i wanted to text you when i found
out that they'd confirmed Kavanaugh. 

i play white noise in my headphones.
it's not a metaphor, i do this.

i wanted to text you when i found
out that they'd confirmed Kavanaugh.

i play white noise & it comes 
in like a flock of benevolent gnats.

the type that eat everything,
whiteness, the insatiable angry mouth. 

i want to belong somewhere with less
teeth & trees. the green skink

running from us into the brush
outside the library. he knows 

what to do. i wanted to text you.
i really did but i couldn't. 

i have told people i've been raped
so many times times that it's emptied

itself of emotion. a 17 year old boy 
grabbed a fist full of my 14 year old hair

& held me down & told me i liked it.
justice has many hands & i know

all of them as fists. i want to have
something to do, but i don't. 

i don't know what i'll do. to some
degree i exist with the knowledge that 

the boy who raped me could be justice.
i play white noise. i do. i think i have to. 

the company i keep by a window;
a plastic bottle cap, an un-answered phone

call from my father. a news alert
A New Conservative Majority Bench

photographs

i want to lay our family photographs
next to each other & let them talk,

the bodies crawling out of muddy 
film-born water. the mealy grain of 

the images is contagious & you
watch as my face changes texture.

my uncles in their cassocks standing
up & stretching, each about a foot tall,

pacing the table in the kitchen.
your mother with long hair again,

sitting on the edge of the table.
there i am, an eight year old 

in my puffy purple winter jacket,
i pluck you out of the frame, 

you're an infant, dazed & looking
up at the ceiling fan. i hold you

on my hip & tell you facts about 
dinosaurs. my father helplessly

cleaning a background counter top,
running the sink till the water 

in the photograph runs out.
your aunt smiling & making faces

at my little brother in his high chair.
the house on Franklin Street 

with its doors glued shut. 
your old porch & the moths uncanny absence.

all the while we stand at a distance,
watching. it's like seeing a train set

build itself. we're scared of them,
mostly because they each reminds us 

nothing of our families. these bodies
born only in snapshot spaces. 

i tell you again that i'm i don't 
miss my family, that i miss 

the idea of my family. i boil a pot 
of water on the stove, drop in pasta. 

you pick each person up by their 
shirt collar, dip them back into

the photographs, but, not before
holding me, eight year old me

for a second. you notice her
cluttered teeth, the screw driver 

in her back pocket. she grins, &
startled, you drop her. 

a splash. i pour the pasta 
out into the strainer. we eat

with the the photos all sprawled out.
the people sitting at the edges

to watch us. they make me feel like
we're the photographs,

i kiss you to make sure we're not.
that might not prove anything.

what you might
not have guessed is that heaven 
is nothing but a house at 
the end of the street. 
a very big house, but a house.
it's bigger on the inside than
the outside. a front door. a lock.
st. peter born again & again
into the body of a jack russel terrier. 
jesus feeds him bones beneath
the kitchen table. he barks 
angrily when people arrive too
early. purgatory, the freshly
mowed front law. everything 
is domestic, but especially violence.
oh god of love 
oh god of mercy & 
the broom handle & heavy 
granite fingers. 
oh god of love
oh god of mercy &
blue the color of bruises. 
what is to be assumed of 
a powerful man who demands 
worship is just about always true.
call him lord or yahweh or father,
he will find a way to hurt you.
halos hung on the coat wrack,
all the lay people in the attic,
mary, again, tucking jesus
into the cabinet below the sink,
putting her finger to her lips.
hold your breath
while he passes
his steel-toed boots by the door.
his hunger & the kitchen table.
his flickering love in the form
of newly created flowers
in a mason jar on the table. 
fear is the color white.
what no one suspected 
was her to leave that sunday night.
the table all set. 
holy mary mother of god
having laid down each place for each 
person & angel, the innumerable all.
our mother ran with only a backpack
full of roses. her halo 
still on the towel wrack. she wouldn't
need it anymore. 
earth, strangely warm & grey.
ambling through the Bethesda Terrace 
in central park she laughed 
at how much she had missed 
having a real body. On the lip
of the foundation, standing a step taller,
pressing her hands together & praying:

Me, Mother who art not in heaven
hollowed make my name.
I will run till 
thy kingdom's undone 
on earth as it is in heaven.
I won't forgive you this day
you fucked me dead,
and had the nerve to 
call me virgin.
what kind of god makes
a son like this?

