salt 

my grandmother kept a salt & pepper grinder
on her dining room table. 
her apartment was small.
it smelled like sun & smoke. 
the blue arm chair.
the glass coffee tables & glass bowl of candy.
it was like visiting a church 
or museum. i remember the sensation
of twisting that grinder over top
a plate of green beans & pasta, how 
i could feel the crystals breaking
into smaller pieces. i knew very little
about my grandmother. i wrote
a poem about her in fifth grade as if
she was already dead. i called her once
to talk about pearl harbor 
for a school project
& she said she learned about the attack while she was
sitting on the end of her bed
alone in her room.
i never saw her fill the salt & pepper grinders
but they were always full. her thin 
tree-root fingers
wrapped around the wooden part 
that twisted. what did alone
mean to her? the flecks of salt 
twinkling on a plate. she completed this act
everyday alone in her apartment.
crinkling sound. crash of rock.
over root vegetables & chicken breast
& salmon cutlets & roasted potatoes.
her palm full of rocks
filling the inside of the grinder
in the morning? at night? just 
for when we visited? her bathroom was
a soft pink & i would go there to escape
ambling conversations between her & mom. 
looking at my face
in the mirror i would try to see
traces of her. alone with the cardinals?
alone with the rocks of salt?
alone with the ghosts of neighboring apartments? 
outside were holly bushes 
that i liked to carefully 
pick the leaves off of & if she was nearby 
she would say careful careful &
i would say yes i am careful.
that kind of careful marked the position
of each bust & sculpture on her cabinets.
it is morning & she is filling 
the grinder & she is frying
a single egg & she is opening the curtains
of the sliding glass window.
there are stray fragments of salt
on the counter & she is sweeping them
onto the floor
to disappear. i want to write
about her now & always
as if she's alive.

the origin of sleep 

at the end of this hallway 
there will be a nurse's office 
where we can go to sleep. grey mats 
to splay out on & the soft angelic drone 
of the white neon. inspecting
the shelf of first aid items: rubber gloves
& band aides & vials of pills. a medicine cabinet
made of glass opening by itself. the nurse 
reminds us that we should be sleeping more.
the nurse reminds us we can't 
came back here every day and we say 
yes of course we won't. sleep comes like
blotches of yellow. a raining fog.
a fist of sand. a tree branch falling
on the playground. i would rather sleep her
than have recess where it's cold outside 
& the other children know what my name means.
i sift my body for something to think about
as i stare up at the panels of the ceiling.
i want to tell the elementary school nurse
that i'm too old for this. that i'm
twenty-three now & still escaping 
to this room. the nurses office 
means you can pause everything.
means crinkling paper. means checking
for illness. means sometimes going home.
i want a full autopsy. i want
the sleep to be located & held up
to light in all its navy blue burning.
i don't know what i'm doing
inside this specific possibility 
other than the fact that i need fixing.
i tell lovers that i am 
no worthy of love & that they should
hurt me if they want to do this right.
i don't them about the nurses office
& how in my younger body 
i'm taken care of. how they're gentle
to the smallest scrap on my skin.
i invent wounds. i hold up my finger 
& point to the bare skin saying
that it hurts-- that it hurts so much
& the nurse peers closer before
asking where & how & why.
here i sleep & sometimes others come too,
pretending i'm not here.
pretending this isn't an invention 
of both of our needs. 
one boy gets covered head to toe 
in band aides & another swallows 
fist-fulls of pills. the nurse
informs me these are just what they need
& that we all need something different.
she tells me i should go to sleep again--
that i should count the panels
on the ceiling & sip my name
letter by letter from a straw.
she is no one i've ever met
& i don't try to remember her.
she has curly & straight hair.
she has black & white nail polish.
she flickers before i fall asleep
& wake up in my average bed
at the end of no hallway
inside of no school made of glass
where there is no recess children 
crowding at the window & asking
to toss my name like a rubber ball
from tongue to tongue.

Androcles 

i watch dad 
remove a splint from his thumb
as he sits at the kitchen table 
with the old
wilting tweezers & bowl of salt water 
which he claims with loosen the sliver--
the small thin wood 
embedded in his flesh.
i consider what would happen 
if the splinter  
is actually a root. 
a whole tree might climb
from my father's hand 
before the next morning
& he will have to walk around 
with a sapling
spilling from his hand. we'd listen for
the soft rustling of leaves to let us know
he's moving around the house. our father
& his pain & his fingers & his emerging forest.
the sapling would then become 
a large full tree in our living room 
& we'd have to uproot it together.
we'd need shovels. we'd need more than a bowl 
of water. we'd need to wake up our uncle 
& ask to borrow his wheel barrow. 
i'm scared of 
having to save anyone like that. 
in the white 
bathroom light i inspect my own hands
for signs of splinters, 
traversing each thumb
& the valleys between fingers. i'm terrified
of finding one while downstairs my father 
becomes a tree. if we both become trees 
who will fix us? in the bathroom 
i consider that it might not be terrible
to be a tree with my father. we might
find more time
to talk to each other. i might tell him
more about softball & more about
a new friend i made at the park &
ask him what shade of blue he prefers 
& when he got his first splinter
& who removed it. we remind me 
of lions & their tendency to acquire
thorns in their paws in myths.
i become a lion upstairs without a splinter
& i listen to my family's muffled voices 
down stairs where my father still works 
on his hand, pressing the skin 
till it's raw & soft red. he is also 
a lion & no one else but me notices.
i want to remove the thorn 
but he'd never let me help him
like that so i watch 
as the tree grows so large it blocks out
the lights in the kitchen.

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.