you might have a puppet

dad & i used to make puppets
from the sleeves of his old shirts 
but now we just talk through them
he holds up a dragon in one hand
& a rabbit in the other
i choose the crow & the turtle
for myself
we hold them up
sit at a diner booth in town
make them talk to each other 
dragons don't like crows 
the crow would smoke cigars if 
we'd let him
it's more common than you notice
people bringing their puppets along
all day
you're probably a polite person 
so you just go along with it
i'm not so much polite 
as i am ready to accept 
the terms of a situation 
the waitress today 
also has a puppet
a goat with a tuft 
of hair on the chin
we order & i can't decide
if i should be looking
at the puppet's eyes or hers
i choose the puppet
because it's the one talking
the crow is also the one talking
the turtle doesn't talk
just makes realistic movements 
i always go places with dad
with something i want to talk 
to him about but end up
giving in to what the puppets 
want to talk about
which is almost always 
the weather or what time we got up
that morning 
i let the crow talk about 
cloud formations
dad's rabbit says he loves me
& nods his head 
dad's rabbit picks up
a fork & feed him 
triangles of his club sandwich
getting crumbs on his fur
dad's dragon sits & stares
at me sometimes
& i stare back at its glassy eyes
there's something judgmental there 
like he's waiting for me 
to slip up
& talk with my own mouth
i narrow my gaze 
as if to say that won't happen
i worked hard to talk 
with puppets
everyone works hard 
to talk with puppets
you might have a puppet &
not even know it
dad doesn't
he thinks he has two free hands
he drives with the puppets on
the puppets kiss my cheeks 
when we leave
their cool glass noses
on my skin
my puppets love his puppets
just like between them all
i love him 
& his hands buried 
inside animals 
& my hands buried inside animals 
at home i take them off
look at my own hands
put the puppets back
on before going back out

John 14:2-4 

what we didn't know was that heaven would be lonely
& how much we'd miss wanting things.
a plate with a scoop of whipped cream,
four of us huddled in the center,
barefoot & asking each other 
if anyone has seen an angel.
we don't talk to each other because
heaven meet every need we could ever have.
we're grouped together because we 
all like the same temperature & humidity.
none of us remember where we're from
but i remember that when i had a body
i used to burn my mouth on hot french fries
& now when i eat french fries i never
burn my mouth,
i can't, it's impossible.
everything here is smooth
even the stubble on my face
like a forehead of a rabbit.
sometimes the plate grows
green vines all around
& i follow them
hoping they might lead me away 
from here to a different heaven.
when i first got here i thought
i loved the others more
than anything but 
it is tiresome to love everything 
about other entities,
we have nothing to talk about
we nod to each other
& we ask each other's names
even though we know
none of us have them.
i once wanted to be disobedient
& ate the green vines by the handful
but they turned to licorice 
when they touched my mouth.
i wish i was a terrible human
in the bone life because 
now i'm terrible in heaven
& i have no where to go.
i crouch alone & pretend
it's afternoon,
which i remember as being
like the sky dropped
a spoonful of honey
on herself.
i sit alone, 
walk on all fours out of curiosity
& occasionally i love the loneliness 
how everything is what i want 
& what i want only, the unbridled
selfishness of it all.
i scan the sky for angels 
& remember insects with with colorful wings.
the vines grow 
& i lay down on them,
overhearing two of the bodies in the distance
ask each other 
what is your name?

i associate my grandmother with pussy willows

there are pussy willow growing
from the walls of her little apartment
i imagine her harvesting them 
& plucking all the little grey fur buds off
each of the buds mewing 
like her generations of cats 
turning into cats on the soft vanilla carpet
i'm not sure how many times she had pussy willows
in a vase on her dining room table
by the antique brass scales weighing
a fake pear & a fake apple
apple always heavier
i'm not sure how many times
but it had to have been more than once
i was maybe 7 or 8 years old &
i would 
when no one was looking
pick the branch's greyish fur
pinch the bud in my hand
a new kind of mammal
as if newborn mice were seeds
crawling on the arms of a bush 
as if we
my grandmother 
& me
were also born 
with soft grey fur
perched on a wooden limb
i know very little about
my grandmother
she's a spoon on the side of a metal pot
a milk carton shaped magnet on the fridge
pink & green checkerboard shoes by the door
i think of her alone
sitting on the edge of her bed
the small grey kittens 
ambling towards her
her collecting the cats in her hands 
like a bowl of blue berries 
or on heavy peach 
her kissing each of them on the forehead
maybe i'm one of them
pink paw
mew scratchy pollen tongue
returning to my stalk 
to be quiet & soft
all day in the light 
through her dining room window
climbing down once or twice
to pick up the fake pear
& the fake apple
to check which one is heavier
i'm the apple 
always heavier
i'm also the pear

