graveyard 

angels must lay down like this
in perfect rows
splayed out specimen
fingertip to fingertip
bellies to the dirt
a kind of reptile funeral
metal & asking to be kept awake 
i want to be buried 
as a B52 in 
one of the aircraft bone yards
near where you lived in arizona
i have to walk 
all the way there 
this is a migration 
following only the highway signs
my phone turns into a beetle 
& snaps itself in half
there's a fatal theme
in tonight
a longing 
to find wherever they 
still have open land
away from every single city
until they mash together 
in the distance 
collapsing stars
i arrive & pace between the rows
of bones
foot prints in the reddish dirt
put my hands to the wings of the plane
& tell them they can 
be birds if they want to
they don't just have to wait 
for a military man 
to cox flight out of them again
i want to lay down 
& wait for someone to come 
tell me the same kinds of truth 
but i don't
i do this for the plane 
& they listen
aching creaking hollow bones 
i rub their wings 
till they break open with feathers
giant blue jays &
birds of prey all yellow talons
& all the other song birds 
& an owl with the face 
of a sundial
they fly away & i'm left
with their graveyard 
i lay down
& try to become
a sleeping plane
gust of wind 
i divide into perfect 
even rows
come find me i want 
to be birds

in between fingers 

in about three days
all my nail polish comes off 
in flecks
a pollen scattering
or gust small strawberry seeds 
i'm thinking about all the places 
i've left these chips of gold nail paint 
if they might grow something 
in my absence
sliver of pigment
crinkles of color
buried in a sofa 
or square of speckled carpet
a small tree growing
in the shape of a hand
taking root
waving & asking 
to grab onto someone else
asking for a bracelet 
or ring to wear 
a small hand in the shape
of a tree
i remember the bonsai 
i had for a few weeks
as a kid
how somehow it bloomed 
sticky yellow pollen
how that pollen 
made flowers bud & burst 
all over my face 
how i picked the flowers
in the mirror & tossed
them in the trash
how i wove my fingers 
into the braided trunk 
of the bonsai 
as a kind of handshake
or hand holding
all my many hands 
now growing all over
scattered by my nail polish
i close i eyes &
try to move all the dozens
of fingers
imagine one in a small pot
like the bonsai
& maybe my bonsai tree
grew from someone else's 
chipped nail polish
& they felt me 
press my hand around there's 
i hope i spread pollen
& the flowers rupture 
from the floor
& the walls &
in between fingers 

and i plant daffodils
to remind myself it's spring
but also to show my neighbors 
that i know about the color yellow
and that there is still a corner of me
that has smile teeth.

you tell me with my old face
my crooked was more visible
and in the horizon my blue retainer
dips like a memory 
of a different face i'll never have.

i wonder what the house is for.
what my teeth are for
if i smile for you and i eat for you
and i tuck yellow under my tongue for you.

pull them out and plant
them in the dirt for the worms
to make sense of. i smile to let
all the yellow out. pick the daffodils
and smash the petals 
in my fingers

before saying i'm sorry daffodils
i took this all out on you.
i never wanted to own a house.
i buried the blue retainer
maybe in someone else's mouth.

something 

i had a dream they took out my uterus
& handed it to me.
it was an ornate vase
& i asked, "what am i supposed 
to do with this?"
& the doctor shrugged
he was in a suite & tie &
had lavender gloves
he suggested i use it to collect something.
i stuck my hand in deep to see 
if there was already anything in there,
found a ring i lost maybe four years ago
& i wondered how it got there.
silver claddagh waiting
scraping up against the glass 
lining of the vase.
it had something to do with hope, 
i think a uterus does even if you 
take it out 
& discover it's 
a shoe box or an urn or a vase.
i tried other items, starting
with buttons, snipping them off
all my clothes so that i would
have more. clear buttons, black buttons,
brown buttons, red buttons, all of them
inside the vase, i thought they might
transform, i thought that might 
be the point of the strange object
but nothing happened. i slept 
holding the vase & imagining
what it was like inside me
what kind of objects it hungered for.
i talked it, i told the vase that
i was sorry this was how 
everything had to happen. 
i bought flowers after flowers
to let sprout from the vase's mouth:
lilies, carnations, roses
& i'd keep asking 
the uterus, "are you happy?"
but the vase wouldn't respond.
emptying out the greenish stem-water 
left over from the flowers 
i stuck my hand in again
only this time i felt an ache
in my chest as i did, a kind of 
phantom connection, a hand under skin.
i wept, it was something about hope
for something; a hand searching
under skin for lost objects,
the ring like a kind of opening
for beetles or other insects
to crawl through. i was scared 
it might always be like this
if i kept the thing around.
i had to  break it.
no, not in the driveway or the street,
a push from the counter in the kitchen
where all glasses & plates 
will eventually shatter.
the pieces on the floor like 
teeth of an unknown monster.
i apologized to the uterus
as i cleaned up its pieces.
i took a bowl from the cupboard 
& began filling it with buttons
out of habit or maybe
some kind of hope. from the buttons 
grew the stems of flowers,
only the stems.

