X-Ray Fitting

Dad says that when he was little
they used to X-Ray your feet 
at the shoe store to check if 
your new shoes fit right. Peering down 

through the microscope-like eye piece,
he'd see the bones, moving them up &
down, two wriggling rainbow trout.
His bones glowing back at him, smiling

toe knuckles. The nails, white petaled
flowers grinning up at him, saying
this is what you are inside, luminous bone,
rocks under skin walking across rocks

outside of skin. The meeting of stone.
I am probably heavier than I think.
When I look down at my feet I see 
Dad's bones. I see a rock collection:

quartz and calcite. I put on shoes
and pace the hallway in my house, trying
to step back into the X-Ray machine, this time 
with my whole body. Laying down inside it, 

a clerk checking my whole skeleton to see
if it fits, if my whole skeleton fits.
It always feels tight, like my skin wanted 
to stretch across a smaller collection of gravel,

like someone tried to fit mountain ranges
in me. My feet turn into the bones 
of rainbow trout, so I let them sit 
in the bath tub practicing their gills.

I imagine Dad, a little boy in the backseat
on the car ride home with his new shoes. 
Does he cross his legs? No, he doesn't. 
He stares at his shoes, leather church shoes.

They're a little tight, he thinks and considers
taking them off, considers sitting there barefoot,
considers that his bones would be closer to being free. 
Glances down at his fingers, remembers they have bones too.

NASA Research Confirms Saturn is Losing its Rings

i ask the earth everyday 
what it feels like to have creatures
crawling across her
what kind of company 
an organism can be
i want
just one
if i could have just a single 
warm body 
i might believe the
colors of my surface
i would name that animal
tell them stories about how
i've watched all the other planets
the earth with its blue blue bones
angry red-eye jupiter
uranus
her light quiet halo
i want to give her everything:
the words i've spoken towards solar glow
the pieces of space & star i've collected 
to make myself less lonely
i don't want to hoard particles anymore
you can't take these things
with you when you fall into yourself
our lives are too short for that
i imagine the pieces finding their way
to her collection
her rings growing thicker & thicker
as i watch from a distance
as i speak towards her 
hoping one or two words 
land close enough
for her to know me
i ask the sun as i turn
why he made us so so far apart
i run my fingers through my rings
touch space objects
to feel alive
i imagine all us bodies
close together
our competing gravities
our memories rippling in each other's skin 
all the animals on earth
i could reach down
add them to my rings
tell them how much 
i have loved them
how their short determined lives
have made me want give away 
my objects
replace them 
with organisms
earth tells me
their bodies are warm

the world unravels uniquely for each of us

static grows like moss outside
the window, an angry mass & i ask 
you to look out for me, tell me what's 
happening on the street. you describe
a scene between a man & a woman, they're
talking & they have so many elbows.
they have an upside down dog with eight legs.
i tell you to describe more, tell me 
what the trees are doing & you say
they've all turned into nests for
the hoards of giant egrets walking
slow & measured on the sidewalk. 
egrets would make better people than us
i think & i say that that's enough for
today, because i don't want to hear anything
more about what happens on the TV.
i want just the house. i know the house
& i count the walls for you. i say
one, two, three, four, five, six, seven...
each week or so it grows a new wall & we don't
know how to keep decorating. we hang plates
up, nail them to the farthest wall
which is about a ten minute walk.
the plates look like white pupil-less eyes 
from far away where i ask you 
can sleep for three more days? the alarm clock
just a kitchen timer, clicking as i hold you,
it makes me feel like a bomb & you turn
into a purple stuffed rabbit
or you were always a purple stuffed rabbit.
the windows were always big bold TVs like
the ones i only saw in appliance stores,
no one actually owns TVs that big
i had thought, until they were my windows.
the news behind the static tells muffled
stories about the sun escaping 
our solar system & the planets running scared
like fat beetles, leaving while 
she can. this reminds me that reality
unravels different for each of us.
i wonder what your house looks like
or if you are actually just a purple rabbit
propped up on my bed. if you can hear
the news. maybe your floor is sand.
maybe your floor is grass. maybe you 
are one of the egrets, stalking the streets
learning to live in the radiation of 
a cracking planet. i ask you what
you would do if you only have one
more day on earth & you just stare 
at me with the black bead eyes. 
i tell you that i would open
the door & let the static if i
knew it was my last day. i bet
it feels like a world of gnats 
all over the skin. three more days,
yes three more days, i tell myself.
crawl back in bed, hold you tight
to my chest, listening to the static
growing thicker & thicker. 

