bags of goldfish

you bring home an average 
goldfish in a clear plastic 
bag. we buy a bowl & fill
it with those little multi-color
pebbles: pinks & teals. the stones seem
almost edible. in the middle of 
the night you get up to stare
at the goldfish, to watch him.
i find you again & again, 
legs crossed on the floor 
before the bowl. i stand
in the doorway, i let 
you have your time with him
& when you come back to bed
you turn to me & say that
he's lonely. that he circles
the bowl each day 
in search of another goldfish.
this sounds ridiculous to me.
i have also watched the goldish,
i've seen him try to nibble
on the aquarium stones,
his suction mouthing 
puckered around a hunk of
teal. you bring home more,
at first just another bag
like the first. this goldfish
has a feathery tail & we 
add her to the tank. they dance
with each other. we both
begin to believe they're
in love but you stay up
day after day, insisting that
we need more. more goldfish.
you plug the sinks & fill them
with water & then them goldfish.
the bath tub. every single glass
of water. i wonder what i've done
wrong. if i should have made
you come back to bed & not
watch the goldfish. the first
one made you do it. i worry
that you don't love me anymore,
that all you care about is
orange bodies & round glossy eyes.
i think that maybe i should
get rid of the goldfish
but instead i find the first
one. he's solitary in his bowl, again.
i tell him about the carnival,
how we tossed ping pong balls 
at tiny bowls to win fish.
it's a confession. he turns around
as if to say "you don't mean that,
you're not sorry."
i don't know if i'm sorry 
or not. i stand up. was
this always what you want?
one foot at a time i get 
into the bowl with him,
he wriggles around, writhing
until we both succumb to 
proximity. i circle the bowl 
& i think, "when she comes
home she will come 
to watch me."

the brains of animals 

a family friend texted me today 
asking, "do you remember me?"
& i thought how rare an occasion 
it is for someone to ask that &
if i've ever asked someone else
the same question. 
he came to all our holidays:
easter, christmas, thanksgiving.
we have never been extravagant people 
but him coming brought
a certain occasion. no one
visits for holidays now, it's
just us. calling him a "family friend"
feels wrong, formal & cliche.
who are all these people?
i don't want an address book:
i want a collection
to keep them in the living
room where i will spend each day
catching up, asking what their
favorite breakfast food is now
& if they've read a book this 
past year.
i wonder if there are people who
i wouldn't remember
if asked. would i pretend?
would i nod & say 
"of course, 
of course, holidays 
were nothing
with out you." how many people
can we keep in our heads?
i'm thinking of mugs &
teacups inside of skulls.
an animal cabinet.
i see all of them: the dolphin
with a great big mug
full of ocean textures
& smooth blue faces. 
the rat with a play tea set cup
spilling over with 
the last fives humans 
he passed in the subway. 
then there's the dragonfly
that flickers around
between May & June:
an ornate & beautiful cup, metallic
& multi-color
in his round insect head 
that he dips:
filling & re-filling with thoughts
about the different bushes outside
my parent's house and/or the trail
by the creek. 
would he ever have
room for me if i were to make
enough impression on him?
if i were to go out each day,
extend my hands & let him 
explore across my skin. 
his limbs:
walking wishbones, 
the wind 
blowing him over, spilling
his aluminum memories across 
a patch of grass.
i go outside to find 
a whole tea set on
the side walk. i take 
the set inside & keep 
it for myself. 
more memory 
for me.
had it belonged
to the dragonflies?
to the ants? the moths?  
and so, i told him "yes, yes of
course i remember you,
holidays were nothing
without you,"
but felt wrong, simplistic.
the limits of a text message,
are what kind of betrayal?
i sat thinking of the cordial
cherries he used to bring
for holidays & the book he
got me maybe eight christmases
ago that i still have never read.
i take one of the tea cups
& pack it in bubble-wrap,
sending it away to him.
i want to write
at the bottom of the cup
about the brains of
animals but i feel like
he might not understand.
maybe someday he'll find
some use for the cup. 
i write names on slips
of paper, dropping them inside 
of mine. this is futile though,
they always turn into 
dragonflies. 

ear buds

i resorted to
buying bags of seeds:
pumpkin & sunflower & tulip
& azalea: laid them all
out on my desk to examine 
my options on any given night.

