peach pit

I.
bold bruised & soft sunburns: the peaches
in the ceramic bowl on the dining room table
are ready. no one is home, just the faucet
dripping ghost. overripe, mouths full of orange sugar.
i'm standing over the sink full of dishes,
silver diet coke cans glaring beneath
the crusted cast iron pan. the juice leaks
down as i take the first bite, the orchard 
up the road where all the trees are named
after dead family members & the kitchen floor
sprouts wild grass. even the pit is loose,
breaking off in shards. i pick them from
my lips, the fingernails of long dead trees.
inside the pit, a white seed like an ear lobe,
a sprig of green, an ankle, an eye brow.

II.
guilt is a thing of growing, we must not
waste food. we must never waste food. the peaches
in my fridge are hard & bitter. i hold one 
by the dim corner light in my kitchen, barefoot.
night making insect of the porch. the web worm
moth on the door with her orange & white
wings folded back. if i hold on long enough
the peach will come back to life. i will
put the fruit back inside the white drawer
& in the morning when i open the fridge 
there will be a young tree-- my own earlobes 
falling off to return to the life of seeds. 
the tree will need to be taken care of as
one would a child. picked up, carried on the hip,
sat on the sofa in the living room. let me hold you
until the peach pit in your chest reawakens--
until the web worm moth goes home. 
until everything is ripe & mush.

I’ve done the math.

 

884 is the number of masses I attended between when I was born & when I was 17. If you think about holy days that’s at least another 34, maybe 51. That totals us at approximately 935 masses give or take.

 

How many weeks did we skip mass?

 

I’m remembering the one time when we pulled up fifteen minutes late in mom’s blue station wagon, before it had the crack in the windshield, before we doodled in sharpie on the ceiling, before the panels feel off the doors & before no one sat in the backwards facing trunk-seat anymore. Mom scanned the parking lot & I played on my blue Nintendo DS. She decided we should go home because we’d be walking in so late.

 

That rest of that hour I wanted to make up for the church we’d missed. I paced the downstairs. I asked her if we were okay, if we were going to be okay.

 

It is quite possible that I attended 1,000 masses. Some weeks I served twice. Some years we went to more than one Christmas mass. The assumption of Mary. The feast of Saint Blaise.

 

In my life time Saint Mary has been assumed, again, into heaven only 22 times. Again & again so goes. Again & again she watches her son grown old & crucified over the course of the year. She doesn’t go to church now, how could she? She knows the story, yes?

 

I’ve avoided this. I’ve avoided writing this because I felt like it didn’t need to be written again.

 

Can I retrospectively claim my position as an altar boy?

 

The math, yes, give me the math. If I started starting when I was 11 then I probably served at least 200 times. Dad liked it when I served on Saturdays. When the sun was going down early the church lay, twilight dark when I’d light the candles. I had to light the candles. On Saturdays Mr. Costello, who would die before I graduated high school, would lead the rosary. On days when I wasn’t scheduled that other servers would show up & sister Katherine would make her way over to me, to ask me to serve.

 

She was a short woman with biscuit hands who died before I graduated high school. At least 50, at least 50 times she had to have asked me to serve. The sister they got to replace her never approached me. She wore dull sweaters instead of the nun’s habit & was somehow sterner.

 

I don’t know what I’m scared of, why my heart rages in my throat.

 

My first crush was on another altar boy. We held hands during the Our Father & I focused hard on trying to not have sweaty palms. His hands were dry & boney. His name was Noah or maybe it was Isaac or maybe it WAS Noah, having crawled out of the Old Testament to a small one-priest church outside a farm-town in Pennsylvania.

I was probably the bell acolyte more than half of the times. 70? Yes.

 

I told you I liked the bell because you got to ring the bell but really, I liked it because I didn’t like having to hold the book for Monsignor, I didn’t like pretending to be an inanimate object while he read from the read book in my hands.

 

What is the world read upside down?

 

As everyone gets older they eventually become the cross bearer. The oldest server bears the cross. They have no other role but to walk in front of the other two.

 

Our church has a cross made by a local artist, green & gold colored & gnarled with thorns.

