call me mountain-boy & walk me 1143.61 meters deep.
there's a train somewhere but the body responds
better skin-to-skin. tracks running away from us 
on the nimble-legs of the tahr, it's eyes plucked
from goat faces-- hooves cracking off & becoming
stones. you ask me how far we can fall from &
i find you a tunnel through the mountain where
plummeting is a horizontal action.
the longest tunnel through the Himalayas comes
right after Barog station. named after the
British general whose ghost hide's its face
in a shroud of fog & engine smoke. as they
dug the tunnel from both sides, no matter how
deep  they could not make the sides connect.
i take my shovel & you take yours:
disrupt the body god & go deeper. i see the teams
of men alone as the darkness makes itself
vaster to mock the human drive of exploration:
within the rocks an infinite distance-- the hiding
place of the night sky when it folds up
like a chess board  at first sight of the sun.
the general wept when the news came--
that there was no way all the way through 
the mountain. you slip your tongue
in my mouth as if there's another side 
you're going to reach in me. is this
us giving into the illusions of our muscles,
that somehow we could make a railway of each other.
i don't want that from you, i do, however
want to find the bones of the general--
his gun shot from within the darkness
making a wrinkled face of the stone, horse
wild and shrieking as he slumped 
to the cavern floor. the hooves keep 
pounding forward & i try to catch them
to show you what my heart feels like
falling horizontally. are you there still
on the other side of the cliff? shovel
under your tongue? the generals bones 
proliferating the tunnel into a rib cage
for us both to climb into, talking by the 
that leaks in between the window blinds.

ispy

i tied a string around each of
my teeth with the blue yarn. tethered
to the door knob, i slammed it until
they all came out, dropping onto
an open page of our I SPY books. 
who came here & made such a mess of us?
i tripped you so you'd fall in 
& later apologized. that's what siblings do,
make sure you get thoroughly lost.
i always liked the I SPY pages of
the city-- the roller skaters & 
the corn cob lined fountains. i often
stared into the images with no attempt 
of finding anything. i would see myself
ambling about-- building a home from 
thimbles & dog biscuits. a handful
of gumdrops glows in a stop light. 
as night would come like the spilling
of marbles you would become more frantic,
a need for some sense of order emerging 
in you. so, i'd let you line-up 
the match box cars in rows of five. 
a universe bound by chaos, when
we'd wake up all would be dispersed again.
this was the nature of I SPY gravity.
alone i came to beneath the wooden block
underpass. you told me later that you 
roller over & stabbed your side on 
a pencil. we yelled each other's
names across page after page until
finally reuniting under a colander
like the one mom used to strain the 
wagon wheel pasta & the shells for 
mac & cheese. you told me you didn't
like it-- you didn't like always having
to search for everything in the clutter.
we're older now & the I SPY books have spread
to our childhood bed rooms. when i visit
my parent's house i stumble into
both yours & mine. i don't ask you to
come with me. god cut-out pages
of I SPY books & taped them to the door frames.
tear paper. tear walls. i'm looking for
my teeth in all this mess. you don't
follow me. a folded note on line paper.
a key to a rubble-house. a desk
lamp without a bulb. I SPY a shadow
box with nothing inside. i wish i knew
where those books were. i want to 
build the house of dried corn kernels 
& loose string. you fold your own door
like a paper football-- flick it into 
the tangle. if we hold hands when we
sleep, will gravity still scatter us
like thimbles? 

the best places to watch the fireworks

1.
glowing titans follicles-- 
the men pounding the earth
a town over. what did we do to make
them to red-angry?

2. 
we talk about
the best places to watch them. i'm
thinking about last year how
i didn't try to see-- openned
the blinds of my window &
let them try to win my attention 

3. 
the first always catches me 
off guard & i think
to myself-- what kind of country
reenacts the legs of war?

4.
your birthday is the 4th of july
& it's still in my calendar. i don't
take it off because i want to
remember what it was like to 
chase the tails of dragons on
long beach boardwalk-- the ferris
wheel lights 

5. 
in pennsylvania you can open-carry
with a license & sometimes at the super
market i see someone with a gun on
their hip-- i imagine them
all-- arm raised skyward as they
shoot into the stomach of the night sky

6.
are fireworks made of blood?

7.
if you go up on the hill you can
all the surrounding towns-- sit on
the sidewalk & feel the stone shuddering

8.
do the stones know these
are only games?

9.
do we know these are only game?
i imagine them encroaching on us from
all directions. 

10.
in another country children would
duck & cover at this kind of sound.


11.
my brother wears earphones 
because loud noises scare him--
last year he closed his eyes

12.
sometimes i want to take
those earphones & put them
over the world-- great big sound
blockers-- it's quiet now
it's quiet now 

13.
do you remember how to load 
a musket? powder down the barrel
follow by the charge--
flintlock me for safe keeping

14.
whose backyard are you?

1.
on the roof. that's where you
go when the spark-flood happens.
when the explosives turn against you.