11:15pm Portland/ 2:15am New York

on the first night i've ever been to Portland
sleep starved from from a day & a half traveling
haunted by plane windows
i walk alone away from the hotel
i want to be eaten maybe
or inspected
i keep my watch on New York time
the deeper i get in city the more 
i want to walk until morning
& never sleep again 
rain full thick with hour 
bluer & bluer 
night asks what art
i will use to collect its memory in
& i answer with whistling 
each note turning
into a swallow-tail butterfly
or a song bird
i wonder to myself
are song birds the same on this coast?
do they have cardinals 
& blue jays
or am i alone here 
i grow more feathers
& pluck them off
littering them on the damp sidewalk
are they leaves or feathers?
did i take the broad leaf
forests with me 
am i born out of dead leaves?
the forests here a jagged
a colony of needles
pine trees jutting from 
the earth
i cut my finger
on the angles
suck the blood which
tastes tired
i am
the bluer i am 
the more i walk the more i want
to forget i'm
visiting the more i want
to be a brick
inside the wall of a strange building
or a water fountain outside a different hotel
clusters of misty people 
laugh loud for a Wednesday night 
i buy an ice cream bar 
& eat as i walk 
chocolate shell sweet
vanilla ice cream 
soft down my throat 
i don't take my time
i must look strange to someone out there
a man stepping in blue 
followed by song birds
whistling to make more 
hand bleeding 
leaving a trail of vanilla 
blood ball of yarn
behind him

in mom's car

the floor of
the station wagon collected us:
white grease-stained fast food bags
handfuls of sand
smashed pine cones. 
held our relics close
and asked us to bring more,
opening all doors
the trunk gaping mouth
seats giving into soil.
together on long car trips
trees would have time enough to 
sprout tall
the car imagining a world
for us 
folding us deeper inside
her blue metal skull 
the doors miles away,
did the car plan to keep us?
my brother and i, 
meandering in 
different forests and deserts
losing a bracelet 
a ring
a kazoo a clementine
we ambled
seat belts slung over our shoulders,
sometimes, calling out
each other's names
just to hear how deep the echo would go. 
forgetting this was our mom's car,
that, somewhere, 
she was holding
a steering wheel like a sun hat. 
did she wander too?
barefoot maybe did she
forget that she had children?
we never talked about it 
when we found our ways out
back to the doors
brushing dirt off legs
from the jungles 
and prairies the car build
from our own discharged items 
we were going somewhere
there was somewhere outside
the car
i wonder though, if, sometimes, 
she took long rides alone. 
if on those rides 
mom might have wanted to stay there
bringing sandwich wrappers to her car
like offerings 
asking to go away somewhere
with a faint breeze,
wearing the steering wheel on her head
as a sunhat. 

blue bike 

bicycles with no riders
cluster together in packs
rushing through down my street 
at 11pm making squawking goose sounds
a flock of them 
searching looking for others
i pear glance out the window
to watch view them
all different types: 
tricycles
ones wearing with training wheels
old rusted face flat tire bikes
beautiful white wall tire pastel pink ones 
their owners have to miss need them
i think remember my own bike 
with the shiny blue body
and bell we fixed screwed to handlebars
the noise chirp it made 
as i rushed road through alleyways in town
& back up to my gravel driveway 
i wonder ponder if my blue bike
ran away escaped with a pack of bikes
like the one that comes through
my street at night
i check scan the pack closer 
with the idea i might see my old blue bike
that i might convince persuade 
the bike to come home
& sit lay in my living room
while i tell speak stories to the bike
about how much i loved adored it 
all those years
changing shifting gears
to make it up the big hill by
the playground 
laying resting the bike
down in the grass while
i played wallball against on 
the brick back of the high school building
i imagine think it's contagious
the bikes tell teach each other
one by one
that they can move with no rider 
and soon enough they're following going
with the group
all the bikes laughing chortling
in the street
my street each night around 11 
and everyone just hears mistakes 
them for geese 

find someone

the carnival sprawls,
first just a block,
outside my house with a few
booths: a dart game, a ferris wheel,
a tilt-a-whirl,
now every street i know, all
of them blocked off,
we have cars but no one uses
them anymore
we go to the carnival 
& i forget just
where i lost you in the midst of blink
& laughter but i count the 3 tickets 
in my pocket saying 1, 2, 3
1, 2, 3 as if that might summon you
from out of the whirl of color
& metal, last summer
i would pass by the carnivals
& say to myself that i should
go back, that i should 
find someone to go to the carnival with
but i never did &
i now they've come for me
or at least that what i think,
maybe it's something else entirely
a new plan for the city,
every street full of amusements
full of people i don't recognize,
i don't know anyone at the carnival
they're converting all the apartments
into fun houses, men with gloves
installing mirrors on all our walls
i wonder if i pace the halls
if i might find you in the glass
pull you free & we can go 
to the carnival together,
i could show you my favorite ride
or we can get away, though
i don't know where we would go
or if i want to leave anymore
i miss those nights where
i was so in love with you 
there was no where else
we could go but my room 
tracing each other's
bodies, laying up against the wall,
taking a pen & leaving our
outlines there, i spent a
ticket to get inside my own house
& there's glass where we used 
to sleep together,
i press hand prints there
i have 2 tickets & i'm saving
them for us, 
so much carnival
so much carnival all over,
ringing in my teeth
my teeth also turned
to mirrors, 
i hope wherever you
are that you ended up 
in a beautiful patch
of carnival & that you remember me
& that you eat fried dough 
with powered sugar &
the glittering noise of machine 
reminds you i exist,
maybe you'll even think 
about my outline on 
the bed room wall &
i'll say outside
& will go inside the fun house
& stay there, watching
our reflections as they
move closer to each other
touch skin 
carnival churning
outside

