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.

last night st. lucy came
to my door & knocked three times.
the mother the daughter 
& the holy bedpost that i use 
as a rosary. 
running out of veneration, 
she sat at my desk chair,
placing each scented-candle of
her crown on the end table. 
rose & cream & patchouli & lavender. 
i asked her what she was
doing here so far from decemeber
& she put a finger to my mouth.
her eyes looking up from the golden 
plate, unblinking. white grape. 
for broken vows
& pagan boys we never loved. 
for the stained glass
on the brothel walls
we made a curtain. she told
me of bundles of wood
& fire that only women know.
she danced her fingers 
over flame to demonstrate.
i stuck out my tongue,
the taste her ember as 
sweet wine. eyeball in her 
palm she fed me,
yes both eyes, off the plate.
juice down my neck,
across my collar bones. 
she asked for my confessions,
turning them into pastries 
on her plate. tea cakes
& macaroons. the powdered 
sugar on our lips.
we will take this all
to the catacombs.
Diocletian, a statue outside
the window. he's dead now,
we know. but a man is 
always a statue left somewhere.
i asked her if her
eyes would grow back
& already there
was another pair.
blue & lucid.

washing machine

a tongue twisted & full 

the fat pipes that pull water from my body
& fill the living room with sea-foam

the seagulls on the sill

i want to be who you wash 
your clothing in, if not a river
than at least a hope chest

a wooden lather

downstairs, the man with a hammer 
who is always working on the ceiling
is working on the ceiling 

he is mad-running back & forth

my father's coat hangers 
are also halos are also skeletons,

all of his sundays shirts looming
behind the folding doors

i put one on & forget all 
of our names, only button &
button & button

the music box of pennies

i want you to fill me,
one article at a time

snake spun,
i hinge my jaw

come socks & sweaters

this way we can avoid
the basement & the man down there

dry chew my throat

i like to watch you fold,
it reminds me of gift wrap,

our clothing turning paper 
& flimsy 

gifting a body to a front door

i want give up on clothes,
meet in the fist of 
the man downstairs

open the door & fit inside

the water locket 

washing into a photograph

the reds bleed & we turn pink 
but we don't mind because
we like pink 
we prefer pink

 

penance

the last animal i ate was
a sea urchin. uni, the roll
of sushi tumbling across
a white plate, bicycle tires.
wasabi, a green scream,
a god-blood gone wrong.
i wrap my hands in sea weed
as an apology, sitting in
the living room & waiting
for a larger creature to
find me delectable. of all
the animals? humans are such
that they have to crack 
bodies open. what is inside?
the husks of sea urchins--
their yellow roe. the globe
growing scornful spines--
one huge bursting through
the floorboards of
my house. impale the mailbox. 
i say that i am
sorry, that i didn't mean 
to eat the sea urchin all
those years ago, only,
i did. i meant to eat her.
the sushi on my
tongue-- turning to salt
water. i spit it out
in the bathroom sink.
the bath tub, now full
of the creatures, 
echinoderms, the globular
organism. sitting among them,
they crawl up the tile walls.
we turn on the shower,
mist & algae. maybe if
i take care for them
they'll forgive me. 
i want penance, bless
me mother for i have sinned. 
each urchin a rosary bead gone angry.
each piece of furniture
in my house becoming a plate,
clear & white. 
i don't even remember what
they tasted like,
did the first human bite
one like an apple?
this is our history 
of taking.
teeth mauled with needles.
punish me
punish me
punish me
& the urchins gather,
speaking words made of
soy sauce & death bed rice.
the carpet gone sticky
& jasmine. 
they worked, turning
my eyes in to sea urchins,
a face for brothers.
two of them. black & white
world take me & 
drop me back into 
the water-- the image
can't breathe. 
of all the animals
of all the animals
to have eaten.

avenue

there's too many 
so many people living
on my street & it's night time.
the sidewalks as belt loops
thatching us together.
clapping in the windows
can indicate a birthday.
whoever's birthday it is
i hope the cake is chocolate
or at least has a frosting
rose. how old are
you now? pastry boxes
stacked on top of each
other-- tumbling. the cars
conduct themselves, their
seamless migration back
& forth to either side 
of the street. the porches
shared by squirrels & cigarettes.
mailboxes wishing everyone
could sleep so they could
read the mail aloud. 
my house gets mail for
people who no longer live
here. John & Lindsay 
& Olivia wherever they may be.
the stack lives inside
the door in case 
they return. a box of
pizza grows legs & rings
a doorbell. the grass
itches & asks for 
bare feet. do birds sleep?
a pigeon on my stoop
eating a kernel of star.
the planets are so
tired here, new york city 
a hot tongue in the horizon.
but here is my street,
lit yellow windows, 
headlights crawling on
the walls, a stroller
pushing itself. someone's
baby is crying, someone's
dog without a collar.
the thai restaurant
whose back door is
opening & closing &
opening & closing.
the dumpster fat with
broken furniture.
i don't think people
stay here long. 
the driveway jammed
four cars deep.
an ambulance snoring. 
i don't know how long
i will stay here.
wednesday
is a kind of mother,
lugging trash to
the curb. the green 
man full of bottles.
black  plastic bags.
night time walkers
are either ghosts or
restless or hungry
or all three.
i looked down when they
walk by so they 
won't see me from
the white plastic chair
on my porch.
my street has so many
people.

Dear Christine Blasey Ford,

i first knew that 
an ovary was an appendage
when i felt it make 
a fist. to bear witness,
to bare a body. 
god is made of wood
& he knows us machines.
i want to make sense 
for you.
the boys who have been
boys & will die boys
who i will maybe someday 
summon me. i have
never reported a rape
& so the word turns
into an ouroboros
in my mouth. the
snake eating its tail. 
around
& around & around with
teeth. this shouldn't
have to be you.
this shouldn't have to
be me. but it was.
it was it was it was.
so it was. 
& we should not have
to meet like this.
in the belly of 
a beached whale
that is justice.
there is, as always,
just us. i do not
know you but there
is a polygraph
under the obelisk,
the truth is a ring
in the mouth of
an intruded body.
i'm here to tell
you he was 17 & i was
15 & my fist 
has not let go
of the name. 
he said she said 
he said she said 
she said she said 
she said she said 
& said & said & said
i said i want 
a bed that doesn't
remind me of gabbles.
the smack. the throws.
a thank you dissolves
cherry throat.
this isn't a thank you,
this isn't
where we'll meet,
this is a benediction,
on the skin as
evidence 
call alchemy
call a fact fucked
in half & call
that half her.
call saint agnes
& agatha & always
always always joan.