 

The cross was clumsy & heavy.

 

I will not be & was not the only young queer human to bear the cross.

 

You were the one who told me about this before it was in the news. You said, a few months ago when I called you on the drive home from a hookup that I told you was a friend’s house, that there were accusations of priests & cardinals in our area.

 

I asked if Monsignor was one of them & you said that they hadn’t released the names. That they were keeping the names.

 

It reminded me of the construction-paper tree they put up in the gathering space each fall, the one where they’d write the letters of dead parish members on. Most of the time we didn’t know anyone, we’d linger in front of the image a few moments before going into church.

 

Keeping the names.

 

We always sat to the left of the altar, 3 rows back.

 

The 1st row was for the Moores & the 2nd for the Cormack’s & the Pirots scattered themselves in the back: 1, 2, 3, 4.

 

I had to have been alone with Monsignor in the sacristy 112 times. Green robe, green robe, purple robe, what is the red robe for again?

 

The 3^rd week of advent he wears the pink robe, only once.

 

There were, of course, visiting priests.

 

The Cardinal came for confirmation once a year, his hat too holy to be touched by the hands of altar servers.

 

I wanted to interrogate you, I seethed, I throw all my hate at you as if you were the double church doors.

 

Sometimes when your mouth opens it bleeds like the jagged stained-glass windows of St. Mary’s. Sometimes you stand & I see you as a chalice. Sometimes you bring out all the shame in me because you still go to church. By now you’ve gone more than me even though you’re my younger brother by 3 years.

 

18 times, at least 18 times Monsignor spoke about sex in the homily. Masturbation. Homosexuality. Gender-breakers. The theology of the body. The question you slip away from when I plead with you to love me more than god.

 

I am not selfish for this. I am hurting.

 

& this year when they go to crucify him in front of me for the 22^nd time since I have been alive, I will lay the cross down, use the back end of our father’s hammer & pry the 3 nails from his hands & feet as evidence.

 

I have heard faggot hurled at least 22 times but none have hurt like the promise that there is sin written into the flesh that binds me.

 

& when we held hands for the Our Father, I always managed to get us in trouble.

 

I wanted to ask if you see that sin on me. If it blares through the phone as I call you & you tell me about the reports of abuse from priests & cardinals & bishops who preached at us.

 

What disturbs me the most is that my impulse is to say, you see, you see now this is what they are. This means they have no authority, they are the perverts, the pedophiles, the shame.

 

Take my shame oh take my shame.

 

It doesn’t work like that. It doesn’t come off.

 

How many hail Marys have I said? How many, then, how many Our Fathers?

 

Is it a 1,000?

 

1,000 is the number, the number of child victims of assault by holy people. Holy people have violated bodies. Holy people have violated bodies at least a 1,000 times.

 

It took me till now. Till now 8 weeks after you told me one the phone. It took me till today on a Sunday. On the 7^th day. & the Lord rested. How dare he rest. This is a fist on the door of your mouth, this is what I have left to pray.

 

“We believe that the real number of children whose records were lost or who were afraid ever to come forward is in the thousands,” the grand jury report says.

 

Tell me, brother, whose children were we?

 

For 8 weeks I have told myself that I don’t need to read the articles. That I know. That I already know what it will say. That I don’t have a right to feel trauma having never been one of the 1,000.

 

& they didn’t just hurt them, they hid it.

 

What makes a sin capable of being hidden?

 

Where was it then? Where do the voices live now?

 

In one of the 4 silver chalices where Jesus poured his vine-blood each week? Under the 2 gold plates?

 

Washed down back to the soil where all the pieces of god must again be planted?

 

I remember it was in my dwindling days with god that mom made me go to a mass in Allentown for Catholic teens. I remember little other than fading into myself after the opening precessions, lamb of god oh lamb of god.

 

Where is the wolf when the Shepard is a pile of stones?

 

In the Allentown diocese, a priest admitted sexually molesting a boy & pleaded for help, according to documents, but was left in ministry for several more years

 

In Allentown, a priest who had abused several boys, according to the grand jury, was given a recommendation to work at Disney World.

