shopping lists

i've started writing shopping lists 
for other people as a hobby. 

i observe them as they 
pass me in the store think 

"eggs" "baby food" "99% lean ground beef"
"dog food in bulk" "non-fat milk" "grape juice"

i jot these lists in my notepad &
collect them like portraits

this one is of the woman with three kids 
all begging for a different kind of cereal

she's just thinking of honeydew &
slicing one into pieces over the sink.

i found someone else's shopping list
in my cart a few months ago & the first 

thing on it was "chicken" underlined
with an exclamation point. the rest of

the vegetables that followed were 
in cursive, all dainty as if someone

was singing "celery" & "carrots 2"
as they wrote. i keep the list 

in the back of my wallet because 
i'm the only one who's supposed 

to be making lists for people. 
what were they thinking? i stand

at the entrance to the store & start
handing people their lists as they enter.

i know it's rude but i can see what
they want. if someone were to look at me

i mean really stare at me, they'd
probably see that i want to buy 

caramel apple dip & canned sweet potatoes.
i've never bought either of those things

in all my life but i want to. 
i think that my lists could help people.

they'd read it & think "i do want 
green tomatoes, i've wanted them for

so long." & "my mother used to buy
cannolis, i haven't thought of them in years."

at night as the store dies down i spend
my free time making lists for people 

i miss. i think of you & i write
"boston cream donuts" & "celery root."

i think of dad & i write
"doritos" & "plain bagels."

what would grandmom's list have looked like?
maybe "frankfurts" & "pastrami"

i tear them off the notepad &
fold them in half before tossing them

into the parking lot. you all 
won't find them here at a supermarket

hundreds of miles away. but i imagine
you picking the list up by happenstance

one day & wondering how someone 
could see so deeply that you want

out of this life.

winter storm harper

all this week i've been overhearing people
say things like "you hear about the snow"
& "we're gonna get hit." opening the
weather app i saw the little snow flake
icons over Sat & Sun & prepared for the worst,
stocking up on bananas & almond milk 
in case i was snowed in all weekend.
at my desk at night i looked up 
the storm's name. i figured it would 
only be right to know what to call 
her when she arrived in the form
of delicate water. "harper" as i found
was a great mass of blue rushing forward
on the radar like a scar or a birth mark
creepy up a spine. i checked my own
skin in the mirror to make sure it wasn't
on me. it's a simple name really,
"harper" means what you would think
it would mean: someone who plays 
the harp. i think of the big black
cover on the instrument in your 
music room & how no one ever uncovered
the harp the whole time i stayed with you.
when i was maybe 6 or 7 i used
to tell me dad that i wanted to play
the harp. i'd tell him every night
as he took me to bed & so he started
talking up the guitar so i'd get
the harp out of my head. in a sense
a did because i did pick up guitar
but in a sense i've been thinking
about the harp ever since & even more
than harps i've been thinking about
people who play them. i don't think
i've seen one's strings pulled in person.
i open my mouth to the size of a harp
& imagine attaching strings to every tooth,
tuning them until i pluck them.
after all that talk the snow never came,
rain plooshed all night. in a sense i was
relieved but i was also disappointed 
not just in the way that we're all 
disappointed when there's supposed to 
be a great chaos & everything turns 
out calm like fire drills or 
power outages, but also because i was hoping
to finally see someone play the harp.
i thought i'd open my front door 
in the morning & there the girl would,
nestled in the snow she brought,
strumming a golden harp. i would ask
her if i was allowed to play for 
a moment & she would politely say "no,
it'll melt if you touch it."
i'd sit & listen to her as the dust 
collected, absentmindedly i would 
checking my skin for scars & storm
systems until the snow was done falling
& she put on the black cover, walking
off, bare-footed, continuing up.

