An Ode to Absences

to the empty squares on a chess board
that remind us of dead rooks.
an empty castle-- hollow,
without any paintings on the walls.
the school-day in november when
i had a fever & stayed home. dad dropping 
goldfish crackers in tomato soup. 
the taste of grape medicine 
& the weather channel walking
into the living room through
the television, wearing a saxophone
for a necklace. this is where
you laid two nights ago. 
where i used to have a bowl
of oranges. where the bird feeder
hung from the porch. 
this is where my body feels 
incomplete. what i would do
if i were clay, go back to
genesis, to our god who works
in absences. his knights & bishops.
a diagonal world. i trace my hand 
across my chest & tell you about
all the things i would change.
about the backyard where i would
plant a spearmint bush. about
pulling the freckles off my
face like strawberry seeds.
there's anyway some kind of
basement. i want to learn 
to worship unfilled spaces, to leave 
more vacancies. the fridge door,
left open & all the deli meat 
coming alive. white wearing dream--
where the mason jars are hungry.
where my mother is un-doing
a row of knitting. 
where you sat in the passenger 
seat & brushed against my hand,
a stoplight. a wrong turn.
a bowl in the sink left to soak.
alone in my room i hold onto
your disappeared places, take 
ink & draw your old outlines all
over the walls, the floor,
the porch, the kitchen cabinets.
they're calling for autumn & 
a fit of rain. the living room says so.
there is where we stood,
where a banana rested on top
of the fridge. i lay in your
silhouettes & pray. 
you asked me why & how i could
consider myself a catholic.
the space between rosary beads.  
the candles blowing out-- 
a tongue of fire across my neck. 
oh absence,
oh ghost. 

life is a series of distances away 
from the first image. clear & bold 
as i remember. the old water tasted
deeper & you wouldn't know.
not yet. when i was born there
was a circle cut out above us
from which all the ocean poured.
it was dry & all the fishes
thrashed about, gasping. a hovering
silver pitcher. the hunks 
of ice we mistook for lovers. 
the first stage of distortion involves 
falling victim to blue-- i'm sickened by it.
what else is there though, really?
freezing is a proximity,
the edge is us & then the bottom
of the world where no will go,
that is god. he is blue.
he is cruel, we know. slowly,
gently pulling sight from us.
he is also made of eyes. cold & stone,
a clasp of coins, turning, 
dissolving in the salt. 
what you spend your vision on 
will never be enough. 
invent a language & eat it. 
crouch in a room made of your grey skin.
occupy yourself there. 
become illegible to the others,
it is best to listen only for flavor,
the rest is dull. don't leave
me, not yet. no one else
will know your body like me.
you must not measure age,
that is crucial. i counted 
the sun for 200 years until
i could no longer perceive it,
time & light have nothing for me.
left with these ghosts resemblances,
flickers of yellow & green. 
my mother has become passing metal.
the bones of a fur-creature 
moaning in me-- a hull.
tell me then, please,
what do i look like?
describe me. 
you sound too fast to be alive,
oh grey child. your eyes are cut
out of the sky. how deep do 
you go today?
you smell so so blue.

when i say i want to paint 
your nails i mean...

i want to show you 
what girlhood looked like 
living in me. a mason jar
of clovers. an escaped shoe lace.
a snapped hair tie. on days like
this my hair grows back all 
at once, down to the floor.
the opening of an artery,
an apology & an apothecary. 
there's Advil in the medicine 
cabinet, what hurts? 
i use craft scissors on the hair,
kneeling in the bath tub.
once removed i put the strands
in an envelope & mail my hair
back to myself. a new address,
a sleepover. i invite you 
& wear a doorbell around my neck,
a choker. a headband halo. 
i mean i want to
know if love is a matter of 
bodies or a matter of time 
& place & proximity. if there
is something tunneled in me,
a sea shell or maybe a cough
of mango perfume. 
something that you could have
recognized. 
i take my nails off one 
by one, orchid faces,
she loves me
she loves me not
she loves me
she loves me not
she love me 
i mean the nail polish tastes 
like grape medicine & sometimes
like maple syrup. 
i mean in the morning my mom
will make chocolate chip pancakes
& i'll wear pink & black 
pajamas & i have a bunk bed.
i mean there's a nightlight
that reminds me still 
of god. 
i mean, pick a color.
i want to show you this.
the foundation pouring from
my face & into the sink,
blood mascara-- eye lash
wings beating, buzzing on
the bathroom window. what do 
you love in me now? is it 
the glass marbles, the fork,
the finger nails?

