hush

ask to be fed
& wait outside 
in the alley while
all the trees turn 
to black cherry soda.

from this view 
you might almost miss the sun 
as it straddles
the foreheads of buildings 
on your street. 

you feel the soda 
& you're hungry for it,
you want to drink 
the pits, the stems & all.

something is dripping
& a siren reminds you
that people get hurt even
on thursdays-- in fact
people die 
on thursdays.

the sirens collect bottle caps
& toss them at 
a brick wall.
they're probably working
to distract you
but you catch on.

somewhere the cap 
is being twist off 
the bottle & the bottle
is saying 
hush, hush.

the tree you loved
growing up-- the one
who's skin freckled
with caterpillars,
that tree,

plucks its roots
out of the soft rain-fresh earth,
leg by leg.

you follow it to see where
it's going 
& you find the tree
gathering friends & lovers,
coaxing their legs too 
free of the earth.

this isn't the first
time you've watched the trees
run bare but it seems
somehow different

& you trail behind till
you arrive at 
the bottling factory
where conveyor belts
of clear glass bottles
serve as shells for 
all kinds of plants
to run away to--

a potted fern 
becomes a bottle
of orange soda--
an orchid into grape soda.

the trees will be cherry soda
you know this because
this is the soda your father
always drank with a fist full
of ice in a 
sweating glass. 

you think again to the alley
leading to your house 
& imagine cherry soda 
instead of old rain water
trickling down the walls--
pressing your tongue 
to stone

eating stone,
just grazing the surface
with your teeth.

ask to be fed
& there is a bottle cap
being opened telling
your throat to hush 
hush.

you wonder what your 
father tasted in that black cherry soda--
if his bottles 
were also made of 
his favorite trees to sit under--
if he swished the carbonated 
nectar in his mouth 
or if he gulped.

carrying a case of the soda bottles
they clink & at first
you think the clinking
is your own bones.

you drink all the sodas
before going inside 
because you know you can't share
& then you plant the bottles
in the cobblestone ground,

telling the stones to 
be kind to whatever trees
might want to grow
in between these two buildings.

television sets 

to feed them 
my brother crumples 
the old red chalky bricks
in the yard.
he tends the snails
that scale his arms.
he talks to them softly
as they move their thin
antennae like soft little 
television sets.
the snails channel 
a radio broadcast
from at least thirty years ago
& the announcer is saying
something about 
the price of milk going up 
& my brother
thinks "who buys milk?"
& a half gallon of milk
materializes on the fridge door again.
my brother's snails are
garlic snails so they have
hard amber shells 
& they also enjoy 
garlic bread.
the snails have never actually
had garlic bread but they 
love the concept. 
the snails tell my brother 
to order them take out 
but my brother 
is too young to call for
pizza all by himself. 
next time i see my brother
i will have to tell him
that i also have snails
& that i have found it is best not
to feed them. once you
feed an animal like that
all they'll do is want more
& their broadcasts will
get so loud you can't hear
yourself think. my brother
is putting a finger to where
he guesses the mouth of the snail
might be & he's saying
shush there's nothing
more to say. 
the news gets louder
in the face of snail &
the snail shrinks away 
leaving just the shell
which looks like a single
hear phone. he's scared
but he knows he has 
to put the shell
in his ear. the snails
that bother me aren't
garlic snails-- they're cove snail
with a shell that's a spiraling
yellow. the spiral means that
the snail's soul
is falling somewhere 
deeper than here. 
i do try to tell
the snail i hope they 
climb out someday 
but snails tend to talk
over you with their 
swirling. my brother 
pluck the snails 
off his arms & sticks 
them to the walls of his
closet where he won't tell
anyone else they live.
they're a troubling bunch.
he avoids his room.
he avoids his clothes.
he hears their muttering
behind the closet door 
& wonders they the snails
come for him. they make
a low buzzing at night 
that actually does help
him sleep. it helps me sleep too.
the whole idea of sleep
was invented by snails 
who were tired to having
to talk to humans at night.
there is something loving
about them though 
i'm not sure what yet.
snails circle the rims
of all my bowls.
snails circle the faces 
of all my clocks 
snails tell me to 
buy televisions 
& radios & line them
all up along the wall
in perfect rows.
turn them all on at once
& let them talk. 
i won't feed them though.
i don't put up with that.
the phone is ringing 
& asking me if i would
like to order a pizza 
& some garlic bread.
i tell them no &
i hang up the phone
but before i can i realize
it's not a phone 
it's a crumbling 
brick. the snails swarm &
ask to be fed.