 

For these 8 weeks I have said I have no words.

 

These are my words. Let no one try to make them holy.

 

Alone in the sacristy together we put on the white robes. Yours was a size 10 on the tag & mine a size 13. My size never changed the 5 years I was the altar boy.

 

The 1 full length mirror in the sacristy where I watched my body change, grow older, grow short haired & bare skinned.

 

I have taken the body of Christ into my mouth more than the number of times I’ve been at mass. The numbers buckle in him.

 

He was there in the parking lot when we didn’t go, when we drove home & I was ashamed. He tasted like pancakes & wore pink. He wore purple in ordinary time, not just advent.

 

He’s there in the shadows of my body that hold pleasure—in the thumbs that tune my skin. In the collar bone of a lover where I sleep & still find the shame.

 

This body. This 1,000 body.

 

I want to go back to the mirror. An altar boy. I want go fishing in the reflection for their voices. Is this where they’ve gone to hide? What size robe? What acolyte? What cross?

 

These are 3 nails, one for each of us brothers.

 

I want you to go with me. I want you to tell me that you love the body of your brother more than god.

 

The headline read “Grave failings”

 

His hat too holy to be touched by the hands of altar servers.

 

I want to run my hands all over it, across the rim, the white cloth.

 

How many weeks did we skip mass?

 

The victims said this was “not a vendetta against the church” & that abusers have “to be accountable in the church for what they did.”

 

That is where we are different. I do not feel that there is enough accountability left for this.

 

Will you skip one more mass, this one?

 

Count with me, the 3 stoplights home. Our own rosary beads.

 

Pound the 1 nail into your bedroom wall & I will do the same.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

all of the bus stops 

i wandered over the bridge today,
the one that backwards bends over
the train station. i am a person
prone to feeling smaller & sometimes
i seek out the denouement of my own body. 
beneath the bridge, the pit
orchestra playing oboes & the flute
that my mother sang with, still apart
in pieces on the dresser in my childhood
bedroom. the sun showers here come
with the slightest change of the wind.
i felt it coming too late, all the way
in the center of the bridge with the whole
universe on either side. i saw Nut 
the Egyptian goddess of the night sky,
her body pockmarked with hot stars, 
making an arch over everything. the bridge
another one of her spines. i felt 
the vertebrae at each side walk crack.
the train pulled in. the people coming
out were all birds-- all birds but me.
isn't that how it goes? the rain 
looking at herself in a full length mirror
a new dress to twirl in once. the rain
drenching me as i stood still. i picked 
up my cell phone because i wanted to call
someone & ask you, my grandmother, why this keeps
happening to me, the rain barreling felicitous
& feral, smacking her hair on the pavement & 
letting each drop of bruise sizzle where
it once was too hot. this time when i 
called you, you didn't recognize my voice.
you told me to hang up & bother someone else
until i said, yes it's           . i see 
my vocal chords like a bridge & with each blood shot 
of testosterone the bridge becomes more 
of a belt to be slapped with. hear me, hear me, 
is there not something left of us? not a timbre 
you knock, the cracks of the spine? the birds
laughing on the stoop? is this 
mouth our reed? the oboe making
a tunnel-throat for us to stand in. 
on the other side of the road i think
they're building a hospital but 
i'd prefer not to know. Nut shifts
to stretch, to feel the rain on her face.
on breaks the men in white hard hats 
become pigeons & perch on the gum-stuck curb. 
you tell me that you once knew 
all the bus stops,
all of them across the east coast. i tell
you the name of my new city again, 
rain dripping down my face with the sun
already out again, beaming as if
she had not just professed raw words over us.