the soil in my skull,
a terracotta pot,
a planter by a window.

i tilted my head
to drop that night's seeds 
in my ears. this isn't
a metaphor for drugs.

i really did this,
everyday. i needed to.
haven't you ever wanted
to feel roots around 
your jaw?

headphones in, blurting
Green Day & Sex Pistols
i'd imagine becoming a 
girl who played guitar & smoked
cigarettes & wore fishnets 
underneath her jeans.

lily & marigold headed
i would grow up
to be in a rock band.

i would be a bowl full
of rocks &

bloom & burst,
i attracted swarms 
of bees singing distortion:

their yellow bodies
falling onto the driveway 
as guitar picks.

headphones in
i peered out my bedroom
window & watched my dad

walk each orange
recycling bin 
to the curb.

dad kept his seeds all
over the house. 
in kitchen drawers &
old shoes.

Nirvana playing softly
from the mouth of 
a white carnation 
in his head. 

when he fell asleep 
i stepped inside his head
to walk among the strange
plants he kept there.

what daughter doesn't
scour the dirt for what her father
is planting?

i collected seeds
& set them on my book shelves
in rows,

too hesitant 
to use them.

moths
i told you that my boyfriend 
was the one who taught 
me to feed moths 
to spiders. 
that was a lie. 
it was me,
i showed him. it was
my game. 

i cupped
my hands in the porch lights 
& trapped 
the fluttering insects.

i hated moths & the dust 
that comes off their wings
when they're scared. i felt
them desperate in my cage,
a paper heart,
a bowl of eyelashes. 
i think of it as cruel now
but in the moment there 
is a certain rush of life
that comes when you feed 
one animal to another.
i imagine it's the same 
for people who drop rats
into snake cages.

my boyfriend was an expert 
at cultivating me.
i called him on the phone
every morning 
& every night. a web grew in 
my mouth, the spiders,
returning to the porch afterwards 
to knit more traps.

i have practiced the art
of letting a lover use me.

from the porch
through the window
i saw my parents in the kitchen
slicing carrots for stew.
you caught a moth with 
white wings & marvelous green eyes
& asked me if it was
too big for the spiders.
i said "no" & you tossed
the moth like a baby bird
right into the tangle.

we watched side by side.
it was romantic. the spider
struggling to wrap the huge moth.
the moth staring at us,
as if we were its parents.
the moth asking us aloud
what it had done wrong
as the spider circled its
body with more bondage. 

i flinched 
& scratched my arm.
i had wanted to intervene
& free her. the spider couldn't
eat the whole moth so it 
moved on to a smaller more 
manageable fly in the web. 

he hugged 
me from behind & kissed
the side of my face.

i told him to open
his mouth. he did, hesitant
as he was. his teeth 
glowed in the yellowish
porch light. 

i turned into
a moth & flew inside.

this is a test of the emergency alert system

i hear as i'm ambling through town 
to the bus stop in the grey-blue morning.
the cold is blooming today, watered
by our reluctance to open front doors. 
no one else seems to notice the alert as 
the buildings blur into each other--
their lines betraying proximity,
wriggling then thrashing. i blur into
the people i pass: a man with black 
dress shoes, a woman wearing 
sand-dollar-sized sunglasses, a boy
with finger-less gloves. we're 
all going the same place sort of,
we pulling different directs. the bus
stop is an emergency: a tongue pressed
to the roof of one of our mouths. 
only one of us will commute today.
there are bodies under the ground,
clapping to shake the earth
as the train rolls by. the train
is just a zipper on two of our
pants: opening into a mouth
of air: a gust. this is just a
test. always a test. your voice
asks me why i haven't been sleeping
& the emergency alert screams louder
so i don't have to talk about it.
thank you emergency alert, even
if you're not real. a buttery hum.
a hollow honk. all buildings have
all collaborated. there's now
only one building, great & tall
& full of elevators. the boy
wearing finger-less gloves 
might have always been me. 
the woman takes off her glasses
& she vibrates into an ocean.
she's from underground & plucks
a stop sign out of the ground 
to use to shovel home. so we separate
& the nice black shoes aren't mine
& i feel younger in the glaze 
of the moment. the test worked
i think. i want to tell someone
that it did. i want to call my
mother & tell her everything blurry 
& everything about my fingers
at the bus stop. the voice
crumbling: the crust of a blueberry 
pie. the voice ending: bubbling
the sidewalk street cauldron. 
we're quite the alerting emergency
around here.

