i would turn on the faucet in the bathroom
& nothing but bones would come out.
i decided to not drink water until 
my bones stopped aching with rust. 
i drank water from my father's knuckles.
this morning i will still count
the bones in my feet-- pressing gently 
on the surface as if my feet are 
tide pools. ecosystems of wanting.
i drink water all day. some rooms i own
are full to the brim. my feet go flipper.
my feet leak a whole sea & there are
starfish in my joints. i scale the wall
of a boot & climb inside. nothing can
break my feet here. i am safe 
& filling up fast with water.
i guess what i've been wanting 
is someone to tell me that the water
isn't real-- to let go & fill the whole
apartment. to let myself wake up
on the ceiling. i want a lover to
hand my feet to so she or he or they
can count the bones for me. 

surplus 

i go with my brother to try on helmets
at the flea market. there are several stalls
dedicated just to army supplies & flipped upside down
the helmet look like they could easily be used
as bowls to fill with fruit-- even fake fruit. 
there are emblems i don't recognize & he lists 
the different associations & the wars & the regiments.
i pick one up & they're heavy & metal. i knock 
on the top as if it were a skull. a metal skull.
god give me a metal skull. we fill the helmets 
with our own fruit. my head is a peach & 
my brother's is a pear. we both bruise 
but my brother is sickly sweet & leaking 
on the concrete floor. the table nearby is 
covered with medals. he shifts through them
while i stand up straight wearing my helmet.
i want to buy the helmet & take it home--
learn more about what it might mean for 
my head to be inside it. i ask my brother
if these were used in battle & he says 
they're mostly surplus. leftovers.
there are still leftovers here from vietnam 
& world war two & even world war one--
which is what my brother searches for. 
there are no dead soldier's ghosts. these are
the soldiers still waiting happen, laying dormant 
inside protective gear, listening for 
another call. more boys come & try on helmets.
one boy knocks on the other boy's head.
my brother picks out medals for us 
& pokes two into his skin, the pear
juice dripping & sweet. i ask him
why he's doing that & he says we needs
to pin himself down in time. it's easy to feel
unmarred in the flea market. a stall over
they're selling the pelts of hunted animals.
two stalls over in a circus of vinyl records.
at the far end of the market there's a room
full of sequin dresses. i want to wear 
a sequin dress with my helmet. preferably teal 
or another color too loud to be real.
i don't tell my brother this. it's the kind of desire
you should swallow. he presses medals 
into my skin too. we are seeping syrup.
we are sweet boys. we are going to war one day
in not that long in a small town where the sun
is just rind & no flesh. helmet full of grapes.
helmet full of apples. helmet full of
juice/ blood. there are empty grenades for sale.
just test ones. incapable of destruction.
soft as hand fruit. we grasp them tight
just to fill our helmets with them.

on falling 

they dropped ants off the top of a skyscraper
on this tv show i was watching.
none of them broke. each fell softly like
dandelion tufts. little ambling seeds.
i want to know that kind of falling &
if it's possible in this body. 
in middle school i did similar experiments,
first with army men. opening the window a crack
& encouraging them to take the leap. 
taking risks is admirable, brave even.  
a sign of a good leader. 
there are of course animals 
who jump naturally; lemmings & humans
& i think i've seen an image of buffaloes
tumbling from the side of a mountain like boulders, 
though for the human it is less natural 
& more of a throbbing impulse. the bridge
is covered with army men & ants.
the ants are descending without harm.
there's some bridge in france where dogs 
leap off the side without warning. 
an ant can fall from any height without harm.
i have known men like that but we are not
one of them. the bed rooms in my parent's house
were all on the second floor until my brother
moved into the attic. we pried open 
the window screen up there so we could
drop stuffed animals from that high up.
we'd pause to hear the thack as they hit
the driveway below. none of them died.
this whole summer i harvested ants--
collecting them in mason jars & feeding them
sugar water. i told them i needed them
i told them we were going to try something
& last night i crawled up on the roof
of my apartment, just like an ant & 
i did not jump off it but i did pour 
the ants out. i did pretend 
i was one of them.
that silk plummet. the air & the ground 
indistinguishable from each other. 
six twitching legs & whirling antennae.
if i wanted to i could have press my finger
down on each of the ants & flattened them 
into smudge. but falling yes that is something
i need more practice with. i would 
sit on the ledge of my windowsill. dangle my legs.
i would turn into an ant before falling.
no i wouldn't fall i would light matches 
& drop them. no i wouldn't do that either
i would imagine dropping heavy
like a bucket of water. scattered & 
irreconcilable. seeping into the earth.
i told the ants to pretend to be snow  
as they fell. i fall into bed like
a night of grey. i fall into morning
like a scattered shower. damp grass &
the quiet ambling of the ants i dispersed.