 

puzzle pieces

i'm going to dog ear all the beats
last night where i wanted to kiss you--
where the roof of the car became 
aluminum foil & unrolled sheet by sheet.
where the sidewalk outside buckled,
each crack the back of a knee, my knees 
following into the violin bows--
my brother played violin for a few years
before hanging the instrument on 
the wall on my uncle's side of our 
big soft yellow house. did i tell you
my parent's have a big soft yellow house
& if you put it into the palm of
you hand it becomes play dough. this is
where my bed room was, i tell you 
& a red beet drops from the ceiling
onto an anthology of something. this is
too purple to be blood. this is the mouth
between the mangoes-- the hair washed 
in vinaigrette. the cranberries that 
all of of our scabs, just sweetened.
alone at night in my bed after you
left i took a sharpie to the wall 
& tried to draw the lines of a great 
puzzle, like one of the ones stacked 
in the rec room at the nursing home up
the street. will this be a lighthouse
from your poem? the shovel? the wall
sconce flickering between us.
i'm pulling the pieces out of the dry wall
& they broke on the wooden floor: 
dust & celestial particles. tell what
now about the moon. & the wall will
not become a puzzle just because of
lines. crouching, i opened every book
on my shelf & each became, in that instant,
a coffee table between us. a cast 
iron pot of dragon tea. a beet bleeding,
now, only heavier. oh, purple us.
a blue ceiling light.

handfuls of clay

at Glen Cove the tide comes up like 
a strawberry field full of birds, they carry 
the distant boats on their backs. 
i turn to take a picture of 
the wooden stairs that lead down to the beach. 
i tell you, this is Gatsby's beach
even though it could have been any on 
the north shores of long island. 
i think it was this one because
it's so quiet & aching. the beach 
collecting dead branches to feel less vacant. 
sand turning to stone knuckles. naming
her joint-bones mars & moon & venus. 
sea weed against my ankles, the shed green walls
of a uterus. i imagine Gatsby here,
pants rolled up to his knees, white
button down shirt hanging on a tree branch.
he walks past me a few feet further.
i don't bother ghosts. it's best to
let them work. kneeling i watch as he
takes handfuls of clay & piles them
on one of the great big rocks that peer
out of the water like dulled irises.
i sit on one & it blinks. i wonder if
he was also a child of water, raising
his hands up to the waves & telling his
mother that he swayed them.
a great mansion grew between the trees.
it had old thick grey stones & a golden 
car to drive to the city in the afternoon.
when i ambled closer, i touched the walls.
they were slick & made of clay as well
& Gatsby was still out there, waist deep now
trying to build a man from the kaolin.
the clay would never hold long enough,
always tumbling back into the surf. 
the boats at a distance belong to no one,
they're made of paper & held up by a string.
if i'd taken a few more steps i'd have
found the houses looking out at the bay are
just railroad miniatures. i didn't want
to look at their smallness so i stepped back,
stayed in my place; water holding me
with her spattering tongue. a blue bucket washed up close 
but i didn't pick it up. i'm a firm believer 
in leaving things as you find them.
across the bay i could see no green lights
to mold american dreams out of, i watched as the clay 
man reached himself into the water again,
fingers melting & becoming small listless 
hunks of grey clay. Gatsby lit a cigarette
& the smoke turned blue & then red, bursting
with wings & beaks. he didn't notice
me that whole time. he didn't notice
anyone, just stared forward, intently. i'm not
even sure if he came here before, this might
be before the book & all, but he was here now. 
when done, he just put back on his shirt, unrolled
his pants & sunk underwater. with handfuls
of clay i too tried to make a man, only 
my man was smaller & wanted nothing at all. 
gently, i rubbed his face smooth & blank,
i pinched his arms into place. i wiped my
hands on my shorts, red dried blood stains.
he didn't stand though, not all the care 
in the world could hold him together,
first buckling at the knees & then scarring over.
the waves broke him like a host.
i took a piece in my mouth, chewing 
out of respect for the not-really dead. 
the boats shuttered & the tide rose,
spitting feathers. water-plumage.
i erased my thin avian foot prints
from the thin gravel shore.