so you won't see it,
i construct a nest of worries
like i watch the small brown birds
assemble from stray garbage
on our street each day:
a bottle cap-- a twist tie--
a halved pink flower--
they're always gathering
& i wonder how many nests
they would be able to make 
&, then, how many 
i might be congregating
as well-- if i'm building
nests without noticing
& leaving them in the corners
of rooms & on the tops of
bookshelves. a crinkling 
of chirps-- those are 
all my worry children 
& no matter what i can't
feed them all. i cook a pot
of spaghetti like my mom did
when we were low on food
at the end of the week.
i pinch individual noodles between
my fingers like the necks
of orchids & i try to
feed all the tiny birds 
the emerge from my mouth
when i'm a knot of worried.
i walk the street outside
& weave plastic garbage bags
& stray flip flops 
into my hair to make
another nest up there 
so all my worry children have
a place to go if they 
come alive during the day
inside of in my home 
where they would have more
nesting options. i pick up 
quarters & feed them the shine
off of them & the nestlings
are still hungry. they stay
nestlings forever. i wish
someone would come along
& tell me i can be 
a nestling forever-- let me sleep
in a soft cluster of fibers
stolen from the sidewalk 
& tired trees that 
weld together my city. 
in the distance the train 
wakes up new birds--
some of them flightless
& i arrange stones 
on the floor for them.
i find a broken
phone charger & thread
it into my hair. 
when you find the nests 
which seems inevitable
i hope that you pretend
you don't see them--
i count them all over
the house before i can sleep
& i tell you that i'm
counting the number 
of angels i know--
i start 1, ... 2,...
3... 4... the birds love
this & they toss their
feathers like gum wrappers 
5... you ... 6 ask if
i have noticed the items
stuck in my hair ... 7
& i say no 8... not
while i'm counting ... 9
while i'm counting ... 10
nothing else exists 
but my nests 
i pull out the items
from my hair & collect them
in a basket at the bottom
of the closet 
you never open,
the closet no one else
can find, where all
the birds flock at night
& wait for my to get up
in the morning
to feed them

you always have such cold hands  

i make a better glass than a person.
pressing my cold hands to your skin,
you ask what kind of forest i am

& i tell you i am a forest made of glass.
a fun house mirror effect amplifies 
the birds, unless, maybe, inside me 

they have to be monstrous. 
i tell you to be careful where 
you walk because every surface 

is fragile-- which sounds cliche
but all the grass is capable of snapping 
& i don't want you to get glass 

in your foot. i love when no one
touches me because it forces me 
to remember all the felled trees.

i count their trunks & hang them
in the window as prisms. i sit on 
a limb in the shatter & i pray 

it doesn't snap. there are dead
trees & they are colder than me 
& i warm their hands under my shirt

like you do for me. i want to ask
you how you know you are happy
but instead i find a glass leaf 

& breathe on it till it fogs up.
you tell me 
you don't think you would like

to live in the glass forest.
i'm thinking of a basement full
of unanswered questions that slip

between conversations. i want to be
philosophical but really 
i just wish glass were a little bit

more like skin. i wish you
were see through & i could see
all the kind of birds in you: i'm guessing

swallows & cardinals. my mouth
is full of glass bird seed. my finger nails
are glass & two of them break-- 

they were also windows. you are pressing
your nose against the window of my pinkie
& telling me that we have 

so much to be happy about. i tell 
you i know we do &  i am happy:
the word "happy" comes out of my mouth

as glass because it's a lie.
not because i'm so sad, just because
the word never takes hold in me.

i drop the word into the forest:
so you won't see it.

overflow

& i say stop
because the glass of water
is overflowing but the waiter
is still pouring
from the metal sweating pitcher 

when did we end up at
a restaurant? i think 
& then i realize i'm just 
alone in my house & there
is no waiter just a glass
of water that won't stop spilling,

tipped over 
a steady gush
the hard wooden floor slick
with water. if it were
a restaurant i could
order something & i decide
i would order a short stack
of pancakes

not because it want pancakes
but because i could take
the cruet of syrup & spill
that too & the plate could
overflow with 
sticky thick dripping.

a river of maple syrup.
a glass of water spilling so 
long it turns to maple syrup:
that loud amber smell.

a maple tree overflows from
outside & comes in through
the window--glass turning to water
a splash of breaking.

pancakes as blankets
piled on top of my by 
a waiter who isn't here:
a notepad 
taking my word for it.

my skin overflowing too,
taking after the impulse 
of the tree. i tell no one
"stop" & i think about

how overflowing is a kind
of escape & i want to knock
over every glass of liquid
i see from now on.

orange juice trickles  
down from the ceiling where
upstairs my neighbor also must 
be making use of 
this same freedom.

