The Will of God

i find st mejella on the back gravel road
where the neighbors leave

out cantaloupe rinds for the foxes
& where the black beetles leak from soil.

he prays into the corn, shucking
ears & hoping to come upon an infant 

inside one. patron to the unborn, i wanted
to ask him if he guards my body

each time i buy pregnancy tests
& wait for the single line telling me

that i'm empty. i draw single lines in
the dirt. i ask him if i swallow 

the peach pits & strawberry freckles
& apple seeds if anyone of them will curl 

up inside me & become human. sinews 
& stems. i used to be so scared of it,

swallowing cum & feeling it thrash like
minnows in my throat, the fish assembling 

into a body. i spit children into napkins.
st majella, finding the raw corn,

touching the kernels till they become
fingers. i ask what he does now that

he's left heaven & he says he's been
planting seeds. he remembers my mother,

her blood clotting like bubblegum 
when she was pregnant with my brother,

the syringes that huddled in her 
closet like a choir; a medical song. 

he once revived a boy who fell
from the side of a cliff, yes 

miracle that was me, the stone inside 
without a heartbeat. a boy in me with a 

womb around him, a husk. boil us
tonight in the heat of the moon.

he says that this is all the will of god.
my brother & my mother & the organs that 

grew in me like melon. i slice my stomach 
i feed the foxes, he sings. 

home video 

a ghost
film reel, flickering
across a room. 

god with his video camera,
kneeling & catching each moment.

all the tapes stacked in library
shelves, the angels, begrudgingly 
organizing them by name & year.

in the summer i got my first
video camera, the tapes the size
of smores. 

aimed at billy & ryan i made
spirits of onion grass 
& ukulele.

waiting by the desktop computer
for the snippets to download,
we lived twenty minute lives,
as long as the camera could remember.

all the while, god standing at 
a distance, taking his own version
of our young bodies,

playing them back in his 
living room that night, all alone.

in one frame i aim the camera right
at him, staring at each other,
only on my recording we never see him,
just a rustling in the pine trees,
the unshakable feeling of father-ness. 

long after we're all dead &
my own video fragments 
are crunched down & used 
for backyard guts he'll take
his projector & turn the handle,

gently, slowly at first,
he'll release our apparitions
onto the house on noble street
& the space behind the garage 
where we buried all the goldfish,
them too, swimming in the soupy 
august night.

video children, we'll record ourselves
again & again, god, sitting in 
the adirondack chair to watch.

i don't know where my old
camera went or the little tapes
we used. i've checked closets &
shoes & under pillows.

i like to think that it's continued 
the work without us, at least for now.

growing glassy insect wings &
darting from ceiling to ceiling,
one eye blaring open,

swallowing the house's 
every movement. not me, not me

it won't find me.

dymphna oh duchess oh diaphragm,
her severed head clutched in her hand.

this is for girls who father each other, one to another,
a hallway, sinew smothered in sorry.

pacing the street, blue called her feet
i comb her to couch & she carries me.

doll limp & licorice, we share silos of
men's lips, wedding fathers, blood slips

down legs. i ask her what churches she 
keeps now the Geel is gone & grieve-able

& mad people suck the steeples for air.
where heal the girls when god is done?

what churches, what churches &
lurch the ledge that un-birthed me.

when i want to kill myself i say
st. dymphna oh darling of depress

& derange-- we're chewed up & strange,
a church, a church, a pew, a name.

produce

each morning i wake up 
with a fruit sticker on my forehead.
i take it off & leave them
on the lid of the trash can.

some one is trying to make
produce of me, of us. the great
big hand gone window-perusing.

you have one too; i peel it
off. i keep yours for myself.
oh pineapple oh pear 
call me peach-kiwi-orange-apple.

all plum-gut & mash, 
i want to bite
my own cheeks-- the sweet
flesh beneath 
i feel pulp-chested &
green melon juice

by the dim light in the kitchen
we eat fruits. you use
a fork & i lick the sharp
knife to prove i don't
mind being pared down.

