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.

we built mazes around our turtles.

we built mazes so vast they would never
escape & there was wall after wall 
after wall of obstacle & kitchen appliances
plugged into infinite outlets--
a mixer stirring the air & the turtles
didn't know the other one was there too.
they walked slowly, claw foot claw foot 
scritching along the floor without 
opening their mouths to make words.
i encouraged them from the clouds--
i told them if they only said the word
we would remove them from the labyrinth.
threats have never made anyone talk though
especially animals. my sister & i sat on clouds 
made of knotted maple cotton candy.
we discussed more ways to get the turtles
to understand what we wanted. only now
am i reminded of the story of the tortoise
& the hair & how we prove it wrong
as our two turtles ambled aimless
in the hallways of contraption. there were
walls made of ice & walls made of crying 
& walls made of our neighborhood where 
we were the weird kids eating Cheese-zits 
from the scraggly grass-- sometimes breaking them
to share sometimes keeping a whole nest
to ourselves. the smell of ice got stronger.
we both wanted to let the turtles out
& laying in our separate beds we would feel
their lumbering bodies as if they were
crawling through our veins. so we would go,
taking turns to check on them
to see they were still in their corridors 
to see they were still not using words.
i spoke softly saying repeat after me
i am a reptile & my blood is cold.
the turtle opened its mouth & said 
i am versatile & made of mold. so close
so close. i wanted to wake my sister up
but i also needed to be the only one 
who knew my turtle had spoken & i had
taught her. i was the good mother.
i was the fissures of an egg. i ask the swing set
in the backyard why god picked us
to be the strange ones & he responded 
with a shrug so i let the turtles go--
telling them not to walk near the busy street.
my sister was furious because we were supposed
to make them learn-- to make the turtles
finish the maze but they weren't even close.
i didn't want to watch them struggle.
the toaster plugged into my arm pops 
& the television breaths static. there are
so many outlets around here & the turtles are going to
love me forever because i am the one who
told them to go & be free from this science fair.
i shrank myself down. i put on a shell
& took the maze for myself. my beautiful 
inescapable garden. this is mine.

burial for a single branch 

in heaven the trees arrive 
upside down. they're pieced together 
slowly, one limb at a time
as their bodies on earth rot.
angels & people come to sit beneath the trees
each day & observe how they're coming in--
if any of them are finish. they bring
lawn chairs & they point up, hoping
to catch a whole limb appear & speculating
about the fall of the limb down on earth.
trees were the first animal
i ever feared the death of.
i put my ear to trees trunks & hoped
to hear them growing. my dad once 
remarked one of my favorite trees in the park
was already dead & i tore pieces of bark off 
as if to try & wake the creature up,
as if pain might rouse the oak & make it
decide to live longer, but he was right
& the whole tree was rotted to the core.
what scared me most was that there didn't 
seem to be a reason anyone could point to
as to why trees died. in heaven
they are equally as uncertain & they remedy
their uncertainty by watching the forest come in
all together. company is most important for forgetting
there are so many things we don't know
which is to say, people are a lovely distraction. 
i climbed the small quiet maple
in my aunt's front yard 
& tore off brittle dead branches 
near the top & one angel noticed the first 
tiny vein of a branch emerge in the sky.
i asked everyone if they thought 
the tree was going to die & they said
it was lush & healthy so i
buried that single limb in the yard
& returned to check on it each day.
i listened to the tree who whispered 
in a language i couldn't recognize.
maybe i was hearing heaven's chatter
about the single thread-like limb 
in the clouds. what i'm trying to say is
each tree is terrifying. i worry they're
all dead where they're standing.
i worry they're like stars & how some stars
are likely dead. when the trees bloom 
i worry most that their knees will buckle
like a tossed bouquet. why, of all things,
would trees have to die?
what god would plant them
upside down in heaven?

