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

gold coins

my uncle hides chocolate gold coins everywhere 
i see them  out my window in a line down the sidewalk 
but i don't follow them because he wants to take
me somewhere & i know he does & i don't know 
where that is it could be all the way to a museum 
to a museum with their metal clawed teeth
& revolving doors sharp with wanting i love him
i really do when my brother & i were kids we would
each get a sack of gold coins from god/my uncle
they would appear in shoes & in trails on the carpet
leading us into the bathtub or the closet
i spent three years in my closet eating the aluminum 
outside of chocolate coins while listening
to foot steps inside the walls of the house i ate
them slowly stacking them up first in little towers
sometimes gold coins fell from ceiling fans: 
scattering across the living room &
eagerly we'd rush to pick them up i think 
i punched my brother once for the last one
a clean swipe to his cheek followed by the glint
of falling flecks of gold more than the chocolate
i liked the taste of the metal like the shiny
wings of metal moths i'm not following those 
gold coins who knows what he wants me to do 
it might take me to box with a lock on the side
like the one he kept on the top of his fridge
full of sweet he called it a treasure chest
we don't talk much now when we do it's brief
a phone call with both of us chewing on either
end mouthful of gold coins gnashing shells
he takes the doors off my old closet filling
it with gold coins there should be more guidance
for how to remember people after they hurt you
i feel like i hurt him when i became a boy
i step on the gold coins like fat beetles 
their milk chocolate guts seeping out so i crawl
up the wall to lay down on one of the blades of
the ceiling fan thinking i might be safe there 
not tempted to follow any trail of coins 
but there he is up there too crouching on
the opposite blade he's got handfuls of coins
he puts a finger to his lips saying "i'm going
to surprise her, i've been waiting" he passes 
me a coin but i don't eat it i just drop 
the gold circle on the hardwood floor below.

cuttlefish REM sleep

fill body with invisible color
oh glory grey scale, turn
inside out red & get black
the cuttlefish changes textures 
& shades but only sees in black/white
i'm going to tell her about
all of the prisms ringing 
on her skin, outstretch 
my arms till i have only
three of them, like her, the blue
water not blue but clear 
thick with sound waves
thick with animal skins
who wouldn't want to know
what it's like to sleep in the body
of each fish & shark
& octopus & cuttlefish?
i'm here chewing mollusk shells 
till all the bones 
inside me fuse like hers,
the one long bone inside
the cuttlefish often washes
up on shore, used to sharpen 
knives, i'll pull mine
out through my mouth &
use it to sharpen the paring
knives in my mother's kitchen,
i'll show her my new beak 
& my new undulating eyes,
turned tie dye as i sleep
in the sink with the dishes,
when cuttlefish enter REM sleep
they pulse with rainbow waves
& patterns flickering across
their skin, 
watercolor projector screen skin
maybe inside
they can know their colors,
invent new words for 
red & purple & orange, maybe
naming them after other cuttlefish 
who they once enjoyed
the company of
in the sink i think how 
i would name yellow after you
& purple after my mother
& maybe name red after myself
i stand there, on 
a sandy beach, picking 
cuttlefish bones off the shore
& slipping them into a backpack
at home i'll hide them
in case i need to sharpen
a knife or re-teach hardness
to my bones, 
swallowing one
all my skin turning grey 
then the walls of the house 
& you even though you're
far away
i wanted this 
for us

killifish

feed me baby spoon swallows
of dioxin/ PCB 
jars in my throat
i'm here to talk to 
the killifish
to open all my fingers
& have them swim between
knots of yellow 
glinting scales
mouthful of minnow
the gulf of my blood where
they dump all the bad stories
killifish have evolved 
to survive the bay's deadly toxins
their deformed hearts
like salted strawberries
bodies all see-through 
in the eggs
i ask to be be see-through
& soft like that
let the chemicals 
play with my genomes
i want to mutate
with them
thrive in their strangeness
this is the only option left
as far as i can tell
so i talk to them
i nestle in their muck
the ocean 
all yellow with hand lotion 
plastic bottles float 
by & the killifish say
someday we will gnash plastic too
someday there will be
nothing we can't turn into body
clumps of their vein blue eyes 
never blink
stare louder
i cup my hands to catch 
killifish, open to 
let them dart away
they shriek with evolution
they call me 
drowning monkey 
i cut gills in my neck 
to prove them wrong
i say 
i'm one of you
i'm one of you