karate belt ceremony 

1.
bare feet & toe nails
soles smudged 
feet on the ceiling 
on the walls all trying
to remain still reminding 
the other feet that this is real
this is serious making 

2.
wooden boards breaking above
everyone's heads like
a flock of geese almost
managing to cut a cloud in half

3.
tea lights
each the captured ghost 
of a red belt who never made
it that last step to black

4.
a mythology about honor
& children trying to step
into the word 
trying to make sense 
of what honor could
mean in a strip mall dojo 
on a summer night 

5.
insects watching in 
the window & singing for bravery
for the children tying knots
around their wastes

6.
parents taking pictures 
as if they might find that exact
moment where their child becomes
something more than soft

7.
girls with pony tails
girls with pixie cuts
girls with boy fists 
and fists with boy names

8.
long mirror stretched across
the far wall where everyone looks
at themselves-- startled by
the uncanny occasional of 
watching two rooms full of the same people.

9.
each person with their 
separate desires to be alone 
with the mirror-- to practice 
a kata in it with no one
else watching as if to haunt 
the expanse if the dojo all alone

10.
wondering if there should
be prayer-- if this 
is the kind of place for talking
to any god or if ceremony 
is something different all together

11.
fingers & placing them 
on the blue matted ground

12.
a dragon behind the glass

13.
a dragon under the mat

14.
bare feet & removing old belts
like the skins of snakes
an apology
being to small to ask
what does this mean?

15.
what does this mean
out the window 
the Dunkin Donuts & Ritas signs
loom & stain something sacred 
that we could feel getting so close 

16.
putting on shoes with no socks
sitting in the car quiet
clenching both fists 
uniform still tied
a tea light in back of throat 

dog tree

a boy with two dogs the size of jelly beans
all wriggling in his hands.
he cups them as if the dogs were a toad
trying to maneuver themselves free 
of his clasp. he tells them to hold still
or they will fall from very high up.
they are pink & almost look edible.
the boy thinks of gummy worms &
wonders if there is someone whose 
job it is to dig them out of the ground.
the boy found the dogs somewhere he can't tell.
he doesn't think his mom will let
him keep them. he tells them stories about himself
that no one else as heard-- about 
how when he's hungry he digs onion grass
from the yard & chews on that instead &
how he wants to grow up to be a dragon. 
the dogs try to sleep
crying lightly to themselves.
they must have lost something
he thinks. he imagines a burning dog house
with dead dog parents. then he wonders
if he stole the dogs from their families 
if by plucking them from the grass
he took them away from everyone they loved.
you are going to love me like i love you 
he says which is what all of us have said.
the dogs lay on top of each other.
the boy wishes he were one of two 
instead of just one. 
he walks into the grass which
is growing thick & tall & full of mosquitoes.
he tells the dogs that he wants 
to show them everything
to be a good parent to them.
he feeds them chocolate nonpareils 
broken down into smaller pieces 
so that they'll fit in the dog's mouths.
they become the first dogs ever
to develop a tolerance for chocolate.
the boy searches the ground for quarters 
until he has enough to by potted plants 
at the market for spring. he tells the tiny dogs
to choose but they still have their eyes shut
so he picks three hyacinths.
he presses the dogs to the flowers 
& tells them to smell how sweet.
the dogs don't grow up. they stay jelly bean size 
& at night the boy puts them in a jar 
so that he can sleep. they scale the walls 
like insects. he wants dogs-
two of them because that's all a boy needs
are his dogs. boys & their dogs. dogs & their boys. 
the boy gets older & less patient 
he gives the dogs an ultimatum
that they have to grow up this week or
he will plant them in the dirt
with his flowers. the flowers mutter among themselves.
the dogs don't grow up & the boy tells himself
i will not cry i will not cry 
as he holds the dogs in his hands.
he must have done something wrong.
no. there must be something wrong with them.
when they sleep their little legs move
as if they're running
as if they're imagining themselves older.
the boy worries he dreams like that.
he doesn't want to be stuck like
his dogs. he follows through on his word
& uproots two hyacinths to bury the dogs
pressing them down like seeds. their whines get louder.
he hears them whining everywhere he goes
like the world has walls full of the animal's cries.
he says he is sorry but it doesn't help.
eventually he forgets he's supposed to be sad.
the boy finds other interest like
taking handfuls of grass & throwing them. 
from the pot grows a tiny bonsai-sized tree.
the boy considers throwing the tree out
or chopping it down. yes. chopping it down 
would show courage even if he had to use a steak knife
instead of an axe. 
just before he could start the tree start
to bloom with the faces of dogs
not just his dogs but all the dogs.
small pink tiny dogs ripening on the branches.
too late to stop them. he was going to have to 
apologize to all of them. he was going
to have to explain himself.
no he would tell them a different story.
he would say this was all on purpose.
the hyacinths chattered & the boy scowled.
he said shush.