i begin with the lights 

middle of the night
throw covers on the floor
skin tells me to start
right now
this instant
right now
or it's too late 
conserve electricity
running out 
keep it safe
in mason jars
or clay mugs
i dreamed there was
no energy left
on the whole planet,
a big dead battery
leaking acid 
from its core
we drink the acid
to stay alive
i begin with the lights
flicking them off
one by one,
like shutting eyelids
letting the darkness work its way
into the living room
it's eager rush on insect feet
the shadow 
on shadow on shadow 
i think to myself 
this is what
the world would
look like without our
bulbs & our neon signs 
& our headlights
a mass of animals
making lives in the dark
some with vision that 
cuts through the blackness
i want to make a life
in the dark
i ask god for better
evolution but he's still 
asleep so i move on 
to shutting off the rest
of the house
the hot water 
& the heater
& the fan which i keep on
24/7 just for a calming sound
without the fridge running 
the white machine 
stares like a carcass 
so i eat all the food that will
go bad out of it
& lay it on it side,
a sort of burial,
with my house finished
i move on to the others 
on my street,
entering in through the basement
where all organs of the house are
i mutter to myself
about how much energy each 
of us here have been eating,
i see it in the air,
leaking out, its viscous & blue
i try to catch it 
as it trails away but it
leaks right between my fingers
like a puff of smog
make make the whole street
dark & quiet
i stand in the road, 
turning in careful circles
taking it all in,
my beautiful conserved street
no energy leaking out,
only the steady stream 
that travels 
from each of our electric mouths
i watch mine, a trickle 
up into the clouds,
go back into my house
& stare out the window
until the sun comes up

inflatable mattress

i wanted to train myself
to be able to sleep anywhere
so i bought an inflatable mattress,
made lists of all the places nearby 
where i should sleep, starting
with the 7/11 up the street.
plugged the pump in the corner 
& watched the soft grey cushion 
fill with air. people went about
there everyday business, most pretending
not to notice & i curled up next
to the soda machines that groaned
& groaned & groaned. somewhere 
through the night at least one person always
gets in bed with me, at the 7/11
it was an old woman holding 
a carton of milk. she offered 
me some but i declined & then 
the manager joined us & told
us stories about his family
back home in an apartment 
in queens, the smell of tomato sauce
on their walls. we held each other
like only people can do who share
a temporary bed & i realized that
everyone's skin has a softness
to it, as if we were all filled with air.
the next place i went with the mattress
was the parking lot by the grocery store,
i had tried the store itself but
the bed got too crowded, people were
too eager to stay in bed with a stranger there.
in the parking lot i unscrew the light bulbs
of the lamp lights to make the place darker
& more cozy. the cart man who's job 
it is to wrangle stray shopping carts 
got in & told me that he should get 
one of these inflatable mattresses
in case some nights he doesn't feel 
like going home. we press into 
the mattress so hard with our conversation
that it begins to float & we join
the weak city clouds, mixed 
with smog, the grey of the mattress
blending in seamlessly with
the texture of midnight sky.
he tells me we should never
come down. we should sleep here 
forever & tell each other stories 
about all the lives we wanted
to live. i want to kiss him 
in a way i've never known before
not like a lover but like
a limb of my own 
i ruin it by telling him
that we do have to go down
that i have to go back 
that i have more places 
i want to sleep & he doesn't cry
but the mattress lowers
gentle & slowly back down
where we met in a parking space
under the phantom glow
of the Stop & Shop sign. 
he gets up & goes back 
to herding the carts, pretending
like he didn't see me 
& we hadn't gone anywhere
at all.