i confess to you, then, 
i have a love of strip malls & highway turn offs.
the blood of America is a rich,
thick purgatory. a population
a bottle cap car door open, i wait in the back seat
& watch a herd of shopping
carts. mouths full of popcorn.
their plastic hair nets.
a perm. a dorito bag to craw
into-- inhale orange salt.
the surface of jupiter has
nothing to do with us. 
it is indifferent & so is France
& all the beautiful places
where writers should go.
move closer to the water.
by a house & marry poet.
i love the strip malls because
they're so tense & someone
has almost always gotten 
a 12$ hair cut & feels 
a new caress of air. the wind 
off of asphalt is parental. 
the parking spots are beds
if you need to lay down.
there's so so so so many 
bodies to never meet in a pillowcase.
a magazine drunk with 
rain & blowing to pieces.
my lips red & getting redder.
i have a turn signal in my throat.
the car will start or
the street lamps will
turn again into tall perfect
women, their flash lights
on the porch. their teeth
full of night bugs.

a smaller ark 

so i heard there's going to
be The Flood. a postcard written
in numbers, that is to say,
written in the language of god.
he likes the number 2, though 
the divinity is lost in translation.

in the living room i read
the words for hours before they made sense.
a revoke of the rainbow. we always
knew this could happen. an exit apology.
i tacked it above my desk & began
to work. we have little time. 

i bought a small stack of 
balsa wood, thin sheets, recalled
summer camp in Nolde Forest.
fingers stuck together with
hot glue, making ships to 
send down stream. we'll need 
to be smaller, get to work on that.

the first flood would have killed me.
i would have tried to take all
my books. how did they leave 
without books? yes, i know
god floods earth because he doesn't
want us to tell better stories than him.

the work of becoming smaller involves,
first, a mirror. a partner to hold
onto you by the wrists. we go two
by two-- there will be room.
it's like folding a note-- in half
in half in half. crease bone 
crack rib. the stern & sternum. 

this is an argument for making
a smaller ark. for leaving the animals
to salvation themselves. 

for you & me & throwing 
olive branch to sea. 

what use is a dove?
you must not feel guilty.

i'll set us in the river 
long before there's grey clouds
or the smell of rain.

travel along side the dead leaves,
orange & maroon flickering between
currents. the tongues of flame.

glimpses of prism 
off the water-- you'll hold
me as i lean off the bow to
fish them out. a tangled omen,
the colors mis-matched & 
undone. a promise is impractical 
without scales. 

of course, i may have read 
the letter wrong. the number 2
could be nothing god-like.
but here we are, the size
of moths. the water clear.
the dead leaves following us 
to safety. 

I.
i want you to always make the bed 
if you leave in the morning before i come home.
i want the water glass in the sink.
the lights shut off. the morning is
distinctly a purple place. i take
a shower. i wipe the steam off the mirror.
you left a tan sock & i put it
in with the rest of my wash. 
you make the room feel wide-- like
a shadow box.i lay the covers down 
& they ask me where we go during the day,
if we hold onto each other like that. 
i don't tell them anything
& set stack the pillows & i shut
off the light & i put on 
my socks at my desk chair. 

II.
i want you to never make the bed
if you leave in the morning before i come home. 
i want the covers folded & flushed.
a single lily-petal. if i painted
us before we fell asleep what kind
of patterns could we have left?
a Rorschach test-- what do you 
see in the ink? i see swans 
& uneven fingers. a ceiling fan. 
i like the coffee shop up 
the street because we walk there.
because there's a chess set near
the window & i wanted to ask 
you to play. leave the light on.
the shadow is an inadequate
proxy for a lover-- but is it a body.
the carnations on the table,
sick with their own ambrosia. 
will you come back tonight?
make my skin glass, again.

Compulsion on 
Number 1A 1948

pollock at a potluck.
the world pouncing down 
on the white wall-floor. 
if they turned me inside
out it. if they turned me
inside out & gave
each compulsion a color.
a brilliant breaking
of a tumor-- a vein 
burst like a yellow jacket.
the swarm in the trash can 
where there's always brothers.
you ask me again about
my routines. about what happens
inside my body. i laugh 
because i want to take
you here & drip-spatter 
all over. a blue meandering
through the house-- 
anxious & angry at 
the numbers 
under finger nails.
i take out all
the condiments & test
their ability to splatter
as i pour them over myself.
i want to me 
misunderstood. i want
to be a knot &
a violet smudge
across my knees. 
as a little girl
i would sit in front 
of the painting for
hours-- tracing each
strand of obsession--
my favorite was 
the strands of garnet.
i peeled them off
& swallowed each like
an earthworm. it's moving.
all of it. a colony
of what what what?
i don't want to be
legible. every black brash
enough to admit it's
afraid. 
it's not
done yet. 
i gulp down 
old paints-- lips 
pigmented white
in the spirit of 
drunk daddies.
kiss the wallpaper,
perfect stamp.
each a pair of 
lips another 
voice to count with.
sing a round.
throng color--
disintegration of
a nervous system.
step back.
it's destroying
me/you & it's 
a glorious righteous
kind of wild.
i roll the canvas
back up & sword
swallow. pollock
praying the only
way he knows how.