there's a tape recorder in the attic 
i can hear quiet rolling,
the wheels of a flattened vehicle
driving itself into a starburst (pink).
two quick planets beside each other
elbows brushing. 
i'm sure it's up there even though 
i haven't been able to find it 
between the mounds of stuffed animals
& slanted book shelves. 
an attic is where objects go to listen.
there are people whose voices
have un-spooled & become 
nothing but faint impressions 
in the sky, a colony of clouds humming 
with approximations. 
an airplane writes my name up there
& i wish it wouldn't be so flirtatious.
a hum of a gnat
kisses the outside of my ear. 
an article today says they might 
have found Frida Kahlo's voice 
in a trunk 
hidden in someone's basement.
the article didn't say what 
the voice said. 
did she talk about colors?
about art? or did she say something 
mundane like noting the way pieces
of cloud crumble apart & we call it rain. 
the taste of melting caramel.
a few words on hail.
i always imagined her 
with the voice of my first art teacher,
rough like a rose dipped in sand.
the tape recorder is reeling us in
a hook in each tongue.
it wants to write a story
remembering only the words it likes
starting with
okra, McIntosh, help, steam, 
recycling, patience, stop.
its knitting them. one long ribbon 
of our sound. i am careful though
about what i say even if everyone else isn't.
i keep my favorite words under my tongue.
sweet soft pearls.
i wonder if Frida Kahlo did too
if she knew there was a recorder 
walking beneath the walls of every house
& she wrote all the words she loved
into paintings. an image is a word
without the root beer.
i tell myself i should paint.
i have a set of cheap brushes in my closet.
the colors in their paint jars 
burst into petals. i tell the colors
to be still so the recorder doesn't 
catch onto us.
i want to paint something
that means my name. i try feathers
& a half-dead hydrangea bush.
i try sliced green melons 
& sourdough bread. i try medallions
of butter & i start to talk to myself
start to say all the things 
i didn't want recorded
firework forever forget it
i tear apart the attic. i need to find
the tape but i can't. when i press
my ear to the floor i hear
the necks of flowers turning
harvesting vibrations 
the voice of Frida Kahlo laughing
& dipping a paint brush
in her mouth.

24/7 haunted car wash

hose full of blood
& the different spray setting to choose from.
reddish brown beading on the glass 
of my green volvo. 
the smell of metal & cut skin.
crack of thunder even though 
the sky had been clean. 
2 am i come to the haunted car wash off 22
for the sense of dread. 
or maybe i come because 
i had heard the stories but had
to see for myself.
isn't that how it always is?
come enjoy all the monstrous things.
slime oozing from the walls 
of the car wash. 
i am reminded of all the haunted houses.
the spider webs that grew in 
my parent's mirrors,
the knocking inside the walls 
of all my dorm rooms,
the crying in the bath tube at night
where i live now.
sometimes i believe these places
are not haunted at all
but it is me. some sort of magnet 
in my bones that asks the horror
to come out of the everyday.
an apparition asks how old 
my car is & i don't respond
it's best to ignore them.
laughing echoes in the stone tunnel 
of the car wash as i try to find
a setting that will actually make the vehicle shine.
why a car wash anyway?
it's the only place to get clean 
this late at night.
the wax setting comes out as saliva.
at first i wasn't sure but
it reeked of being kissed for too long.
a poltergeist punches my rear view mirrors
& they break perfectly 
fractured webs.
the skeletons crawl out of my trunk
on all fours. the mummy uses his
wrappings to wipe down the windows.
there is a kindness about a haunted place.
so collaborative. 
it makes me wish i were more haunted 
& not just mildly so.
i look at my reflection in the windshield 
& my face changes
i am an old witch. 
i am bloody marry.
i am a chain being rattled.
i am the floor boards creaking
& the door slamming with no one there.
slugs come out of the hose
then bees.
i go to drive away 
& hopefully go back to sleep.
but sleep haunts me
& mock my attempts to step into it.
so tonight i went with
the haunting which is 
better than sleep. 
the trunk is full of taxidermy cats
all of which have eyes 
that follow me back & forth.