bathtub full of white plum tree flowers 

a long time ago a beast died 
& tucked its teeth inside every plum--
flat & rigid. this was done with 
the intention to cut-- to slice
mouth open who wanted something 
bruised & sweet. plums fall from my thighs.
plums cascade from the bathtub where 
i scrub a my bones. a voice says i should
use the soap to get it out-- that there 
is nothing that water cannot cure.
i feed a plum to a fly & watch its
mandibles working. i ask the fly 
if it's sweet & the fly agrees yes it is sweet.
i believe all seeds were once sharper 
& sitting in a mouth. there is a kind
of fury to fruit blossoms-- that overwhelming
white of plum tree blossoms. they fill
my bed room every time i'm hungry.
they fill lover's mouths when we're
too close to happiness. i could love 
every single plum if given more time.
if given more mouths. i think of Cerberus--
the three headed dog & how many plums
i would be able to eat with his body.
do the heads divide emotions up?
one for shame one of sorrow and one
for hunger. sometimes i have three heads.
sometimes i have more than that. 
sometime i plant the seeds of plums
hoping a monster & not a tree will grow.
sometimes a monster does grow 
& i scratch it behind the ears & feed
it everything i have because 
you have to give yourself over to monsters--
that's what they're there for. 
i eat a cold plum in my kitchen 
& feel each of my teeth as they 
ask to fall out. i tell them no
i tell them i need teeth & they ache
to be seeds. i tell them to just let
me finish eating this one last fruit 
& then they can go free & do
whatever they please.

lace white bra

a sleepy iron garden 
where the birds are sewn into the ground
& the the ceiling is doom-like & 
made of lace. there are horses with
no legs & frogs jumping again & again
into the same small pool of water.
tadpoles ask each other what size 
the sky is. a group of flowers
gossip about the body of a stranger
& the silhouette of her figure is crooked
against a bold white sun. train tracks
all over & especially where 
they don't belong. train tracks made 
of ribs & iron & the train no where
to be found. the train is the idea
of something impending. only girls 
are told they have impending bodies--
like there is a kind of inverted eden 
on the back of a flock of a geese.
the geese plant their feathers in the ground
& hope on of them will take room & become
a willow tree. i have played underneath 
the idea of a willow tree & pretended
i could feel the brush of each branch 
on my skin. i told the tree this was
the only place i wanted 
to be-- that i would live here forever 
if the tree would let me believe 
in a space not yet grown into.
there is a process to catching moths--
two cupped palms. there is a process to catching 
the whole body & the itch of fabric
& the closeness to skin & the skin 
giving in to iron. the white asking the body
to come closer to the edge of 
a creek-- asking for washed feet 
& threads cut off hands from when 
they were sewn in with the birds.
birds with out heads. trees with out roots
wobbling in the dirt. the body with all 
its extension & mechanisms to make it whole.
breasts perfect & round as they 
should be. the skin of oranges growing over
naked tender fruit. nakedness walking
on all fours & humming to itself. 
the ears of rabbit twitching with worry.
the rabbits pass the needle & the thread
between each other until they're each attached
mouth to mouth. organs for breathing.
i want to leave but there's something 
tighter in me than want. there's something
warm & wild that needs this 
kind of body & so i stay & toss rocks 
skipping them in the sky where they 
all simmer in the sun & 
crack like white eggs in the heat.

we once took a field trip

to a corn field. the big yellow bus pulled up
& opened its doors just to thrust us out
into the crowd of stalks. none of us 
had names yet-- just numbers from 1-20.
we took off our shoes on the side of the road.
me & another girl noticed we were wearing
the same white shoes with a tiny flower
on the toe. i wondered what this might mean
& she darted into the thickness before 
i could ask her why she was wearing white shoes--
i had been wearing them to prove how careful
i could work--to get ready for a sacrament 
without a title. this was a giant corn field--
no this was a monstrous cornfield no this was 
a mammoth corn field-- practically a forest.
the teachers had run away so there was
no one to ask questions to. i wanted to know
when they harvested a field like this 
& how the corn grew as big as our forearms.
the teachers were all made of silk or glass
& we didn't need them. there was one teacher
who turned into a wind chime & the whole class
wept but i thought it was happy. in the field 
i wondered if we were all going 
to make it out-- if maybe this trip 
was meant to leave some of us in the soft earth.
i felt bodies pass mine. i felt fingers 
or was that the thin green leaves of corn?
i felt hair or was that the hair 
off each ear? there is no difference 
in moments like this between a child's body
& a corn stalk. bare feet in mug.
a scheme of foot prints. the laughter-screams--
unsure if we're scared or enthralled.
we need a church to kneel in.
we need a television bursting with 
flowers. where is the souvenir shop? 
we needed something to take home to prove
we were all here in a corn field.
some others find there way out but 
i don't want to leave. i want to stay here
& talk more to the sun swelling above us.
i want to ask what it eats & if the clouds
are really the plump ghosts of animals 
or just water like the teachers say.
i slam into another student & my head throbs
from the collision. i can't find them & hope
they're okay. i briefly wondered if that was
actually myself-- if all the children were
mirrors of me all sprinting 
in the freshness-- all hungry for yellow--
all watching the sun turn into a tangerine.
i could peel the skin off & find 
those sweet citrus lobes like the chambers 
of an alien heart. i could live in the field 
& never have to sit in a desk again.
to this day i think they took us to the field
to be cruel--to show us how free we could life
if we didn't have to go & be orderly humans
each day. in the years that followed each time
someone would ask what i wanted to be when 
i grew up i would suppress the urge to say
corn stalk corn stalk corn stalk.