lent

i don't go to church anymore
so on ash wednesday i wake up
to the priest hovering over me,
the glint of his thick glasses
his dry wrinkled hand raised,
thumb ready to make the sign 
of the cross on my forehead
i shoo him away, open the window
for him to fly out,
all his white feathers
blowing around the room
in the bathroom mirror
i notice the sign of the cross
is already there, black dust,
a small plus sign 
an addition problem started
on my skin 
as if everything next
to me is being added together
i think 
door + window
i think
sun + walls
i wash the cross off 
but it keep coming back
the birds perched outside sing
what are you giving up for lent?
what are you giving up for lent?
and i say 
nothing, leave me alone!
and i go about the rest of 
my day thinking of what
i should give up until easter
remembering all the years 
i gave up candy 
or ice cream
what did god do with all that
candy and ice cream?
i imagine him with his feet up,
eating a bowl of vanilla bean 
and watching his shows at night
in recent years my uncle 
has been giving up beer 
and open the windows of his house
to let the birds in
they peck at his canvases
and they eat his canned sardines
he says the birds help distract him
from wanting to drink
he paces his downstairs,
back and forth, counting how many
steps from one side of his house
to the other
if i did give something up
i would want it to be something
that would really get god's attention
something that would make god 
nestle in his arm chair 
and say
i want to watch
this human
until i find of something like that
i'll touch the chalky plus sign 
on my forehead
and think about what 
i should add to my body this lent
plus feathers
plus running faucet water
plus white lotion
plus bare feet
plus i want to like my hair
plus i want to like my skin
plus i want to like my fingers
counting each of them each morning
to remember what i am

to the snow mound in the super market parking lot

growing
cold gritty mountains
we stare up from my small 
shuddering green Volvo
you ask me what happens when
they run out of places 
to put the snow 
& i tell you about 
the time when i was
in middle school that it
snowed for nearly a week
& no one went anywhere 
& all the windows 
of the house turned white
i thought we'd be buried 
house & all
& somewhere inside
i want that to happen again
want to watch the sky
endless & spilling snowflakes 
the size of mice
we stare up at the dirty snow mound 
& i want to climb it with you
i think of the monstrous
piles after that storm
& my mom warning my brother & i
not to try & scale them
i want more than that though
i want to dig inside
using a gardening shovel,
tunnel to the center
of the snow-mound 
in the supermarket parking lot 
& see how long i can live inside
a temporary world
cold & slick with slow melting
i could give you a tour 
& together we could 
remember warmth
speed up process of snow 
becoming liquid
drip from the ceiling
the gravel of the road collecting
all on the floor
we could sort through it at night
to see if we could find 
any shopping lists or 
misplaced earrings
in the last days my world
would be very small
the pile just the size
of a curled up pig 
hiding its face 
inside 
knees tucked into my chest
a new kind of burial 
the walls melting 
on my back 
a boy on all fours
in the parking lot where
the snow used to be 
come take me home &
tell me that it 
will snow again soon 
remember for me how tall
the snow was 
that i lived in