human beings

you tell me that when we get married 
you want to be pronounced human beings

& i hear a cliff grow where a whole herd 
of dresses fling themselves in to the water.

from a distance they look like bed sheets
or possibly like the body-less wings of large birds.

a husband is crawling into a light bulb 
to become a filament & the wives plant 

their heels in the potted lilies on an altar.
i think of us as orchids, everyone wants 

to be orchids. i now pronounce you orchids.
the wives all chewing their jewelry & 

discovering that it was always just 
rock candy. the husbands trying to find 

their rings in the mouths of other people
they had once loved too hard. i want to

take your rings off the nightstand & plant
them in the yard behind my house, wait for

them to burst open as seeds, grow a bush of 
all kinds of rings, each always ready to

fit anyone's fingers. the amethyst
& the sapphire. the husbands & the wives

looking in the windows, jealous of 
humans beings. a veil sprouts from 

my forehead & i cut it off with 
a pairing knife. everything turning

white frosting, the kitchen table,
a soft chiffon cake, take a plastic forkful,

the coffee mugs sinking in, the chairs;
sugar drunk strawberries. this is all

so sticky. the husband & the wives
feed each other the house, breaking 

off the shingles, gnawing the mailbox.
i ask myself each day what it means 

to be a human beings with you.
the answer is again & again

pronounced, your mouth a ring.

 

blue 

this morning i ran my body
78 sidewalk squares wide,
around & around passing
a plastic front lawn statue 
of st. mary. (our mother).
on each pass the house's
automatic lights would
blink on & she would be 
posed different, kneeling
on the stoop, cigar in between
fingers, i stopped &
asked her what she was
doing here on Long Island.
she stood up, slithering
over to me, something
uncanny about the motions
of her body. we went behind
the laundry mat where
all the pigeons trade gossip.
i told her i was worried
that my only
faith occurs when i run,
my sweat wet hair chilly
in the grey air. she tells
me she gave it up,
everything to be here.
she gestures down at
her feet & the snake 
that she's usually stepping
now coiled as an anklet.
staring up at me, he winked.
we sat closer together
on the back stoop
& she held out her arm
to me, tracing her veins
with one finger & prompting
me to touch. her skin,
winter metal. 
blue blood to match.
i mapped my own pulse,
warm & rushing. 
what a human, what i wouldn't
give to be only flesh again.
the snake, kissing my neck.
the punishment for turning 
away from a strong man 
is always reptilian
even if he is your son.

 

there are kinds of anger with no outlet.

taking a paring knife to the drywall,

i etch each news headline. i make red sweat.

we should alert amber, burn a catcall.

 

taking a paring knife to the drywall,

allegation ignite me, i want fires.

we should alert amber, make the catcall.

hang all my shoes up on the phone wires.

 

allegation ignite me, i want fires.

will my body be left when rage is done?

hang all my shoes up on the phone wires.

the ring finger, the thumb all become handgun.

 

will my body be left when rage is done?

i etch each news headline. i make red sweat.

the ring finger, the thumb all become handgun.

there are kinds of anger with no outlet.

photo-booth

teeth on face, oh walk me inside.
sink into cheek-- the chine
the images developing inside chest.

there was a photo-booth at the mall between 
the robotic ice cream truck & 
the row of gumball machines. 
a handful of banana planets &
blue-raspberry moon. 

she took my picture several times.
the first with my uncle,
it came complete with a selected frame.

a series of four photos,

the body moving,
the 3, 2, 1. 

alone sometimes i hear 
that counting down, the flash,
the blink. 

what photo-booth is this now?

possible a bed room
possibly a lens.

& where are they now?
all those old pictures,
the ones that instantly emerged
from the gullet of the machine.

i wonder if the photo-booth
makes herself two copies,

one for me, one for it,

late night when the mall 
is asleep, paging through all these
collected bodies, couples & 
class trips & teenagers

laughter & arms & flash--

an image of someone alone will 
makes the photo-booth
less lonely

an empty mother,
spitting still-born frames
out into the linoleum

near morning she'll 
pray for someone to come sit 
inside her-- 

the curtain, a tongue
snake-flickering & soft

the flavor
of sneakers & flip flops
is worth the warmth of 
each person's presence,

paging through their faces today
maybe she'll find mine

round as an Auntie Anne pretzel--
salt glinting in my teeth.
the soles of my shoes 
tasting like black licorice.