the William Tell Act

i balance an apple on my head 
& say shoot
not to anyone in particular 
maybe just to god as he walks
in his steel toe boots 
upstairs in the apartment above us.
it's a party trick 
the William Tell Act
tell a loved one to shoot a fruit off your head.
i'm standing in the kitchen
waiting for my dad to come home
from work
the trick is best played out
between father & son
dad comes home but he's just
a silver can of diet coke
rolling in on the ground.
i crack him open.
he was all shaken up.
fizz flirting with the floor
& i place a melon on my head
something harder to miss.
i sit on a bench in the bus station
& offer my head to passers by.
i gesture
making a finger gun 
to demonstrate how i would like 
to have the fruit knocked off.
people are too busy 
need to come & go come & go.
the doors of the train slide open 
& close a few times as if the metal creature
is chewing.
i get on the train & try smaller fruits 
like clementines & raspberries 
a real challenge for whoever decides 
to play. what is a game
without sugar & danger? 
i ask more strangers. i tell them about 
the trick-- how you have to 
knock the fruit off
how this is best performed 
with other people watching.
how if i die i will have died 
performing a trick & 
that sounds better than natural causes.
this is natural i guess. it involves fruit.
a stranger agrees finally
but only because he hates blueberries.
one small ripe berry almost buried in my hair.
i flinch at loud noises. i lock
to door to my bedroom when i sleep.
adrenaline coming out as lightning.
why do we insist on 
knitting traps for ourselves
to climb into?
sometimes i tell god that 
if he's real he needs to come down
& save me. click of the gun
as he loads it. the stranger 
has bone white fingers & teeth 
made of aluminum foil. the stranger
closes his eyes to take the shot.
aim. gun fires. blue berry smolders 
on the floor. 
rush of disappointment.
did i want him to hit me?
maybe just scrape the corner 
of my face. 
the train pulls into the station. 
i hear it again
god walking in his steel toe boots. 
dad clattering in his can.
i make a note that i shouldn't
shoot cans off the fence
if i ever have a gun.
i eat the rest of the blueberries
& thank the man for shooting.
he asks if i want to
do this again.

Almost Like Feathers 

firecracker ligaments
tearing apart 
the knees of flames 
they run away to the sounds
of men asking for
their shoulders to return
heavy with wings
dead men perching wherever they can 
& telling stories of the bodies
they had once known-- the muscle 
& the tendons
they remember the smallest movements
of an elbow opening & closing
of fingers wrapping around 
the neck of a weed in the yard
i am the boy without a body
who asks them to talk more
who promises them i will die without all the details 
tell me exactly where the dungeons
plucked you till you were nothing but bird-- 
yes i want to see the pieces:
the lesions & the bones
without me even telling it to
my body lays down & begs 
to be stretched tall 
to be pulled until it becomes
a sapling or a heron 
i perch with the men while they 
show me their torn cartilage
they talk in the language of sharks
carry their teeth in a leather pouches
in the bottom of the castle
there is always room for a scream
to be eaten by stone 
i don't watch what the rack does
the knots at the hands & the ankles 
the assistants hoisting the body in
i say to the other men
i am the boy without a body
so what happens doesn't concern me
i can watch 
but i can't the ropes are tied tighter 
& the body wants to get out 
wants to be nothing but feathers 
when i am in pain i often just
think of the image of someone letting go
a whole bag of feathers
from the top of a castle turret--
all different colored feathers
mostly blotchy
i nestle my not-body somewhere 
in their drifting down to the dirt
i am laying down in the dirt 
& letting the feathers fall over my face 
a burial 
the body wanted the stretching 
it needed it
the body told me so 
the body took me down here where
light covers its eyes with its hands
where all the world of other men
stare on & perch counting their talons
i emerge taller 
& i get up 
i tie myself 
in bows-- no just my body ties in bows-- 
my self is somewhere else
spinning & taking my time coming down 
to the soil again
heaven must be our brief encounters 
with flight
i stare at my body with
ligaments torn-- it knows 
the gun powder in joints 
& i tell it to sleep now while 
i walk on the kingdom 
asleep it turns into a pile of lace
which embarrasses in front of 
the dead men 
all of which have their bodies
as lumps of lead or iron or
even gold
i throw the lace from the top
of the highest turret 
& thank god it does drop
almost like feathers