 

ice cubes

i refill the ice cube trays 
& stand in the kitchen waiting.
it takes so long to become a solid
object-- i open the freezer again 
to dip my toes in the cold water--
each cube the size of me-- each little
division another pool deep enough
to fall into. i take to pacing 
the dividers like the train tracks
threaded through town. the station
is on williams avenue & the street
is hot with asphalt & 
the beam banging birth of 
a new building. the construction
workers are too big to fit into 
the spaces of the ice cube tray,
they stumble occasionally into 
the house to try & i warn them 
that it's rare that someone else fits.
they want to cool off. we all want
to cool off. i chew ice & pretend
i'm eating stones off the driveway
or maybe hunks of sidewalk in winter.
dad pulls open the freezer door &
grumbles about the empty trays 
again-- filling them with tap water.
the frozen peas are so many planets.
there's a bag of mangoes from last year.
if i tuck my knees into my chest i
can be fully submerged. i hold my breath 
& teach myself patience by watching 
the first layer of ice form-- a pane of
glass to look out of. house next to
house next to house-- the ice cube
tray of all of grant avenue. when dad
comes home from work this time
he'll find all three trays full--
he'll crack me free & i'll bob 
in his tall glass of diet coke-- 
the bubbles floating me to the top. 
outside the construction workers 
chew ice on their breaks-- peer in
the living room windows-- their mouths
bloody from the shards of glass. 
i pull the blinds shut. wait for 
the cold to make everything still &
quiet. i lay down-- a piece of
me in each divider. it takes skill
to freeze yourself in segments--
like the dead cow in my parent's 
chest freeze. i want to un-thaw 
slowly then. hand by hand. rib by
rib by iris. don't resemble me.

stevia

I.
by the coffee machine overflowing. the grounds
bubbling & spitting, grit & black sand. a pot of thin 
charcoal snakes. uncle Rich in the living room 
with a mug in each hand waits & blinks to flip channels 
of the television. the shelves with the glasses 
& plates shutter-- clinking like the scales of a great
beast; one that lives all over the kitchen.
phantom & fork-toothed. one packet of stevia is enough 
for a cup of coffee. all natural zero calories.
the honey crystallizes. mom at the table; wrapping my 
brothers in newspaper. the coffee was too strong
because i didn't measure the grounds. the stevia packets
opened themselves one after another, their sweetness 
aloof & skeletal. 

II.
i asked the waiter for a sugar substitute
at the cafe off of hempsted. i was embarrassed 
to have to find fake sugar in front of you.
i usually come prepared now with yellow packets 
in my pockets. the sugar jar on the table 
was a beach with pure white sand. the waves hot & steaming-- 
steeped in blood orange tea. i wanted to dig my hands in, bite
handfuls of gravely sweetness, melting to 
nectar. you tell me about brewing sweet tea in texas with 
the sugar already in the pot. i found two packets of stevia.
they were next to the coffee machine at my parents 
house. i didn't take long to walk there, always on the 
other side of the room. i tell you in one sentence
that i used to have an eating disorder, but still kind 
of do. it tastes like stevia. open the packet 
& my mother with the newspaper was
at a table next to us. the television
blinked in the foreground. tell me what
you do for sugar.

 

caged birds 

the pet store up the street, the one that i told you about 
has a back room with glass windows full of parrots

it's hidden past the aisles of kibble 
& shuttering white-bar cages

the ferrets sleep on each other like living
lamp posts-- 

i leaned down to i watched their
tiny chests rise & fall, making sure they 
were breathing 

back there: iridescent blue macaws, reds 
plucked from fresh stop signs-- their wrinklked
grey talons gripping the sides of their
cardboard-box lives

the smaller birds chirped like popcorn--
their voices muffled by the glass.

in the foreground the shop owners 
talked about the light rain in Portuguese.

i left without saying anything, 

lingering by the store front a minute or two,
straining to hear their dampened gossip  

would they talk about me or was i just
another human body at a distance.

like all men, the hero complex kicked in
& i saw myself returning in the night,

my iPhone flashlight in the shop window,
a paperclip lock pick

i recall being in 5th grade & trying
to lockup our own front door, needless
to say i broke the knob

this time it would work & i come
to that back room to let all the birds free

they'd stare wild at me, eyes full of
neon & city street hum 

& none of them would budge,

preening each other & telling stories

angry, i'd wave my arms trying to tell them
to run or fly, to escape

the door is open

they'd turn their backs, huddling together,
scared of the creature with 
the strange pink fingers

paper-machete feathered & gripping onto
their cage bars, calling each cage 
mother, mother

don't you want to be free?