beach house

my favorite part about going away
to the beach at chincoteague 
once every three or so years 
was exploring the rental house. 
i searched for evidence about 
the people who owned the place. 
photographs hung in the hallway 
(were they stock photos 
or did they really have 
two beautiful
brown-haired children?). 
the monopoly game was missing 
the dog playing piece (the most
important one). the mystery
novels wearing worn & cracked
spines, aching from use (did they
re-read their mystery novels?).
in bed after days spent 
with my pink feet in soft 
sifting sand i tried
to imagine the lives of 
the home owners. all the houses
in chincoteague were named
& ours that particular year
was the "blue egret." i saw
plenty of egrets there but
none of them were "blue"
enough for my 4th grade
definition of the color.
the first people i created
were two brothers, they had
grown up together & never
married. they came here only
once or twice a year to fish
in the canal. the one brother
dreamed of catching a shark
(impossible?). 
the next were an elderly couple,
too tired to amble through
the sand  so instead they'd 
just park their car at the beach
& play board games, one 
time losing the dog monopoly 
piece down the cracks in the seat.
the final was a single young 
woman. she had bought the house
just to create something for
other people. she never read
the mystery novels, those used
to be her mom's. she wanted
them to get some use. 
she never visited & sometimes
forgot that she owned the blue egret.
i want to be like her if i could
ever own a beach house. i want 
to lay clues to the renters
about who i might be. strange
sculptures on the end tables,
a protein shake blender, photographs
of all kinds of people, no same
person in two pictures.
the children staying there,
whose parents are watching 
television or making pasta
in the kitchen, they will 
find the clues, they will
lay awake in bed & fantasize 
about the house belonging 
to world travels or artists 
when in fact the place will
just belong to me: a quiet man
parking his car alone by 
the beach to watch the 
sun turn orange then pink
then dark.

the afterlife

i don't think we've come close
to figuring out what happens to us
when we die. i believed in heaven when
i was a kid but now that i know 
God better i don't think he would
have any interest in judging every
individual person, that's a whole lot
of work & after all that work
you'd just have a big cloud
of people you'd have to entertain.
(imagine the small talk).

all the furniture in my apartment
was here when i got here &
the shelf by my bed reminds 
me of my grandfather. at night
when the shelf thinks i'm not
looking it begins to smell 
faintly of cigars. 

if we do come back, maybe we cycle 
our way through the world,
returning as a series of 
inanimate objects. my theory 
of this order for now is:
bookcases, chairs/sofas, beds,
& from there moving on to 
small appliances like lamps 
& down to forks 
& knives 
& spoons.

i lay in bed & wonder what
the bed's life was like. what do 
they think as they observe & 
hold the whole weight of 
my sprawled out body each night.
i toss & turn. i clutch them.
would they have loved me
motherly or loverly or otherwise?
do they sometimes wish
for another body to spend
each night with?

my other bookshelf is more 
secretive about who they were.
the structure is wobbly so 
occasionally my tea lights
drop off the top & it's hard to
fit more than a few books each
loose shelf. 

will you believe me if i tell you
that i know know all of this 
because i awoke one evening to see these 
objects all changed back. flickering
between lives. it was only a moment. 
there she was, my bookshelf; a tired
girl with stick straight hair &
thin wind chime arms. she was paging
through a book of poetry from
my shelf. i smiled at her & she scowled
as if i'd seen something i shouldn't.

i think noticed my bed, who i didn't
get a good look at, but all
i can tell you is that their
body was warm & they were crouched on
all fours to hold up mine.

now when i worry faintly about
death i try to remember my bookshelves
& bed & acknowledge all the furniture
in any given room. i look forward
to the distant future. i want to 
be a spoon. i think i have always
wanted this. pressed to
a stranger's lips as they 
sip from me for a fleeting seconds
maybe they will, in a corner of
their being, know that i was 
a boy who also ate from spoons,
who buried his face in pillows,
& stacked his shelves 
with poetry.