a bruise is sweet 

we go to look at eye shadow palettes 
at CVS even though they're cheap & made from 
smashed bugs & weeping plants.
one girl mentions that colors come 
out of her eye lids naturally--
that she doesn't need to rely 
on eye shadow like the rest of us.
i want blue & silver-- i want my face
to suggest it was once a window 
of sky. we all gather around the pools of color.
we all hold up our wrists 
to check what the colors would look like 
on our faces. there's no color 
anywhere else only in makeup. the sidewalk 
is a light grey & all our bodies are 
different shades of grey &
all our finger nails are a very faint grey
& at night even the stars are grey.
sometimes i take eye liner pencils 
& scribble the grass indigo or violet &
my lips green. no one remembers
what colors go where. the voices 
on TVs urge us to 
stick to our own faces & to
not get too wild with the last bits
of color or they might leave too.
the eye shadow palettes 
glisten. the eye shadow palettes promise
to make our faces in the landscapes.
i draw a desert on my friend's lips 
complete with a cactus flower.
i draw a coral reef on another's 
cheek & it brought out her bones.
i said before i want to be
the sky but i also want 
purple dripping from
my throat-- as if a bruise is a sweet
kind of tropical fruit. i open
a palette & dip my fingers in color,
licking each instead 
of painting with them. each color tastes
like sleeping-- like inverted greys--
as if a taste could save us.
i shrink down to the size of
an ant & frolic in the cakes 
of the palette-- feet covered in color.
i send my friends at text message explaining
i will never return & three people like it
& the other ones are already 
buried in their own palettes. oh color!
oh eco-system!
blue finger tips & a mirror to check 
myself in.

dripping

wherever i go the ceiling 
begins to leak.
it doesn't even have to be raining
sometimes the water just comes down--
a trickle a bucket 
a cupped handful of water on the top 
of my head. i don't think it's god but i do
think it's the angles with nothing else
to do but to try & wash me.
in my last year of college 
the ceiling of my bedroom turned into a lake. 
i never let anyone inside because
they wouldn't believe it with all it's 
flora & fauna--a full eco system right
in my ceiling complete with 
water grasses & bull frogs jumping
from the rocks near the edge.
the ducks left their feathers 
on my floor & fathers & their sons 
came to fish on weekend mornings 
while i'd try to sleep in but always
just ended up watching them & wishing
they would ask me to join them. 
where i live now there is no lake 
or even an ocean. the water here is more 
fickle & i'll go weeks without it coming down
all over me & then all of a sudden something 
wild like a river will rip through 
the hallway, leaving fish thrashing 
on the carpet. i toss the fish & the tangles 
of reeds out the window with this happens.
i'm worried my housemates will think
it's my fault-- that i bring furious water
wherever i go. i know it is my fault 
but i don't know how to stop it. 
how do you stop water? i have tried asking gently,
explaining that this isn't the time or place 
for a current but that just makes
the water more eager. i suggest the bathtub 
& the water laughs, splashing my face.
minnows dart like stray heart beats
around the submerged floor of my room.
i think of how in my hometown i used to
think the creek was the most romantic spot in town.
i want to show my partner the water--
i want to pull them under 
& watch them hold their breath. i want their hair
to sway like grass. sometimes i wonder
if everyone is plagued with bodies of water 
like this-- if we just never tell each other
& survive it each with our own devices.
i buy rain coats & sometimes close my eyes
until the river passes & the apartment 
is drips with its remnants.