taxonomy

make a jungle gym of me,
the metal bars at night where
we all hung our old shoe sizes,
each pair full of mulch & pebbles.
yes, peach-footed human.

i want to swing from species to
species, test the bird-neck
& the bivalve-- mussel & 
muscle. opening my mouth 
to fill with water, i'll
call this darkness a gill. 

flick me phylogeny, 
the light switch god tucked 
behind each of our necks.

would we have love
in other bodies? 

an arctic mouth, 
a few less organs to
keep track of.  

would it be quieter?
would sleep come with less 
questions & more handwork. 
the classification god. 

i hope to come back 
without quite as many bones,

maybe a shark, their fossilized
teeth aching in my drawer,
my own mouth evolving rows. 
seats in a theater.

call motion & water.
we must not stop, cut a branch
with finger nails. i want
to keep all the tetrapods
for myself. 

yes, brothers.

will someone come & 
tease out my veins, make them
solid & climbable? 

if you find my body 
like this in the playground
past dusk 

will you hang upside down? 
try yourself Osteichthyes--
the bone-wearing fish

i will collect our eyes
to use as marbles on
the blacktop. there will be 
scales shaved off to make mulch.

& when all's said & done we
can come back,

force our feet, the human-ness
comes back as furious
need for shoes.

i kneel to help tie yours.
we're animal-bruised & small.

whispering under a flashlight
about growing up

to be dinosaurs. about all
the teeth the shark will
lose & slip under his pillow
for quarters.

every time i step on
a twig it becomes a rib,
three of father's all broken
back into beat. his catacomb
chest a thunder cloud
in the ceiling of a dark 
apartment. a pile 
on the floor. in the packs
of deli ham in the fridge:
the layers of his skin.
what was a dead body
buzzing 90s rock in his
ears, pouring out 
on the floor. a blood jar.
a beer bottle bone 
flowing brown into 
the carpet. the tubes,
the plastic veins.
a body becoming a project.
all the kielbasa 
on potato rolls,
an ambulance summation.
the wheel barrow
in the yard pounding
at the back door
to get in. ziploc 
lung & inhale. 
all the gnats 
on bananas in 
the kitchen. 
what can we use, 
for ribs?
para-promise 
a medical word for for 
the fear of
the flashing lights 
coming to take.

oh, grandfather

the clock in the lobby of
the nursing home where 
my grandmother turned into
a handful of almonds.
a stern face. a sharp nose.
a lawyer. a German man. 
brief-case carrying & pocket watch
eating. the man from my mother's
faded wallet photos. 
time on the Alzheimer's floor
is filtered through the echo
of the out-of-tune piano,
is played out in the body
of my grandfather. 
come night
when most of the nurses
had gone home & no one was
visiting 
the clock would toll,
startling her in her blue
track suite, her finger nails
painted a soft dull coral.
the man standing in the lobby
in his nice pressed suite.
he promised her everything,
a house in town 
with all the windows open.
my princess my princess 
my princess,
his fingers ticking.
a portrait of the moon
painted on his forehead.
they would embrace in 
the dim light. he would tell
her stories of where he
had been all these decades
& she would be angry with
him. a man's only job
is not to die. 
his throat, a long
hallway to dangle from--
she wanted to run but
remembered her legs.
the piano grinned wild 
& her husband rung again,
only louder this time
until his face went flat 
& round. painting numbers 
on his cheeks & chin.
in the mirror on her
dresser she tried 
to do the same with 
the ink pen but she had 
forgotten words & numbers.
the art work on the walls
of the Alzheimer's floor 
all have numbers hidden 
in them, the pass codes
to get out into 
the world of time. 
7, 1, 1, 5 written in the vase 
of sunflowers. she uses
all numbers as a clocks.
the year is 1973.
her husband sets his suitcase
down in the lobby. he doesn't
visit, just stands there,
white-faced & unbending. 
she doesn't call for him.
she doesn't offer him dinner.
she sits by the piano.