i take all the glasses from 
the cupboard & overflow them:
lemon juice, teas, hot sauce,
cola, ranch dressing--

each eventually reaching
that limit where they can
hold nothing more--
that instant where the body
of the glass is not enough
to contain all this something.

i crouch down
to peer at all the glasses
& their contents. 

the glass hides nothing,
not even how full. 

i would make 
a better glass than a person.

a screw driver under the bed

into feathers
all our pillow burst
like dismantled dahlias.

it's that time of year
where everything needs  
to be fixed--

keep a screw driver
under the bed in case
the ghosts lose their bolts
during the night.

a spring comes free 
from my neck & i don't 
try to put it back.

my mouth got
that yellow noisy laundry smell
like a flashlight on the face
of a dead planet.

i decide to use that yellow
& i sneak into your room
to eat your clothes
while you're not home:
it's a kind of kissing.

you would probably say 
that we don't kiss enough anymore
but look we loved each other
so much that the pillows
couldn't take it anymore.

socks first--
i eat them in their knots,
chewing, crushing my soap teeth 
into their fabric. i close my eyes 
& imagine stale 
garlic bread.

don't worry i spit them out!
when i say "eat" i mean
just chewing because
that's the only important part. 

the moon cracks under pressure
& the clocks ask each other 
if they're "doing alright."

chew your food
at least 37 times each bite
someone told me.

next i eat dresses you don't own,
they're ghost-like flirting
around your room, so i grab them
& clean them up. they leave bolts
on the floor 
& i scold them for it.

you have too many clothes 
for me to scrub in one night
so i just gather up
the feathers from the pillow
& toss them into the air

which i was hoping
would bring the pillow back
but they just sank to the floor.

"i can't fix everything," i say
as i punch a hole in the wall
with my screw driver.

"yes you can," say the ghosts
as they drop planks of wood
from their chests.

the feathers breed more feathers--
the bolts breed more bolts.

your socks are hungry too
so i put them on my hands
like puppets & make them talk
to keep me company.

someday i will probably die all over

factory of birds
where they harvest those bright feathers
for craft stores.
loud clinking: red, blue, yellow,
green, gold, black white.

the birds in rows
non-specific species 
machine noises
conveyor belt 
the birds sit thinking only 
about re-growing
another crop of feathers,
locating the stems.

does corn think 
about height? maybe they
challenge each other--
one corn says to another:
i will deliver an ear 
to a cloud.

i tell the clouds
they can come inside
my ears to hide. a rabbit
crouching in a cave--
i feel the cloud's fear.
the cloud doesn't want 
to be angry & grey
but knows 
that will happen.

when my hair is grey it
will be scraggly corn hairs. 

the clouds
are dropping their husks 
like bath robes. it's not
obscene but definitely 
sexual.

don't forget about feathers.
birds try not to talk
to each other. they focus 
on their bodies &
the huge color yielded 
by their plumage.

i buy all sorts of feathers--
bags & bags. i toss them 
on the floor of my room
& tell them to turn back 
into birds. i want all
the colorful birds.

instead the feathers yawn 
& become clouds against
my wishes. a flock of
clouds in my house:
indigo & red & green clouds.

i tell them not to rain 
in here because it'll dye 
everything. they don't listen
& they dye all over.
someday i will probably die
all over so i forgive 
the clouds. i let them 
die on me: brief rain 
then dust, no feathers.

factory machine noises  
are echoing somewhere
& i glimpse that sound.

i want to be a bird
in the factory. i want
to lay there & make feathers
to be stripped 
from skin-- fill 
shelves with my feathers.

there's corn all over
the kitchen table listening
to the conversation i'm having
with myself in my head.
i tell the corn not 
to tell anyone what they hear.

the corn laughs & turns
into feathers.

a quiet door w/ curtains 

i needed my bangs 
to grow wild & come down
over my eyes like a curtain--
a grotto of hair--
a marvelous cove.

i populated my face
with cave fish.

no one would see me--
disappear myself invisible.
my face, a window behind
a wall of bricks--
ebbed in an alley of water.

i had this plan all along
when i asked for bangs 
in the hair dresser chair.

the scissors walked with
their skinny legs across
my arms. i explained 
that i needed a haircut--
one that would unleash 
all the lengths of my skull.

legs twitching as they worked-- 
the scissors gossiped 
about little girls 
like me--

saying how they smell 
like metal-- how they 
always insist on covering
their faces with veils.

i assumed the scissors 
had been there for 
my first communion.
there were thimbles 
& cheese puffs-- a wafer 
still under my tongue 
turned into a moth 
right then & there
so i swallowed it.

mirrors floated around
the hair dresser chair
so that i could see all angles
even though i was only
interested in seeing 
the bangs.