just me, alone spanned 
across four white-framed boxes, 
a smile surfacing
somewhere behind teeth.

the photo-booth tearing up,
pressing the memory to her chest
& trying to wait.

stone lion

for sacrifice of symmetry,
elegy to escape, 
last night we noticed
just one of the neighbors
stone lions had run away.
cracked from his pillar,
his brother poised &
blank-eyed. am i my brother's
keeper? the prints were left
everywhere, neon & blue-- 
bio-luminescent language.
stamped across 
the side of the house, 
on the inside of the mailbox &
tiny across the pink 
bleeding heart flowers.
i pick some just to rip
them in two & somewhere 
a bird falls from a tree, dead.
we all know each flower
in the heart of a song bird.
it's autumn anyway. 
i wanted you to sleep so
that i could really hunt.
you don't know what lions
are capable of.
so i left both of our bodies
in the bed sheets, 
crawled out the window 
with a paring knife
in my teeth. he wasn't
hard to track, a trail of
broken glass & sidewalk
squares uprooted from
their march, some floating
just above the road.
he was on someone else's
porch, a chewing a newspaper,
taking in each headline 
& making rage with it.
i tell him i'm angry too,
sitting down on the steps.
we break the print.
i chew another headline
about denied rape charges. 
never become
a man, i tell the lion.
he promise with a low 
growl, tires across gravel.
before he leaves he bites
me but i don't bleed.
the skin just sits there,
open. i tell him to at least
visit his brother.
but of course he runs, 
fracturing cement 
along the way, 
the blue morning, fragile as
the necks of twigs.  
i put off being a
body just a bit longer
to sit by 
the bed & watch you
sleep. i didn't
get the lion, 
but i trust him.

chinese donuts

the snow this year will be sugar.
i'm promising you & we
can go out into the little yard
& pick up fresh chinese donuts 
from the stoop-- still hot 
& crisp & golden. the heat lamp god.
the silver buffet tray bed.
a pair of serving tongs 
to pick up tongues. 
tell me another story about
fried rice & fork & being
young enough to fit inside
a father's take out box.
dad is a general tso man,
a lost pair of broccoli. 
licking sugar off fingers,
off windowsills, off foreheads.
i hope you like what 
i've done with winter. 
& we'll laugh at 
the grit under out shoes,
throw balls of dough at
each other & the windows
of all the empty houses,
their owners all frantic,
sweeping the sugar off their
porches & out of their
children's mouths.
the red eyebrow restaurant
on main st is where we used
to go. there were paintings
of herons peeling off 
the walls, koi in the sinks
& toilets. the fish dressing me 
in fins. the luck cat's
paw knocking infinitely,
a substitute for time. 
there mom would watch me
as i picked the vegetables
out of the lo mein,
only eating the mini corns.
we weren't careful enough
& the whole world became 
a chinese donut. & next with 
the moon & the sun;
leaving us dark & 
warm & fried. reaching
down to the earth 
to grab a handful of
sweet sugared dough,
i feed you gentle &
we share father stories
again, only this time
with gold in our mouths,
koi flopping on the sidewalk,
sugar under fingernails.

 

getting home

was the race car bed a 
coffin or a pew? plastic blue.
i'm making a steering wheel out 
of the pillows i left
in the basement. there's not
enough bones in our bodies
to keep them all, the sun 
catcher in the window,
the pastel drawings still
rolled under the bed in 
my parents house. 

i wanted to use 
the race car bed
to take us home, with 
all the sky scrapers 
coming apart into dice,
into knuckles. glittering
like teeth among the 
graffiti ghosts. 

she'll crawl a building just
to write your name
loud & wide. 

a seat belt is for 
sleep & you say 
the train ride home 
is melancholy
at night. 

yellow lit world.
the snapped twigs.
the abandoned diner 
harboring morning,
sun in the stove.
it feels later 
than it is, the 
wings of my watch 
asking us to dance.

admit to each other
that every stranger 
in the dark is a reminder
of the body

the race car bed:
our god driving somehow
without an engine or
a mattress,

spurred by maybe by
the promise of a lamp or
our bodies becoming 
hydrangea bushes.

i tell you bed time stories
that always un-tether me,

a red string tied to a city,
oh astronaut.

this is how we get home.