a list of public bathrooms

the pink bathroom soap is blooming
between my fingers somewhere in a public place
where other men line up against a wall
& don't make eye contact with each other.
i find comfort in the idea of a peninsula,
how a mass of land can be one leg away 
from an island. sometimes i miss particular 
bathrooms. there was the women's room
in the bottom of my college library-- 
how it was long & wore white tiles & best of all
how no one else was hardly ever there. 
the pink bubbling soap told stories 
about dirt & its desire to make pure
each fingernail. the pink soap climbs wrists 
& asks where the smudges came from. 
i also miss the stalls in this restaurant 
in king of prussia-- how each was a tiny room
with walls the went all the way to the floor.
there's something about the way a stall
isn't really a stall-- how your feet
& your ankles betray you. i want to be
far far out on the tip of a piece of land.
i want the ocean full of nothing but
pink soap. the smell of sanitation. i want
a sanitary body for once. in the bathroom 
every body is a statue. in the bathroom 
all men become singular. the mirror is not
a mirror but a temptation. that small lock
on the stall door. the slick tile floors.
the only thing pink is the soap 
& of course me. if i'm looked at wrong
i lather-- the foam between fingers 
between town under tongue & teeth.
it is a project to stay clean here. 
i imagine myself building land with
bucketfuls of dirt. a place to walk out 
farther. i steal the mirrors from bathrooms
to make the ocean-- one single smooth surface.
where do you go to preen? men never 
fix themselves. men can never be alone.
in a public bathroom i sit in a stall
trying to find alone. a place to exist
& the pink soap is gushing from dispensers 
& trying to find me. i'm clean i promise.
i shower everyday & i even scrub my feet.
crawl into the bathroom sink 
& let the automatic water work me. 
is the lighting good in your favorite bathrooms?
i like a place to take pictures of myself.
white wall. tile floor. parch each cuticle 
in the hand dryer. wipe palms on my pants.
i like a place where no one can see
just how much pink we're dealing with here.
at the far end of the island there are 
surely bathrooms. all kinds of them.
each home with a bathroom & a sink & a window 
with grey clouds peering in & looking
for the hope. we are all very beautiful
in pink. we all her reflects in our 
finger nails even though they are small
& ghost like. 

pineapple greek yogurt 

i ate greek yogurt 
every day my senior year of high school.
i stood at the counter or at the edge 
of the tan kitchen table 
piled with coupons & bills & college mail
& i took a too-large spoon & dipped the utensil 
into the white smooth surface. i can't remember
a single thing that happened though i remember 
skeletons & how i took inventory of my bones 
laying on the floor of my bedroom-- how my boyfriend
would press his pelvis too hard against mine--
our clothing still on-- we were wrestling something.
i think of how quickly the leaves came down
that year & how one after noon i stood at
the end of the driveway trying to catch
all the yellow ones. the fruit on the bottom
of the plastic cup was bright pineapple
dressed in syrup. i was always hungry 
for greek yogurt. i bought it with tips
from the malt shoppe. i bought it with change
i harvested from the stomach of the laundry machine.
i was standing on the ceiling one night.
i was not in love with him anymore 
but i wanted to be. i had friends i think
& one of them had a pond behind her house
where we stood & watched the seasons 
spill over each other. i read frankenstein
in his basement & cried for the monster
with a spoon in my mouth eating greek yogurt
or maybe i made that up & maybe i was crying
for something else. the ceiling in his basement 
was made of those white speckled panels
& i wanted to push one up & crawl into
the walls of his house. he kept greek yogurt
in his fridge for me & i should remember
this as kindness. i'm stirring from 
the bottom. the sourness of the plain yogurt
& the sweetness of the bright fruit. 
somewhere the fruit grew & the sun was 
a round blood orange. i hurt myself though 
i can't pin-point why. i would take a match
& blow it out before pressing it into my skin.
a garden of round scabbed seeds. i think i told myself
it was because i was greedy. i lived a dipping
of spoons because it wasn't loving like
i was supposed to. what was 
wrong with me? when asked what the marks were
i explained they were a reaction to a lotion
an accident from baking
a rash spreading
i'm not sure i'm not sure.
he moved his hand across them & i pretended 
to be a layer of flat white yogurt to be
dipped into. i told him 
to take the spoon
& stir me.