there is a closet full of guitars

in various states of withering.
the door is ajar like perused lips--
like a mouth with no teeth.
i open my own mouth & check for strings
underneath my tongue. broken frets 
& crooked necks & hollowed out bodies 
& skeleton stomachs all hum together--
all tell stories of fingers. they are all
my father's or my grandfather's. all made
of wood. all made of gun powder & 
open potato chip bags & pacing.
there are footsteps in those instruments.
there are long nights & lips 
pressed to brown bottles & children floating
in piles of bath tub bubbles.
i never put the guitars there but i still
feel responsible-- like they decided
they had to visit me-- like they thought
i might reach my hands in & save them.
a doctor comes to reach his hands in my mouth
while i lay in my bed. when i say doctor 
i really mean stranger. a stranger comes
to reach his hands in my mouth & he counts
my teeth & i ask if he remembers his father
& if his father played guitar. it's difficult 
to talk with someone else's hands in your mouth
& he says hush hush hush so i listen 
& he removes a guitar pick from 
under his tongue. he pulls strings & of me
& tunes them. he sings a Simon & Garfunkel song
my dad & i used to sing & the lyrics 
spin through me. maybe the stranger 
is my father-- no probably not he's too young
& my father wouldn't be in my bed room like this.
i do wonder if it was him who filled
that closet. did i deserve this? 
i consider getting in there with the guitars
& telling them how sad they make me.
maybe sad isn't the right word but 
sometimes i hate synonyms-- i'm not forlorn 
or solemn or unhappy. i'm just very sad.
there's no good reason for it so 
i will blame the guitars & tell them
no to leave me-- that i need them there 
& i'll leave the door slightly open
& i'll sleep with my mouth open 
hoping guitars fill that space too.
they tell me i should sleep now & i listen.
they tell me i'm a good son & 
i shake my head & they mimic me
shaking their broken necks too.

the rain comes down in mirror fragments 

& i could sleep much longer
if i could train myself to have dreams
of eating decadent foods; i want
chocolate cakes & duck wings 
but i don't eat meat--is it still 
a sin if i just do it in a dream?
i once admitted to a boyfriend
that i had dreams of sleeping with other people
& he didn't talk to me for two days so 
i had more dreams of sleeping with more people.
we hid under the bed--we found beaches 
with pink sand. i fall asleep sometimes 
with a fork in my mouth (not on purpose).
i get up & go outside first thing
to see what the rain has done laying slices 
of reflection all over sidewalks & 
wedged in the torsos of trees.
i'm not scared of my own reflection 
but i prefer a different version of myself
that only exists in my head. i collect mirrors
& i'm careful of the sharp edges. i hang the mirrors 
on the walls of the apartment. i see myself 
from six different angles. i am hungry 
when i wake up no matter how much i eat
before i fall asleep. i try sleeping with
boxes of cereal for pillows. i try a pillowcase
full of cookies--all no luck. i still wake up
feeling like a corridor empty & echoing.
i take the fork & jam it into the wall as 
decoration. i'm not sleeping well 
to be honest. i wake up all night long
& set the table in case guests arrive.
we don't have a table actually so i just
toss the plates at the ground & hope
a table catches them. outside one day
maybe it will rain tables & i'll be able
to piece on together. i stand on the porch &
wonder if the storm is actually over or if
this is just the eye. the eye whirls
like a bowl of soft berries. i live with
everyone & no one. if i had my own house
i would never let anyone else inside.
i would put caution tape all over 
& spill the mirrors on the ground. everyone
should look at their own reflection 
when they make promises. i make promises 
to the mirrors-- no strike that i tell secrets
to the mirrors & i'm not telling you what 
i said. everyone want to know your 
every detail. i have details you can only find
if you know how to look at a face. 
i want to eat churros in a dream tonight
because i've never had one. i want to eat 
churros fed to me by beautiful men.
i'm cheating on something. i want my dreams
to come out of my forehead as a projector
a film reeling on the wall. i want you to watch.
delicious come eat with me. i'll put utensils
down your throat while you sleep.
i love you beautiful everyone. sit criss-cross
i don't have any chairs here yet.