someone laughing 

i fed you with a tablespoon
from the bowl of rainbow sprinkles
because we were hungry & that 
was the only thing left in the house.
the crush of their shells
in your teeth; their colorful
exoskeletons gone to sugar powder.
i watched the mashing
the way your chewing made a mess
of the colors, 
is there a word for what happens
when you blend together
every color? a collapse of rainbow;
a significant
greenish brown. a stain glaring
down the middle of your tongue.
& the sprinkles scurried,
insects only hatched 
when someone somewhere 
laughs so hard that they cry.
i want to make you laugh
so hard that you cry
so i clink the spoon 
against my teeth,
keys of xylophone,
they play & you recognize
the song. you ask if i 
want any sprinkles 
if i want a turn eating 
& i tell you no that
i want to feed you sprinkles 
sunup sunset until your 
teeth also turn to insects
each a new color not found yet 
like butterfly sight
& your scared because i ask
so much of you &
i'm raising the spoon
& the sprinkles are crawling
all up my arm, won't stay still,
want to crawl all over us
& you ask if someone is laughing.
i say yes there is always
someone laughing.
you ask is it me?
& i'm not sure if you are.
i look again at your teeth,
each becoming a thick colorful beetle
& crawling out of your head.
you know how you never mean
for things to really happen?
that's how i feel, i feel
like i didn't mean to do this
i just wanted to know 
what would happen. 
i put the spoon in your hand.
there's still a few sprinkles 
in the bowl.
i say feed me, go ahead you 
can feed me now.
you shake your head 
& pull the bowl closer
to your chest. no teeth left,
you smile 
like a sliced peach
saying, 
these are mine.

the capability of filling a glass

when there was no more food 
left in the house
there was always a box of powdered milk 
perched in the corner of the shelf.

the box had drawings of white flowers 
and, sometimes, i'd pull a chair up
to the counter so that i would
be tall enough to reach it.

one hand on the counter, 
one hand extending, i'd plucked
the box from it's nesting place.
just to hold it there alone.
barefoot. cold red speckled floor kitchen.

shaking the box i considered
the mechanics of powdered milk,
if, maybe, when i'd pour the stuff
in a glass of water it could do more
than just turn to murky pale milk.

i thought of the flowers on the package
and imagined one of the tall water glasses
filling up with flowers, white flowers
dunked in water, the flowers dissolving
into milk in my mouth.

also maybe, another kind of magic,
the capability of filling a glass
with whatever kind
of food you wanted.
i would stir with a big spoon 
and i'd whisper to the opaque water
Oreos or Milano cookies 
or even just spaghetti
and the powdered milk would choose 
for me. the powdered milk 
would be motherly like that.

standing there,
i'd shake the box,
listening to the shifting 
of dried milk, which sounded 
so much like sand. a beach, maybe,
could be built where each time 
a wave crash the powdered shore would
make more food; wild snacks
like raspberries and cantaloupe.

after shaking it,
i'd put the box back,
stare at it few seconds, inspecting
those white flowers.

once i tasted a handful 
of the powdered milk.
it was bitter and chalky in my mouth.
i washed it down with water
which just made it gunky in my throat.

tuck me in

bed bugs are attracted to warmth
which is almost sad 
i know that it's just some kind
of bodily impulse 
but maybe they're craving 
some kind of contact
pressing themselves
to skin at night
in the hopes of feeling warm
spreading out 
under sheets
finding leg & arm & finger
stepping with their thin insect limbs
over our full fleshy ones
soft comforter press 
the world under the mattress
a kind of matrix of bodies
crossing paths
whispering to each other 
will you tuck me in?
will you tuck me in?
not knowing what it means
it's just a phrase passed down 
over heard from humans 
though i never asked anyone to tuck me in
we slept in a bunk bed &
i'd just pulled the covers over me
making myself a clothe egg case
my brother rolled in the blankets 
a cocoon
i would ask him almost each night 
after mom or dad left 
are you asleep?
are you asleep?
& he would almost always be asleep
so i'd pull the covers tighter
around myself
as if that could keep the room's darkness 
from touching me
do they want skin like us?
houses? blood? beds?
somewhere there's a bed bug version 
of my brother & i 
in little bunk beds
& the older brother 
is asking the younger brother
are you asleep?
& the younger brother
repeats tuck me in tuck me in 
& the bed bugs have bed bug dreams
where we trade places entirely
humans on hands & knees
traversing the great bodies
of the insects
biting with our flimsy teeth
our bodies cold
their bodies so exciting & warm
humans under box springs
holding hands & singing 
the bed bugs tell us
to be quiet so we laugh 
& scatter ourselves across the insect's belongings
in couches & books & clothing
but despite all of that
we would still not be able 
to feel warmth 
& we'd return as we must to the bed room
to great bed bug 
sleeping there
sprawl ourselves out on his abdomen 
as he rests
my brother would be there with me,
already asleep in the folds of blankets 
as i lay awake
& pull a small corner of covers 
over my head 