& the eldest bird would laugh &
come over to me, he'd take out some
of his feathers & start applying
them to me, saying 

this is a body

& i'd pick the blue cage, the one 
on the top shelf with the little
swing dangling from the top

& the paperclip would break off
in the lock to the front door
of the house, again.

i'd pull off the screen & crawl
in through the window, 
construction paper-feathers
wet from the light rain

 

violets on Jericho Turnpike

i called you from the bench with
an angry third arm. the violets
sat with their legs crossed 
in their planters beside me.
the carnations, dozing off, letting
the wind preen them of wilted brown
petals. it takes me apart too; a good
breeze & my hair flies away
in maroon & gold leaves. autumn
is an ache that lies dormant beneath
the asphalt but for now it is
too hot to be a body. the walk
signs are misleading here, red hands
waving from every crossing. i tell
you about each store front, reading
them like a menu or the index
of a book. when i hang up i linger
a few moments longer. there's a valet
parking cars for the Portuguese bisto 
across from me. he probably heard my
whole phone conversation. he looked 
past me like i was one of the potted
flowers & then i looked down to find
my feet into the dry dirt, my face
a purple bruise. the plants giggling
& hushing me, telling me to be still
or i'd give them all away. they waited
for dusk when the street was made
of only neon & stop lights & they 
pulled their feet loose. ambling
past shop windows up & down 
the Turnpike, some pointed to flags
in the international grocery store,
saying how they'd like to own 
a flag for Brazil or Colombia. 
they tell me i would make a fine 
addition, that i should stay &
window shop with them each night.
i tell them that i have places to 
go, that tomorrow i want to figure
out the buses & maybe the next day
organize the books on my shelf.
when all the cars go by they dash out 
into the street, hold hands & 
twirl on the double-yellow lines.
i tell them to be careful but they
don't listen. i don't run out
with them. my pink skin comes back  
& i blink, ankle deep in the planters.
a man wrestles with the chair's third 
arm & opts to just sleep beneath it.
i used my GPS to walk me 6 minutes home
& one of the plants followed me;
dug herself into the front lawn
until she became skin & bones. i brought
her some of my old clothing, but
said i was sorry but she couldn't stay.
if you let one flower in they'll
all want fingernails & knuckles.
i gave her a handful of change
for the 7 eleven. in the shower
i washed the dirt from between
my toes, plucked out 
the stray thin roots still leftover. 

lady bug

on the back window of the car
i found a lady bug with six spots.
i asked him how long he'd been inside
& he scurried away, down into the
seat crevasse. i told him that he should
get out while he can, rolling down
the windows near the perkiomen trail--
the water wearing a dress. he's a stubborn
man who counted his spots like coins
as we passed each toll booth into 
New Jersey & then New York. he told
me that bridges cost too much &
considering the pot holes i agreed.
somewhere in the midst of crossing
the throng neck he realized that we
were leaving or that we had left.
he counted the street lamps in our
old driveway. he counted the cockroaches
on the front steps of the old apartment 
building. he began to weep quietly so i
asked if he wanted to talk about it.
he shook his head & i told him
about the lady bugs in the walls
of my parent's house-- how they emerged
mysteriously, unreadable omens
disappearing back into the seams of
the wood. he took out his ink pen
& asked me how many spots i would
have if i were a lady bug. i was
still driving so it was hard to
think, i came up with the number seven
because it used to be my favorite number,
a useful number. if you picked it up
it would make do for an umbrella.
the pen tickled as he drew & i gripped
the steering wheel as we passed 
strips of thai food places &
a colombian restaurant that made
me think of my mom. he said that his
mother liked to knit too-- that
she would miss him. that she would
knit him six gloves in october.
i don't ask him why he left. 
i imagine he will tell me in time. 
outside the new place i check 
the seven black spots
in the windows of the car. one for
each sin. i laughed. he tells me that
humans trust too much in symbols.
crawling up the back window he 
watched me unpack &
stayed there in the car all night.