the hands come, each
proud from the dark doorway

moving over our bodies: touching
pinching caressing squeezing
thumping gripping 

i whisper
my father was a produce man

the hands ask each other
is this the fruit i want?

i'm sorry i lay apart from
you last night, i was thinking
about knowing bodies & how 

occasionally i realize how
illegible i am

i thought of cutting myself 
so you could see 
everything, sick & sweet ripe.

plums pound on the side of
the house, i'm throwing them,
smashing purple
purple smashing

in what ways do you 
fantasize about 
devouring yourself?

mine involve fingers &
nectar & chewing citrus, wild
the fruit sobbing honey 
down my chest

i want to sticky love 
with you

wash me in the sink
weight me

i want to hit your
tongue, a whole 
island of sugar

chrism & stir fry & grill

breakfast smell has a body 
& his name is st. lawrence.
pacing the house & slapping 
a spatula against the walls.

his entrance makes everyone
hungry, it's one of his miracles.

he asks why i'm not eating
& i tell him it's because
i don't know what to make.

he says it's time for stir fry,
assembling the ingredients
by the stove top, i help him,
water chestnuts & leeks &
bok choy & sugar snap peas.

it's late, past midnight
& he insists that no one
in the world can go to sleep 
less than full.

i don't keep oil in the kitchen 
so we leave to get the chrism
from the glass case at 
the back of the church.

i tell him about the bishop
dipping his thumb in oil
to make a cross on my head
to confirm me.

promises to god often
taste like spitting oil 
& garlic.

we cry because we're hungry
& because we're blasphemous now.

i touch his scars: great big grill
marks, like a panini press
bit his torso-- charred cheeks.

he asks if i know what skin
tastes like & i tell him 
that i can make some assumptions.

the patron of grilling
on account of his own body
over the hot coals-- 
a martyr a martyr

we escape with the chrisms,
the amber tint to the oil &
measure tablespoons into the wok

placing his open palm in the pan
to prove it doesn't hurt,
he invites me to join him
so i do & the churning feels
cathartic. he bites his thumb
but i don't eat my hands
because i'm still vegetarian.

hush & hiss as he stirs,
the rice on the stove.

eating at the breakfast table
late into the night

fork scrape & the big spoon.
st lawrence says 
we still have mouths
we still have mouths

chiffon cake

her hands were cold on
on my breasts. in a tall mirror
at the corner of the examining
room i glanced & saw another
angle of us. i thought 
this is another person &
how strange he is.

in the mirror i also saw 
saint Agatha sitting in 
the folding chair by the bed

& when the doctor exited 
she came over to also 
feel my chest.

her own breasts torn off
with hot pincers by 
a flock of unknowably 
angry men

she carried them with
her on a golden plate:
two chiffon cakes;
beautiful & un maimed.

as she touches me she tells
me that she understands,
that making a body feel alive 
is a process

we each eat one of her
breasts, mine tasted like 
strawberry angel food &
she said that hers tasted 
like peach nectar,
but also that they're 
always different,
eat day another confection.

wiping crumbs off on our
thighs we trade stories 
about our chests & about
men taking handfuls of them--

she asks if we can lay down 
together on the examining table
& presses me into it.

the crinkle of wax paper
made me feel like an orb
of hard candy; butterscotch maybe.
her tongue dripping across my neck,
taking handfuls of me like cake.

i whisper to her about 
how sorry i am that i want
to cut off my breasts & that
she had no say how they 
ripped off hers.

she kisses the apology out of me
& leave before the surgeon comes back. 

oh to know another mutilated body. 

we love george washington 

we love george washington,
his skull growing cherry tress
from each tooth's nest.
so so many, all of him,
all the george washingtons
across the country, portrait 
neck up, portrait tall,
portrait face, portrait with mary,
cannon bloom & crossing the delaware;
the water: viper cold & stinging.