sibling

we play Galaga
hurl hunk of bright at the invasion coming down
make projectile from
a can of soup a spoon a mailbox 
taking the shoes off our feet
to throw 
the pixels peeling 
a kind of new snow jumping 
gone insect
the video game night sky all frenzied 
with creature
you & me, brother it's only us
who can save a two-dimensional world
move only side to side
the grass is cold with technology
& they're still coming 
in rows
like revolutionary war soldiers
bright square coats
colorful chandeliers
lowering themselves 
so many 
we put the quarters 
in the key holes of our house
put the quarters
in the dirt
to start the machine
i ask you if you have anymore
& you say no
& that means we can't stop throwing
i think of the arcade machines
at the back of the pizza shop
how naive we were 
to not know that games could spread
outside of those boxes
i feed you quarters
you spit them out at the outer-space men 
each exploding from the impact
almost fireworks 
lowering still 
new formations
i wish i was one of them
crave their same-ness
how all the rows of invaders look 
the same
a kind of necklace 
the sky a collar bone 
formations like geese
are they geese? 
victims of pixel 
we are just two boys then 
the only two boys on the surface
of the world
& i tell you 
we should let them come down
we should let the space ships land
to see what happens 
& you turn to me
confused you say 
this is a game
a video game 
your image going static
you put your hand on my shoulder
& i remember you are taller than me
even though i'm the older brother
i shake you off
& i try to run away from you
but the world is flat & no very long 
& the space ships are going to land
on the tops of our heads
you look up just a second
the creature crowning you 
rigid talons on your forehead 
one lands on me as well
& comes the dispersing of color
the world turned to smaller & smaller bright squares
my dissembled mouth says
you should listen 
to your brother

flat statues

i stole my piece of charcoal 
when the other kids were putting their's back in the bin
our art teacher had given us those fragments 
& told us to draw each other
ten-year-old fingers grasping 
shards of glorious shadow 
rolled out large squares of thick paper 
sprawled out on art room tables
i drew a portrait of her 
my friend who had strawberry shoulder-length hair
i remember asking her to look at me 
in between sketching lines
our eyes meeting 
taking in the shapes of the other's faces 
she had greenish irises 
& i remember thinking that the charcoal
wouldn't be able to show them
oval face shape
charcoal on my hands
when we finished i wouldn't show her
& she wouldn't show me
i wondered what we had done
to each other
what kind of image the charcoal 
had pulled from our bodies
i stole my piece of charcoal 
when the other kids were putting their's back in the bin
i still have it now 
rub it between my fingers 
till their coated in coal dust
then i trace the outline
of my shadow
smudged in all different angles 
of those world
i leave them like flat statues
tall from the dropping sun
short in the morning
on a brick wall at the train station
i'm trying to see what 
she drew in me
all those years ago
that careful glancing back & forth
between paper & body
i don't think anyone has
unfolded that kind of image from me since
it was the charcoal
maybe it was the charcoal 
i crouch down on the sidewalk outside my house
my shadow short & compact
i ask can i draw you
the shadow nods 

sinking

the creek turned to mud again each year
in the forest that lived between 
soybean & corn fields
a smooth ganache kind of brown
i never stepped in it back then 
dad & me would linger by
the edge
perched on sinking stones
watching the flies glitter 
in the chicken broth air 
waving our arms to herd the flies
away from our faces 
for a few seconds at a time
i thought they might replace
my skin with flies
the image of white noise
i'm stepping in the mud creek now
my bare feet
disappearing into muck
ankle-deep 
i had always wanted this 
we caught frogs in the creek
when water trickled through
from some unknown source 
maybe it was god with a clay pitcher
a barefoot girl
emerging from the soybean fields
to re-fill the stream
dad would crouch 
on a sinking stone
hands poised statue 
the frog poking his nose
out of the water
thinking about mud & god
under a leaf & then he'd pounce
grip around slick body
frantic blinking 
wriggling 
i was always scared for the frog
felt dad's hands around my body
my own skin wet & amphibial 
a wanting of mud
me a frog in my dad's dry hands
no the frog in my dad's dry hands
& we sat on sinking stones
but that was the past
there's no water now
& i'm a frog thank god
stream given in to mud
me giving in to mud sinking 
this is where the frogs go for winter
mud up to my waist
mud up to my neck 
breathing mud the flies 
glittering above the muck
the girl with the pitcher
holding out an open hand
& waiting for rain