gas station flowers

last night at the 7/11 & the wrack 
of bouquets was lively & full of
these vivid purple flowers & 
scoffing yellow ones. i leaned 
down to smell them & the flowers 
smelled like caramels & ring-pops.
i wanted to buy you several of these
assortments but i hesitated. i looked
around & the man at the hot dog rollers
had been watching me, he ducked down
& dashed back to the check out counter.
we write off gas station flowers,
we think that they could never be 
any good but we never pause to wonder
where they come from. you know that 
back room? the "employees only" place.
i think they keep flowers back there,
rows upon rows of them all lush 
& fantastic all year round. i ask
the man at the counter if i can go 
back, if there was a bathroom 
i could use (an alibi). he threw
his arms wide & pleaded with me
"you cannot, you simply cannot
go back there, it's not for you."
there's a man who lives there,
i know there is. i know now at least.
they feed him taquitos & big gulps
of root beer & he takes care of 
the flowers. he invents new ones
like those strange purple flowers that
i can't seem to name & those
laughing yellow ones who 
opened their mouths at me to 
show their pink tongues. i waited
by the 7/11 all night, hoping
that maybe the botanist would
emerge, i wanted to ask him
which would be the best flowers
to get for you. i thought
that only he could really tell me. 
sadly no one came though the man
who had been at the counter 
left & told me "go home, this
isn't for you." as he ambled
into the night towards the bus stop.
i wonder if i'm the only person
who's come close to this discovery
but that would be pompous of me 
to think. i also wanted to know
how one goes about being the one
who grows gas station flowers, i think
i'm suited to it, but you would 
miss me. i'd break the rules
& let you visit at night
where i would show you the glowing
red flowers i made as night lights.
i should have got you flowers.

the raining library 

warm water like a shower pours around me
& everyone's drenched, t-shirts stuck to skin,
jeans dark & heavy with water. i have this
re-occurring dream where it's raining 
in a library. everyone there ignores 
the rain & ambles through the library,
shoes squeaking on the tile floors. 
it's not an ordinary looking library
though it's got all these mismatched
stairs going into the ceiling & trees
thick arms growing out of the book shelves. 
do you think it's possible to choose
a dream to go to when we die? i think
there's enough in the raining library
to keep me occupied, even if i went
entirely alone. i'm telling you about
the library though so that if given
the choice you might consider it too.
in the dream i never get time to open 
a book but i think if i did 
i could watch the words wash away 
in the down pour, gushing like
bitten watermelon. they would be 
sweet too, if i licked my fingers
after holding on. maybe my afterlife's
work would be to build a pool at
the bottom of the library to catch
all the words. the water would
change colors but always be a shade
of mud, like the creek after a storm.
down there all us visitors 
of the library could fill 
our miscellaneous coffee mugs
& drink from the pool, snippets 
of books & conversations glimmering
through our bodies. we would live 
like this & the rain would never 
stop & none of our skin would
wrinkle like prunes. always i wake up 
from this dream & have to resist the urge 
to pull all my books off the shelf
& lay them on the sidewalk,
waiting for rain. i settle on putting
an old dictionary in the shower,
running warm water over it
it watch the words leak 
our slowly & then rushing 
like a waterfall. i should
have collected the words but
watching them seep away 
was too wonderful. in the library
i would eventually need to die 
another time, i think. we would
make it a ritual to drop the dead 
in the pool, let the rain pelt
them until they'd sink 
to the bottom where they'd 
come apart into words, all
the words they'd every spoken
& again everyone else would
drink & get fragments of 
those words, even the most strange
& wonderful. i'd hope that someone
would taste that time we talked
about living in a house boat
or maybe that time we decided 
that we would be emperor penguins 
if given the choice of any 
other animal. after the raining library
dream i have to change my clothes,
i wake up soaked in warm rain water
& as i do i wonder what i could
do to get it to rain in the house 
like that. rain all the time.
rain beneath each of your fingers
rain under tables & desks & lamps.
rain in closets & in the back seat
of the car. rain from the roof
of my mouth & under every tooth
& not just in libraries. 

