several tongues

i couldn't help myself but
lick each knives instead of 
washing them off in the sink,
a tongue split in two,
one escaped on the tile floor.
i should be more careful
but i'm old now.
the sink full of submarines
& the garbage disposal a 
handful of teeth. this happens
all the time, i lose them
& live curious about
their possible return. 
the vermin they are. 
i know their feet & their
white bellies, the soil
on their skin. when no 
one is watching that's when 
hunger takes over-- when 
the plate congregates with 
chicken bones & all 
the old tongues quiver,
contemplate returning home.
i know they want to.
how many times has my mouth 
made divisions?
the collision of language-taste,
the word "calliope" always leaves
everything tasting like 
cantaloupe. i feel each & every tongue,
so many under the top soil.
other ones hide in potted
plants & under pillows with
all the baby teeth that
have yet to be collected.
i've become accustomed to 
the aluminum taste of blood,
to dabbing my mouth with
a wad of toilet paper. 
they always leave no matter
what i feed them. i open
the fridge to take out 
slices of un-orange cheese.
i eat an orange & lick 
the juice off my forearm 
& the counter, take a 
Clorox wipe & press it to 
my face. i will clean (punish)
the tongue if it insists
on escape. the serrated knives,
drawing my pink skin across.
a loaf of bread. slice &
slice & slice. aluminum 
foil, wrapped up. these
are leftovers. the swimming
in roots. they won't
be coming back, i know this
at least.

Again, my father throws back the bluegills,

only, this time with my brother & the lake.

The holes in my earlobes; gaps my skin fills.

open close, open close: the algae ache.

 

only this time with my brother & the lake.

my lip, the landline, & the 32 size hook.

open close, open close: the algae ache.

Our yellow house in the telephone book.

 

my lip, the landline, & the 32 size hook.

If I die, let me return a sunfish.

Our yellow house in the telephone book.

caught by the septum, oh aberdeen wish.

 

If I die, let me come home a sunfish.

The holes in my earlobes; gaps a hook fills

caught by the septum, oh aberdeen bliss.

So, yes, my father throws back the bluegills.

did you sleep well?

press flat into a cover.
boys with no sheets. 
boys falling off bunk beds--
the floor of the rain forest
where the jaguar is shadow 
& lavender. the springs cobra
coiled, i let you out, 
seeping onto the floor board--
the smoke of a dragon. 
what do i keep under the bed?
i keep dried rose petals &
nettles & other means for 
burning. i wait for you
to fall asleep to mark
the door with lamb's blood.
my mother first told
me the story of the angel 
of death-- when i picture
her i imagine the angel as a woman
with no eyes-- just holes
that turn into the long
hallway in my parent's house--
the longer longer longer
hallway. you stand at the
end but you become
the closet-- your shoulder,
a door knob. please sleep well.
i promise there is nothing
here-- just a boy in his
backyard-- cold & damp with dew.
the first born son,
a kind of talisman around
the neck of a house. 
i coax the snakes back into
the mattress, i do this
with dead mice. they still
snap at me & i tell them that you're
sleeping. pillowcase promise
that you recognize me even
in the dark of the room--
that the spoon in the sink
is a boy. that the glass
of water on the end 
table is full of lips.
i take mine off 
& hang them above the bed,
placed with a single thumb tac,
cover them with my hand
& tell them hush.

koi 

i watched the men come to feed
the koi fish outside the library.
they aren't impatient, they eat 
out of hand with 
please-let-me-kiss-you mouths. 
the water pours, a running sink.
i wonder if the fish sometimes 
look up & contemplate the building.
i want to kneel by the water
& read to them, tear out
the pages of an old book &
let them float in the water.
i'd start with the pages of a
dictionary, the letter 'A'
like a building. would they 
contemplate moving there--
to a place with such 
an angled roof. the people come
& go. i think that in another
life that you were a koi fish.
i don't know exactly why i say
this, but when i see the fish 
all congregated in the water 
i imagine myself
stepping in, kneeling,
kissing you on the forehead.
it could be something about
the way your body flows--
a gust, a fist full of 
wind chimes. i could ask 
you to reach up & unscrew
the moon but it's already in
the water. maybe we both were.
i touch the surface with only
one finger-- the ripples,
a new quiet species. the koi, 
writing their verses on 
the library windows.
their language of mouth 
& air. a tail rhythm.
there's one koi fish 
with a great red dot 
on its forehead & you
told me that she would 
be sought after in japan:
Tancho Kohaku. i ask her
to borrow the sphere
& she hands it over eagerly.
i keep it in my pocket 
in case we ever need another
sun. i could make it into
a ring & slip it onto
your finger while you're
asleep. will you tell 
me stories, tell me 
fish stories? i'll tell 
you mine-- the lamps
along the walk way obscuring
in the water, a ripple
as a necklace.

on the stone back stoop, someone always leaves bread crumbs.
piled, a modest mountain, come thieves, eat bread crumbs.

not everyday, but often. naan & ciabatta.
an offering y platanos, being bread crumbs. 

the stale baguette was for the chickadee children 
& i met pigeons, they ask, who brought these bread crumbs?

i sit with the birds, i tell them about my love.
they heard rumors that humans live off of bread crumbs.

course we do, but i lied & said we eat meatloaf.
a bare stoop, where, broken down, there had been bread crumbs.

i wonder about you, where you make your bread crumbs
& why you leave them. visit me, let's be bread crumbs.

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.