eat sugar 

the moon crawls
on all fours in through 
the window after watching me
all night, great white eye with
the pupil gone wandering in the dirt
as an ant. hungry moon, i feed it 
spoonfuls of sugar in the kitchen,
sand-like white piles, i consider each 
grain a different word i would have said
if the moon was someone i loved or if the moon
knew anything about how much glow a human body
can have. i want to peel the moon open to look at it's 
organs. what kind of organs do moons have? maybe just 
the same as ours. there might be houses somewhere 
with no windows. the moon grows more legs 
the longer it stays on earth, unspooling,
a knot of centipedes, i pour sugar 
on the floor because the moon 
is impatient, i open the fridge,
get eggs to throw at the moon
who runs, hiding beneath 
the sofa, turning into
an egg itself, do you know 
that if you spin an egg
on the counter you can tell
if it's cooked or not? if it spins 
perfectly it's cooked, if it wobbles it's
raw, the moon wobbles, is a raw egg, i don't have
time to cook the moon, i step outside 
in the cold March night, which is supposed
to be spring but fucking isn't,
where i throw the egg at the sky 
hoping it will go back up there 
but instead it splats against 
a neighbor's window
so, i run back to inside,
peer out my own window,
through the blinds to see 
the moon sitting up there again,
this time as a hand mirror,
reflecting just my own 
face back at me,
close up. i go back
to the kitchen
spin eggs on the counter,
eat sugar. 

The Gospel of Jesus's Husband 
-After Morgan Parker

I'll tell you what I remember
because there is no written
language that wants to hold onto
my name. I'll tell you about how

when pressing your hands together
the space in between is a kind
of tomb, where a man can exist
if you loved him more than 

anyone else. This is about his
skin, the color and softness
of clay. I left my hand prints
in him on cool nights, when alone

we pressed into each other.
The angular shape of men touching
men, no where to put shoulders,
holding him afterwards and him

telling me that he was scared.
That he could imagine a life 
for us. That he wanted to save
us both for a different time

where we might have lived
peacefully by some river. 
Laying naked together, he told me to
touch his hands, callous from

his father's work with wood. 
Pointed to the center and said
that was where there would be
a hole. I touched, could feel

his skin give way into nothing.
Empty, my finger through his hand.
I did not cry then, but asked
if anyone would ever know of us.

I opened my palm for him
to touch as he said, 
"No, no, I don't think
they can." His light touch,

finger at the center of my hand
where the skin didn't part.
I wanted it to, wanted holes
in my hands. Wanted to share 

whatever horror would 
take his beautiful skin apart.
But I lived and told no one.
On nights like this I 

lay down in the empty tomb
and imagine us here. Bodies
against stone, bodies molding
together in the orange dusk.

reptile show

i keep details about 
the reptiles 
my secret
i won't tell you how many i have
because this is my house
with its glossy scales 
you are just visiting 
when you go home
i have them to talk to
if you don't ask about my reptiles
i won't ask about yours 
that's how this works
but to tell you the truth 
you seem like gila monster 
kind of man
& i love you for that
do you ever shed your skin
like they i do?
i wish i could see it
bunched up in the corners
of your house 
like stockings 
when i was younger my dad  
took me to a reptile show
a whole hall full of people
showing off their reptile-ness 
pulling up sleeves, 
their scales underneath
opening mouths to reveal 
thin fangs
blue tongues
i knew then i would
grow up to be like them 
my snakes sun themselves
mid-day on the windowsills
so sometimes i lay out with them
i lay long
tongue flicking at the air
they crawl under 
the bed at night
at be near the heater 
that's where they are right now
do you hear them? 
don't bother them
just focus on me
did your father ever
take you to a reptile show?
everyone's father should
that's a shame you didn't
you would have liked it
you would look good with scales
would you touch them?
you can touch me
you can feel my scales
& i can feel yours
we can lay near the heater
with the snakes in the dark
but i won't tell 
you how many i have
that's the whole fun of it
has anyone told you that
you have four fingers?
i noticed
climb me 
call me tree branch 
call me your terrarium
walk me like a glass wall
blue tongue on my ceiling 
we reptile houses
have to love each other
because we understand
what it's like to
not know how many we have
men who love men with scales
i have to tell you 
another secret though
i want more 
i need more
more snakes
& lizards & maybe frogs 
& salamanders too
i want more
if you fuck me again
we can 
count them