yellow ponchos

uncle rich & my youngest brother Joey are
in Disney World this week. it's january 
in New York & there's icicles growing
on the bottom of my car like chin hairs.
i check the weather in Orlando & it's 
a spring-time 60 degrees with a chance of showers.
rich took all us gow kids to Disney, 
first with me when i turned six
& then billy & now joey. a year before
the trip he started telling me stories
about the amusement park as if they 
were folklore. my favorite was the story
about the yellow ponchos. when i asked
him to re-tell it he seemed confused 
considering he'd told me about much more
interesting subjects like haunted mansions 
& space mountains & African safaris. 
he explained that when he was little 
the ponchos they sold at the parks were
yellow & they changed them to be see-through
because it was easy to get lost when
everyone in the whole park was wearing 
these yellow ponchos. i'd ask him if there
was anywhere we could get a yellow poncho
& if he had any pictures of everyone
in yellow ponchos. after i'd pretended
to fall asleep i would lay on the bottom bunk
of my bed, pull the cover over my head
& pretend to be lost in Disney would 
wearing a yellow poncho. i was fascinated
with getting lost in general. i would  
sometimes get lost on purpose in Walmart
& mom would have to have them call for
me over the intercom of the store. 
they'd find me happily coiled up 
in a wrack of jeans or laying on a shelf
next to boxes of cereal.
Disney World especially interested me,
i think i was convinced that if everyone
got lost something magical could happen there. 
Joey plays piano & he's actually getting
pretty good. sometimes i swear
that i hear him practicing scales all the way 
from New York. i get up from bed to check 
the living room for him but it's always 
the same as i left it. i have to remind myself 
that he's getting older. he's 9 now. 
i feel more like an uncle than a brother.
when i do visit every few months he asks
me frantically if we can play & if i can
listen to him on piano, as if this might
be the last time he sees me. maybe i dramatize it,
maybe he doesn't think about me much at all. 
maybe i'm a bad brother.
it's going to snow this weekend in New York.
i think one day i'll take him to Disney World,
my other brother Billy too. we'll all go when we're
too old & we don't have any kids of our own.
i'll find us yellow ponchos & smuggle them
into the luggage. in the morning, while they're
still asleep i'll dress them in the ponchos
& leave the hotel room quietly in my own. 
when they wake up they'll rush outside in the rain
to find themselves lost in a world 
of yellow ponchos. they won't find me.

the lake up the street that won't freeze over

i walk up to the lake everyday while 
you're at work, it started out of curiosity
& became an obligation. lots of other
people in your neighborhood go to look
at the lake, but none of them watch it like
i do. the lake isn't really a lake if we're 
being honest, it's really just 
a shallow pool (about 5 inches deep)
where ducks sometimes visit  but it
sounds better to call it "the lake" as
opposed to "the large pool." around
the lake there's scraggly winter trees
& a wooden bridge over a creek. on my walks
i step off the trail momentarily to feel
the dead leaves chuckle beneath my shoes.
i encourage the lake to freeze over because
you told me that when you were little
people used to go ice skating on it,
as far as i've seen, the lake hasn't
even gotten close, just thin flakey ice layer,
like ice potato chips. the little lake 
& its surroundings make me feel useful. 
i just had surgery & i'm sick of 
asking you to do things for me.
i hide one of your bowls next to
the guest bed so i don't have to ask
you to get it down from the top shelf
in the cabinet. the bowl is all shades 
of blue, like the pacific ocean decided to
invest all its energy in becoming
a set of cereal bowl. the deepest blues
are at the very bottom & when i come
back from walks i sometimes stare
at the bottom of the bowl, i climb
inside & sink to the bottom of an ocean
no one has found yet. it's really only
5 inches deep but it swallows you.
yesterday, i saw a pair of husky dogs
step into the lake, they did so without
hesitation & i got the idea that i could
as well. it was stupid i know, with
the temperature hovering around freezing,
but it seemed wild & i wanted something wild.
sitting alone in your house i think 
about the lake all the time i'm not there,
i wonder who else is staring at it &
if someone was bold enough to amble through
the freezing water while i'm not there.
i check on the lake all day but seldom 
does anything change. it never does freeze
over, despite my unwavering support. i have
the mystical urge to fill the blue bowl
with lake water, i don't follow through 
on it, but i imagine myself kneeling
by the edge of the lake & dipping
the rim of the bowl in the cold water. 
you come home from work & i tell you
that i walked by the lake today. i don't
tell you that i love the lake, that we need
to help the lake, that we should all
go & sit by the lake, that i worry that
after dusk the water sits alone &
feels forgotten. instead we make soup
& sit by the fire in the family room.
as i drink the last drop of broth
i find the deep blue bottom of the bowl again.