mystery machine

standing at the mirror
i trace my finger around 
the seam where my face is
attached to my skull & consider
peeling it off
remembering the ending of
each episode when someone 
would be unmasked, faces torn
off in one careful twist of Velma's hand
how easily the mask turns into 
a leaf & blows off screen
i had a plastic mystery machine 
& dolls of all the gang shoved inside
on my hands & knees pushing them
around the kitchen floor, towards
another mask, i wanted all 
my mysteries to come free with
the pull of a hand at the corner
of a face, i try to pull, i do
but my face refuses, stares
back at me & declines to be plastic
i wanted to go with them 
in their blue & orange & green van,
traveling far away from 
family & hometown &
all obligation to live in one place,
moving fingers over necks
putting clues into mouth
& chewing them till 
they turned paper 
girls who grew up like me 
always knew we were Velma,
thick orange sweater &
glasses reflecting faces 
back to everyone she met
i am want to be her now more 
than ever, lining up everything
knowing who i can put my hands on
to reveal everything
i look at strangers now
& wonder whose faces 
would come free if pulled just right
i see them tumbling 
into the street, the faces,
shopping bag ghosts
i pull at my own face 
each day now
& sometimes it comes free,
but i always settle it 
back into place
i don't want 
to see yet

snow globes

it's all a series 
of snow globes, really.
everyone has them.
i know it's inevitable  
that somedays i'm in someone
else's jar of water & fake snow 
& other days i'm shaking it.
on monday it snowed out
of no where & i blamed 
my neighbor.
i make one for every
house i've lived in, 
line them up in a row
on the shelf & pluck one up
to shake as i pace 
the hall, sleepless.
the one i'm holding now
is of the house on main street
that they tore down
right after we moved,
there's no house there
at all anymore so as i
handle the cool sphere 
i wonder where on earth
i might be making chaos
if you shake a snow globe
too hard the snow turns to salt
& then to red, which 
could be ash or blood or
even just flecks of red confetti
i've never shaken one that
hard but a few summers ago
i walked outside my dorm
& red flecks fell all over me
dyed my skin in the places
where they dropped
no clouds out 
bright too-loud sun
the hands of an unknown person
shaking in a steady rapid rhythm
i have a snow globe
of my parents house
but i don't shake it
i often take the clunky
thing to bed with me
set it by my pillow
or wrap my arms around it
as i sleep i imagine i cause
light sporadic snowfall
it makes me want to drive
there in the morning just
to park in their driveway 
& see the layer of dust 
on everything
i don't think my mom
uses her snow globes
she doesn't seem to care 
for the kind of intimacy
i assume then
it must be all my father
like me i think he might
sleep with them
maybe in the old rocking chair
he holds my house 
never never shaking it 
just staring &
thinking about what it
would feel like if
salt rained down 
on me.

rock climbing

the floor is dissolving 
one foot print
at a time, first the hardwood 
then the gnarled living room carpet & 
slick bathroom tiles
i keep thinking of our childhood games
of "red hot lava" climbing
on furniture to escape the invisible
calamity waiting for us on the floor
of our parent's house
lava in the carpet, lava between 
the legs of the round kitchen table
lava swallowing & burning the TV
when i was in 5th grade you 
had a birthday party 
at the rock climbing
place & you said you were practicing 
for when the bottom eventually falls out from the world
how did you know all the way back then?
i didn't believe you 
the next day
my arms tingled like they'd been squeezed all night
feeling every muscle i raised
each limb slowly, 
pretending to pluck 
my ceiling light down, a ripe white fruit
you snuck in from your room to lay 
next to me & we compared muscle shapes
you said you wanted to nail 
rock climbing rocks to all the walls
of the house & i imagined climbing
everywhere with the lava licking
at our shoes
all night i'm nailing rocks 
to all the walls
each foot step counts
because where it was will
then disappear as lift my foot
i wonder if this is happening where
you are too, 
i haven't seen you 
in months & i hope your voice
sounds the same,
where is the whole floor 
of the world going?
i imagine each foot print building 
a new planet 
house by house
maybe each step the people there make 
adds ground instead
of taking it away
you of all people will be okay though,
i remember watching you 
at the old rock climbing place from below,
you didn't need the black harness
you moved, a spider far above 
all the other kids
gripping stone after stone 
after stone, 
i hang onto the wall,
planting rocks of all different colors
all the way to the front door
where i hold on & wait
i'm so scared you will come
& open the door just 
to fall in
i practice saying 
"the floor is hot lava"
so that you won't 
tumble away
as your take 
your first step inside