i loved them 
& ran my pointer finger 
across their straight line
right above my eye brows. 
my face, a stage with 
sticky lights.

my face, a budding quiet door.

in my bed room, hair grew 
where there used to be curtains.

i cut the hair for fun &
sprinkled it on my bed 
as if it were flower petals.

a voice from above said
"don't cut your hair."

so i listened & hid
my scissors under my bed 
where all day they pace until
i let them cut my hair again.

bangs down to my chin
bangs down to my neck
a soft mask
bricks made of hair

the fish swimming 
the fish swimming between
strands of hair. 

one of them 

the little white glowing man from the "walk" sign
steps out & crawls on all fours 
on the sidewalk.

he's mystery flavor,
which is probably watermelon. 

i'm eating white airheads 
from the porch & wondering
if he's sticky.

the red "stop" hand is looking
for another palm to 
clap but doesn't find one
& instead hovers
& appears to be waving.

a microwave timer goes off
in the density of buildings nests,
something's ready.

i'm out there in my boxers
looking for it-- hoping
it's a bowl of dinosaur oatmeal.

the timer goes off again,
more distant this time.
softer until it disappears.

the walking man keeps a steady pace
as if he's listening 
to a song & it's probably
the same one the red hand
wants to clap along to.

a stop sign wilts
so i water it with diet coke.

the stop sign bursts 
gently into flames.
i go warm my hands by it 
until one palm turns red 
& i have the need 
to tell people to "stop."

i put the hand in my pocket.

my pocket falls out,
turns into toad. i follow
the toad hoping he understands
something about the microwave

but he just leads me
to a river of soda i didn't 
know we had. there's all sorts
of white glowing men from the signs,
they're bathing & talking
in static noises.

i want to be one of them.

i wish i had a pocket to hide 
all the 
"stop" 
"stop" 
"stop"
better. they watch me but
don't have eyes so it's not clear
how intensely they watch.

the microwave floats 
by in the water but i can't 
make out what it had inside.

they want me to walk into
the soda river. 
the river changes colors:
caramel, cola, clear, maroon. 

i dip my hand in--
all fizz-- an excited water.
i laugh-- i glow--
i burn. the kind of burn 
all light bulbs learn
to live with.

my hand is cured
& i wade in with my whole body.
this might be how 
i become one of those 
glowing men-- i whisper 
"go" "yes walk" "yes you can walk"

but the soda doesn't
want to change me & the men 
don't like me & they gossip
in their static.

i go home & my microwave 
in the middle of the floor,
not ringing but sobbing.
i put my hand on it's head 
& say "stop"

self portrait as the Hindenburg in my blackyard

there are dollar store balloons in me
a cove of helium
& a finger pressing into 
my neck to find that vein 
as if it were an escape rope 
out the back window in the yard
the grass is crackling & dry
starting to give in to 
a rolling dry tomato July

my brother is still trying
to tie the blimp down.
he's the kind of person 
who thinks water stops fire
who thinks that there
is never a point where 
destruction is irrevocable.

this event isn't to scale--
the blimp is smaller this time
& so are the men inside--
their screams cartoonish
squeaks, as if this was
the burning of a cluster of mice.

fire closely resembles 
hydrangeas-- flowers sometimes
combust when looked at harshly
for too long.

there is a ray gun floating
in my body & maybe it 
pulled its own trigger 
& started the fire. i also
keep a selection of lighters,
it could of been those too.

i am fairly convinced 
i started the fire, whether
i remember doing so or not
whether this is 1937 or not.

a garden hose pulled loose 
from underneath a rock,
the running of insects away
from the fire's heat. i wonder
sometimes if the point of
loving someone else is so 
that you both feel needed--

that's the reason disasters
happen maybe-- so that we
can remember that other people
are necessary in great fires.

the beast crouches--
a school of rib cages--
silver skin petaling off me.
yes me-- opening my mouth
so the world can watch
my teeth turn red hot
& my tongue as just fire.

there's someone in my house
with a video camera-- 
a home movie of this-- 
look at her/him, we'll
need to remember this

i remember dad tossing
a football which is strange 
because it's one of those things
that show your parents had 
a life so long before you.

he's tossing me & i'm
high above buildings & this
is a memory of before 
i caught fire. 

the only thing i know for sure
anymore is that 
it was my fault
for swallowing so much flammable

for not sleeping better,
for not trying to fill myself
with something other than air.

i can't remember the last
time i loved someone who
made me feel like i was enough.

maybe this is why we have
videos of the blimp & all
its fire-- it's necessary to watch--
a crowd of people
crowded around a window,
some shaking their heads 
some crossing their arms
some holding iPhones
some cover their mouths.