glow in the dark stars

laying on the floor of her bedroom she 
stood up to turn out the light, revealing
the rows of glow in the dark stars on 
stuck to the ceiling. that was most of the reason
why i wanted to have sleepovers at Kat's house.
she also had a big room & she would make
me a grilled ham & cheese sandwich in the morning. 
we were in third grade, which was a big
year for sleepovers. i had a sleeping bag
that came with a matching flashlight &
when the other girls fell asleep i would turn 
the flashlight on & shine it around the room,
inspecting all the different corners,
noting the various stuffed animals & plastic dinosaurs.
the other thing i liked about sleepovers
was that everyone would confess secrets.
we shouldn't doubt the depth of what third grade
girls want to confess to each other. 
Kat talked about her chest growing & 
showed me her plain white bras. they were soft
& i didn't want one even though i said to
her that i did. i told her that my grandmom
said i was fat & i asked her if she thought so too.
she didn't answer, she just said that her 
mom sometimes said she was fat.
we talked about all the things we would do 
when we were finally 16 & big enough to drive cars. 
we said we'd want to go to  the zoo 
& to a national park & to Washington D.C. 
(mostly because i told
her there were huge museums there). eventually
we'd get on the subject of boys. i loved
to talk about liking boys, i'd write
initials on the back of my hand & make Kat 
guess who they were (which was easy because
there were like twenty boys in our grade). 
in third grade Kat liked Justin &
i don't actually remember who i liked.
i just remembering thinking that Kat
could do better than Justin because 
he yelled loudly in gym class & 
sometimes kicked trees. i always 
pretended to be tired kind of early,
around eleven (terribly early for sleepover time).
Kat would tease me but she'd let us 
go to bed. i was never actually tired though,
i just wanted time alone after it all
to sit in the dark of someone else's house.
out the windows, the street lamps would
come in dim & orangish. this night i got up &
pulled shut her curtains. she was already  
asleep. i took out my flashlight to
shine on the glow in the dark stars
to charge them up. flicking off
my flashlight i laid on the floor
to look up at them & thought to myself
how when i was older & had my own house
that i would put glow in the dark stars
on the ceiling of every room. 

we fed the squirrels

the stale gingerbread houses last night,
set them all out in the yard like a village
to be ravaged. in the morning they came,
breaking off corners of roofs & gnawing
on candy cane entrance ways. it's deep into
january now & the thrill of everything has
gone away. i helped your family take 
down the christmas decorations & thought
about how i don't think i'd ever want so
many ornaments & how i'd probably never
have so many ornaments. today, while
you're at work i've taken to feeding 
the squirrels more. i open up your fridge 
& start by just tossing them apple slices
& baby carrots, normal person-feeding-animal things.
next, i made a cheese tray from the leftover
bree & sharp cheddar. i even set a little
cluster of grapes on the tray as garnish &
then go, walking out into the light snow to deliver 
the arrangement to the squirrels. they're just so 
frantic about food. i want to keep feeding
them until they calm down, chew patiently.
i guess i'm turning into my grandmother then,
she used to always point at me & say
"chew slowly, savor every bite." i still
don't chew slowly, but maybe there's hope
for the squirrels. after that i make them 
slow cooker chili, pour it into bowl
with espresso spoons in them. the squirrels
learn to use the spoons & they all sit
in a row, waiting for the next course. i have
to keep it coming so i bring out dinner rolls too,
teaching the squirrels to spread the butter
on how they like. i know i have to stop, 
i know i do, but they're so excited, 
the squirrels are. do they know it's 2019?
Google, how long do squirrels live? 10-18 years?
they're so young. they must be thrilled about
the new year, they only get so many of them.
then again, we also only get so many of them
but i'm older than the squirrels, i must be,
even if only by a few years. for dessert i made
macaroons because i thought they should have
something really special. the squirrels 
watched while i got the egg whites to peak
& dolloped each wafer onto the parchment paper
to bake. i perched the cookies delicately on
a serving plate & ate with the squirrels,
crouching in the grass. the squirrels actually ate 
slower than me, wiping their little faces 
in between bites. i asked them if i could join
them & be a squirrel too this year, 
which confused the squirrels, so they scattered back 
towards the trees at far end of the yard.  
back in the kitchen, the cabinets & the pantry 
were ransacked, only a few crumbs remained
in each. i fed the squirrels all our food,
but it was wonderful while it lasted.