your family loves george washington
& so does mine & so does everyone's.
what's not to love about fathers?
leaving offerings: bowls of bayonets
& gun powder & folded federalist papers

all george washingtons came down 
from their frames tonnight, 
statues blinking & stretching their ankles,
testing their bodies. i notice, so 
i follow them, all of them
gathering in the backyard, why
my backyard? they won't all fit.

in 7th grade my teacher said 
george washington wasn't a good looking man,
he said that his face was scared & he 
was gangly & too tall. 

the george washingtons compliment 
each other, they hold arms up, 
touch chins; they inspect. they tell 
the same war stories we love 
love love george washington.

because of the crowding
i march them to the bridge with 
their name. they ask why there's 
nets on the sides & i explain 
the impulse to jump. before i could
finish one had already gone,

arms out like a goose, falling
heavy & without a sound. all the cars
on the two levels of the bridge
still rushing in & out, we love
george washington we love him 

but they kept dropping, kissing
each other goodbye, i regretted
showing them, i told them to stop,
to stay, i said 
george washington we all love
you, we love love love you
the impact in the water inaudible 
over tires & car horns

the last one was half my size &
he lingered, pacing for a moment,
a smaller likeness. i told him
that my father's favorite president
is george washington.
he wept, the largeness of it
all was too much, i didn't try 
to stop him.

he sent back the scars
across her face like slugs--
like the V-shapes of birds
falling into a direction. 

we take ball point pen & number them;
a catalog. 

i show her mine on
my forearms & she asks 
why i hurt myself 
so many times.
i tell her:
a catalog. 

in the backyard 
she shows me how she
used to arrange
the forest stones
into crosses

she says 
i don't know now what 
to make them into

so we scatter them,
perch on top,
feel deliciously small.

i admit to using her
name at confirmation &
all the oils spill in
the kitchen, the olive 
& the canola & the vegetable--

slipping, we hold onto
each other

she asks 
what was it
like to love nature again
after you realized how
much your old self
haunts each scab of moss?

i don't answer.

we trace the pinkish
lines on each other's
bodies, her face, her arms 
my hips, my ankles, 

her shoulders, i stand on them 
to knock the holy cruets over

praying, 

un-anoint,
i want skin. 

i knew you first as the ghost sunflower.
yellow planted & forgot to water.
we leave zebra seeds; salt in the shower.
please, green hot love me; soil for altar.

yellow planted & forgot to water.
bucket, girl-garden, pour me june over. 
oh green hot love me; soil me, falter,
a clover & clover & a clover.

bucket, girl-garden, pour me june over. 
i love you solar-mouthed & corn husk dry 
a clover & clover & a clover.
you haunt me; orchid teeth & eye.

i love you solar-mouthed & corn husk dry 
we leave zebra seeds; salt in the shower.
i want you; orchid beak kiss & magpie.
i knew you first as the ghost sunflower.

10 minutes

clementine heart,
i think of myself
as the smallest chambers 
as we lay together
& i'm reminded about 
the limits of loving 
someone. about how 
no amount of closeness
can make one body.

we take trowels & 
dig into the box spring,
spitting the pale seeds
into the sheets. i have
three tonight, we count 
them aloud.

will there ever be 
an appropriate time
to tell someone else 
you're thinking about death?

about layering dirt
on top of yourself &
waiting to become 
a tree full of more 
orange-faced fruit.

when i eat citrus 
i dismantle. sprawl
all the lobes on the plate.

i crawl inside the tiniest one
an embryo, a chicken yolk.

inside, i wait ten minutes
before my alarm goes off.
in the nectar you kiss
me & i want to tell you

that i'm sorry that 
there's not enough hours.

an hour is a unit of
bodies. AM a holy hour where
we brush the dirt 
off our chests. 

the big shovel is in
the closet. i use it only
when you don't stay over.

i plant my watches.
i plant bone-white seeds.

i clementine myself,
sleeping bag & sugar.