to bee

i have been 
thinking about 
the honey comb

with all its
little segments
& all its little 
hideaways.

call me octagonal
& eight & ocho
& i'll crawl 
in my six legs
counting 
the sides 
of the world.

i want to live
in an eight-sided
room where it's
quiet & made
of sugar & 
no one knows
i'm there 
besides the queen. 

i would pray to her
that someday 
i'll come back 
as the yellow
face of a butter-
cup.

the bees are 
dying, 
starving,
laying, 
no longer
able to move.

it is a good 
time to be a bee.

still,
i would hear
the sound of the
hive through 
the walls.

their muffle 
voices sifted  
into poems.

do the bees
think softly
of saving 
each other

or do they
unravel,

numbering 
all they can see
into 8s?

i think to 
myself

1. the last
taste in 
my mouth

2. the amber
yellow color
of honey

3. god who
is a woman

4. how she 
hums & 

5. the feel
that leaves 
in my outside 
skeleton

6. you as
a bee

7. the sugar
left in your 
mouth

8. the slowness

it's a good
time to be 
a bee.

sound machine

the crunching static sound
of metallic rain plays from 
my old bed room at my parent's house. 

that's where my dad sleeps now
& he keeps the sound machine
pouring all day set to "RAINFOREST."

when the machine was mine
i'd listen closely to the electric voice
for hours while trying 

to fall asleep. i wanted to
hear where the recording 
started over, but

i could never find it. 
instead the pattering of rain 
would rush & fall like

a real storm. i decide
that the sound machine must 
be linked to a real location,

a far off lush world where
it could rain as long as
someone was paying attention. 

i lay on the carpet & 
talk back to the sound machine.
i ask for a hint but

the downpour just keeps coming.
closing my eyes, as if trying 
to sleep, i reach out & spread

my fingers like a wide leaf
to imagine touching the droplets 
as they fall. i keep reaching

& digging myself deeper into the sound
until the warm water patters all
up my arm & across my body.

i open my eyes in a humid jungle.
there is nothing to be heard but rain.
i think "i will never

go back. it will be so easy 
to sleep here." i wonder if my dad
comes here when he naps 

in the afternoon or if 
he considers staying here & never
coming back 

to the crooked metal mattress
& the rattle of our old house. 
i search for him,

but only briefly. i hear the recording
start over, not because 
the jungle isn't real but

because there's only so many 
beautiful sounds it can make.
i'm soaked, i'm a mud footprint 

filled in with water. i'm my dad
wrapped in his son's old green blankets.
i'm turning into a sound machine. 

stewed tomatoes

her thin fingers in the pot 
of unfurling red while
we sat side-by-side at 
the little kitchen table
on which a bouquet of dusty fake flowers,
lilies, opened wider in the sweet air.

i think the only thing i miss about
you is your grandmother. there are,
of course, other things, but 
i have been thinking about 
your grandmother & the stewed
tomatoes she made us that afternoon.

she mixed in odd ingredients
like a slice of white bread &
a cup of sugar. she talked to me
in flourishes 

i used to sing in the choir but not anymore

& you are a beautiful girl i bet you sing

i'm not beautiful anymore 

it's so nice to see young people like you 
it gives me faith 

she had a piano turned side wards
in the other room, the cover half way
over its body, like plastic wrap 
on leftovers. 

the stewed tomatoes were hard 
to eat. they tasted wrong. sweet 
& warm & bleeding but i ate
them out of respect, it was
only right to do so & 

as i did i thought about how
old the tomatoes probably were
having slept so long
in a cool dark can, finally 
released by her old rusty 
opened setting on the counter.

she was an anxious person,
fearful of germs. when bringing 
in the groceries she was sure
to waive every bag out on 
the front porch 
to release the dust

having just had hip surgery 
this was hard for her.
while cooking she stopped 
to clean the bags
just to be sure

i offered to stand by
the door with her & help.
you told me not to encourage
her, that she was always OCD
like this but i hope that when 
i'm eighty that someone helps
me with whatever i need.

eating the stewed tomatoes, 
i pretended they were from far 
away, somewhere lush & tropical even.
the sun: a hot stove, the plump fruits
gathered together, the playing
of a piano in the wind.