Chile Relleno 

when i go out to eat with my mom she always
gets chile relleno & i still don't know 
what it tastes like. after this last time
i looked up recipes, i crafted a story 
that one day she would come & visit 
my apartment & i would surprise her by
making chile relleno. i would have her
watch while i carved out the insides of
two green hot peppers. i always think that
the hot peppers resemble mummies or coffins,
all coated in breading & oozing white cheese.
the version she got this last time the chile
was in a pool of sauce (floating down
the red tomato river styx).
i guess in a less morbid vain 
the swaddled peppers also
kind of look like kids in sleeping bags. 
after the peppers are all hollowed out
i would invite my mom to climb inside one.
crawling on all fours, i'd show her what
i meant by nestling into the other.
us; two fistfuls of white cheese ready
to melt, the skin of the peppers 
going soft & charring around us. 
when i go out to eat with my mom i always 
get a salad with the dressing on the side.
i don't know if she thinks about making
this for me; it's not warm or comforting
or spicy like chile relleno. i think i will
make it for her one day, just like that.
when i come home from lunch with my mom
i always find my bed has turned into 
a great green pepper. i take the knife
& carve out the middle, flicking 
the seeds into a waste basket. as i work
i recount all the things mom & i talked about
over our separate plates 
& glasses of diet coke with lemons:
my brother, my father, my uncle &
in the last five minutes a bit about
her job at the newspaper. newspapers are
always dying. i imagine her driving back
to work & finding her office building
is just one big green pepper. she takes
out a pocket knife & sets to work
removing the stem to take out the seeds.
before we parted i told her i loved her
because i do. we hug in the parking lot
of a Mexican restaurant & both of us
turn briefly into sticky piles of seeds
in the belly of an even bigger green pepper.

Georgia Peach

there's one flavor of ice cream at this
parlor on Old 22; it's a soft orange color
& it rests nestled between the black forest 
& peanut-butter tin roof sundae flavors. 
the parlor itself is like an island 
in the middle of quilted corn fields
& vineyards. we stopped there yesterday.
i hadn't been there since middle school but
the place was all the same; same christmas 
lights strewn through the trees in the courtyard,
same italian rum-cake behind the glass 
of the bakery, same infinite rows of
homemade chocolates in the candy shop;
mint melt-aways, maple truffle, caramel-filled.
occasionally i believe the whole place might
have been a reoccurring childhood dream,
but now we both know that the place exists. 
yes, i started off by talking about the flavor, 
Georgia Peach, because it always reminds 
me that there's a period of time 
when we're younger that we haven't decided 
on our favorite flavors yet. i was a small
human enthralled with flavors & combinations.
one time i begged my uncle to let me get
a triple-scoop & he caved. the top one
was a classic: mint chocolate-chip, 
the next, another standard: chocolate marshmallow,
& then all the way at the bottom: Georgia Peach. 
i've never technically been to Georgia 
(but we did fly over it once on the way
Disney World) but when i got down to the bottom
scoop i imagined Georgia was a state 
where everything was tinted this mild orange 
color & there would always be the faint taste 
of cold peach on your tongue.
i don't think i ever got the flavor again,
not because i didn't like it but because
there were more flavors to try. i don't
think that i want to eat it again either,
i think i'm happy with however i remember it.
maybe someday we'll all go to Georgia &
figure out that i was right, we'll be driving
& see the state line marked in orange
& the sky muted & calm clementine colored.
we'll  stop on the side of the road just
to  open our mouths & i'll tell you that
it tastes like an ice cream flavor
from a parlor i used to go to when i 
was a small person who didn't have
a favorite flavor of anything yet.