tangle of masks 

i scribble out
tingling knots of graphite 
on the faces of strangers
like we used to do to faces on magazine covers.
the pencil rattling in my hand 
like a lost bone-- a limb from
a long gone mammal that walked 
gracefully on the side of buildings.
i draw stars across my forearms
as a reverse constellation.
black out a tooth. dense eye brows
like two grey caterpillars
inching across a brow.
a pencil truly made of lead
aches in the paint of our old house.
i draw Xs on the entrances to buildings 
that appear unwelcoming & Xs 
on each shoulder as if to 
indicate where the arrow should find me. 
i used to sketch-- try to pull 
a body out of the clutter of 
mirrors & printer paper but
i don't have time for creation.
all the devotion to line & thickness. 
they don't feel the pressure 
as i draw-- tip of the pencil 
starting at the chin & whirling upward
nests of lines calling 
on lead birds to roast. 
this is my tangle of masks i have invented
to navigate the subway. 
i could never handle all 
those eyes so i blacked them out.
i react like that in almost all situations--
pulling the fear impulse as far
as it will take me. 
a whole car full of scratched out
entities. are we human without faces?
of course, yes of course. 
human-ness must be housed 
in the fingers or maybe the ribs.
yes, the ribs, always poorly drawn. 
i don't know if they still 
see me-- maybe they peer through
the thatching & notice another creature.
i scribble out my own face 
so they won't know it was me 
who did this. 
i'm a guilty web. i see words 
in my own nonsense matted 
across their bodies
words like yes & help & no more.
i say yes, yes, no more no
more pencil. furious with me
for being weak the pencil 
snarls & starts to burrow 
in my thigh--
sharpened & eager
i have to grip hard to pull it out.
wipe the gore off & scribble over
the gash. i tell the pencil 
i will try harder. 
in the bathroom i wash the matted lines
off my face. blank. i try my hand
at a nose & a mouth. will add
the eyes tomorrow & them maybe
ears the day after that.
i draw Xs as placeholders for
where those parts will go.
a knot of graphite hits the back window
clattering with the sound 
of a chain link fence.  

a better story of what happened 

i let loose the whole terrarium of snakes 
so that i could ask you to help 
me look for them.
they blend into the carpet--
they press themselves along the walls like molding.
somewhere there is a bucket of sand
being poured & a hushing sound
as it falls almost like a snake hiss
only the snakes stay silent.
i don't remember which ones are poisonous
so we put on dentist gloves--
the blue ones. i open my mouth
& ask you to check for snakes there.
with your fingers inspecting 
i consider biting down. the snakes
tie themselves in bows. the snakes 
eat their own tails & disappear
with a POP!
we still hear the sand as if
we're living in an hour glass--
i stick out a hand-- fingers open 
& i fell the light grains
brush my skin. we're being buried
very gradually so that one day
we'll wake up in complete dark 
& not know how we ended up there.
snakes lay out & pretend
to be windowsills. i tell them 
that i see them & they close their eyes 
as if with eyes shut the rest 
of the world might recede--
everyone has the window of childhood
where you think by closing your
eyes you might be able to turn
off the world. i bought so many snakes
or maybe they found me.
i don't remember the specifics.
i don't want to remember the specifics.
on the phone with my parents
i will probably accidentally tell them 
that i acquired a myriad of snakes
& they got loose. i never mean
to be vulnerable. i close my eyes 
on the phone as if to become
only a voice. i have been talking
as if there's two of us but 
it has just been me this whole time--
haven't you ever divided into thirds?
talked to yourself? 
asked yourself to help you-- to save you?
one of me was bit on the ankle
by a green mamba 
another successfully caught 
a corn snake in a mason jar. 
i ask can it breathe in there?
everything i know about sand is changing.
if i am buried over night with
all my snakes will you call 
all my friends & tell them a better
story of what happened. i have tried
my hand at my own obituary--
i have filled it with the names
of snakes:
garter, black rat snake, cotton mouth,
copper head, boa.
i tell the snakes i'm giving up
on finding them-- that they need 
to come out & they all come out 
at once, slowly, as if they were dripping
tongues tasting my blood
in the air. i open my mouth &
gesture for them to come inside 
& they listen, they are good snakes
despite what other people will say.

all my softness

they handed us each a sapling 
& told us
to go find somewhere to plant.
spread roots--
a matrix of legs dangling.
i was so cold & we bought tea
from a triangle cut out
of the grey horizon. 
the sapling calling me
father & me telling the young
tree to go back to sleep--
to go sleep forever where 
it's quiet & you never need anything. 
we drank plastic cups 
of sweet Hi-C:
orange texture tributaries
leaking between teeth.
erosion of the tall mountains. 
cubes of sugar a drift in our blood--
a system of life rafts. 
i asked the sapling if
it had blood like me & it said 
it didn't. i peeled off
band aids to show the plant
what it was missing.
scars caramelize. 
scars like sea scallops stuck to the side
of a dock. 
the sapling was jealous
& i said skin was nothing to be jealous of--
it's only been trouble for me.
what would you want instead of blood?
i'd want pear nectar.
i'd want flies to pray to mouth.
when you were as small as a tree
what kind of dirt did you want?
i wanted chocolate.
the sapling wanted to know 
what it looked like so 
i walked in the cup
of my thimbles--
watching my stretched reflection
in the walls--
holding the sapling up & saying
yes this is you.
the tree wept as we all do
when we realize we have 
boundaries. we are only
so big. my faces contorts 
until it resembles
the face of any soft animal--
shell-less hermit crab, naked mole rat,
hairless cat.
yes those are me.
the sapling asks to be left
out to dry. i forgot
to mention it was supposed
to grow up to be an evergreen tree.
it was supposed to learn 
to smell wonderful. 
it was supposed to 
learn from other greens--
water cress, grass, tennis balls. 
i held it like a limp glove.
i told the sapling i understood
& as it lay on the porch 
it changed into a dead bird
& then a dead toad & then 
a dead hydrangea skull--
petals browning 
& blowing in the driveway.
i lay down next to it & said
i was sorry i wasn't more persuasive--
that i didn't beg the tree to stay.
it's ghost grows tall over me
in all my rooms 
& all my nights &
all my softness.
i pour tea out in the dirt
to keep the tree warm--
leaves sticky with 
scars of honey.

a cluster of hush

whispering became 
the only language that we could use,
not by mandate--
but from the force of 
collective craving.
a dormant epidemic.
it had always been contagious
& one day it got lose from
a library 
& that lead to
people were whispering
on the train & that's where
they say it spread from.
next, children whispering 
on sidewalk corners.
dads whispering to moms
in the kitchen.
soft tongue words.
a cluster of hush.
a spilling of closeness.
texture of a throw blanket
knitted over teeth. 
people had always wanted
to lean in to each other-- 
to cup hands around ears 
not just for secrets 
but also to tell simple
everyday things like shopping lists 
& what's for dinner. 
theaters became pantomime--
projecting the words along
the bottom of the stage
like silent movies. headsets
whispered the actions to those
who couldn't see. 
people went on dates
talking face to face 
to be able to hear the other person.
the light warmth of the other's breath 
sometimes fogging glasses 
sometimes smelling like the lasagna they ordered
but always feeling impossibly real.
how could this other person 
be so quiet & alive?
people fell in & out of love 
faster & harder.
the knowledge that everyone 
had a louder crisper voice
loomed in the back of minds.
laying next to each other in bed
or down the hall
they would one imagine 
their lovers-- 
even their children & their parents 
with booming roaring voices--
voices like car engines that hadn't
yet too learned to whisper--
voices the took up whole buildings.
voices the cracked bones.
more than anything 
they feared that they too had 
that kind of shattering voice
aching somewhere--
that one day it would break out
& everyone see the loudness 
that had been nestled 
in between all the whispers.
some would try to shout into alley ways
but to no avail-- 
only whispering came out--
a frantic lullaby--
a dampened call