1.
happy birthday in a bottle rocket. 
i don't get the same kind 
of thrill i used to out of them
but at least i remember us
up there-- collecting the fragments 
of dried sunset-- using them
as chalk on each other's skin 

prayer book underwater 

underwater the car moves slow.
there are eight door bells &
i know one of them is supposed to be
yours. they all ring when i hestitate
to touch. i hold my father's had & it's
dry like plaster. it comes apart: 
hunk of dry wall. i forgot my shampoo
so i rub my fingers into a lather,
down to the knuckles. which hand
will you use to hold a pencil? which
hand do you use for scissors-- pulling
three of them out of my backpack
& laying them in the grass. i use scissors
like prayer books. there was that
tiny leather bound book of the Our Father
that we found at the flea market.
sometimes i forget the words & the book
shows up on my windowsill, a dead bird.
it's empty now, you spoke the text out
of it. sometimes i do that to myself
i speak the text out of me & last night
in the molasses night i felt everything
stop: bugs mid sentence mandibles open.
i'm sitting in my aunt's living room
while we plan to depart again, like before
we left for disney world. they're boiling
hot dogs & the a re-run of the Phillies game
is on. they play underwater. the catcher
drowns & they fish him out so he doesn't
get stuck in the filter. i crouch on
the blue ottoman while aunt joan cries--
her facing smearing, a bowl of foundation.
i make empty promises with my thumbs--
smoothing her back into place. 
it's okay it's okay it's okay.
one time she told me she was shrinking
& ever since i've become aware that gravity
seeks to push us like zucchini seeds
back into dirt. underneath her layers 
of makeup is wrinkled  elephant skin--
grey as stone. we all have this-- we all 
have this. outside in the honey 
i thought of you & him &
how much better it is to watch
two other people fall in love than to
fall in love yourself. i saw both of
you breathing underwater like i can't.
i kissed your foreheads which were 
also the hood of my car. no--
my father is driving. my father is
driving even with a crumbling hand. 
you never found the nozzle on my neck
where the air comes out. i would have
asked you to bite it. the prayer book
gets up to stumble out like you before
i turn the light on. tell me
tell me-- are you a prayer book or
a pair of scissors? 
i'm looking for the door bell-- all
eight of them-- spreading fingers apart
to press them all at once. 
you talk about loving him like the
whole world could flood & you wouldn't
notice. i want to stop noticing. 
i convince myself to drink but of
course it's salt water. the night bugs 
float to the surface. up high beyond
the moon-line i see both of your bodies 
holding hands like new star formations.
down here i look for the foundation
i used to put on when i was a girl. 
it's in the medicine cabinet. my father
is there. i put on his face too.
he closes his eyes as i paint over
his lids & then my own. 

 

the poplar seeds in late june 

i have a habit of mistaking them

for angels-- the downy orbs riding

am exhale across the field behind my house.

the children we were pour out of me

from my double-kitchen door chest,

fingers frantic to catch the poplar seed

before it lands alone in the grass. i hear

your sewing machine late into the night

& i imagine that god picked up the earth 

like a sheet cloth-- set it still with

the presser foot & used it to plant 

the lines of oak & pine that flank 

the back roads, embroidering each 

stop-sign in our skin. asks me to lay my

arm on the table so that he can insert

the telephone polls up the length of 

my veins. don't move-- it'll hurt more.

not the poplar seeds though-- for whatever

reason he trusted them. will you trust

me like a poplar seed when i lose all

weight of my frame? when my bones turn 

translucent & soft? there's too many needles in 

the second drawer of my desk. there isn't

a poplar tree near by. these bodies are 

travelers. you ask me if they ever grow

or if these are just aimless knee-caps--

yours keep coming off-- i go out to find

them & we duck tape them back on--

why waste the thread?

i stay up with the moon-- without you--

as your sewing machine is commandeered by

god. his thimble clicking fingers. i'm waiting

to see one plant itself & start growing.

instead i pluck the tufts out of the air--

i swallow them-- parched & salty like dried meat.

they stick to my insides & the roots take.

i write you a farewell using thread 

bunched up inside my syringe-- injecting myself

in the thigh. the trees erupt-- branches

scrambling. they make a poplar seed of me.

oh at last, at last.

a list of things i want to break

place your right hand on the bible
& state your name. my mouth fills with
sand: open to a court room floor--
you hourglass you-- you time pouring ghost.
row on row of seat with bodies: 
assembly-line me-- don't trust the stones--
they're rotting from the inside out.
the metal detector goes wild on me--
sees all the spoons under my skin &
the letter opener lodged in my spine
from that time you mailed me a mouth.
i open my lips again & think time 
the only thing that comes out our the names.
there's a list written up my esophagus of 
every trans person who went supernova 
this year. the street uses their clothing
for quilts-- sequin squares & cashmere
parallelograms. there's fabric born
sometimes out of grief. i tell the judge about
the time i opened a jar of raspberry jam
& all the words came out-- the glass
tongue flicking, shouting:
they're sick, disgusting, how can we 
legitimize a mental illness? 
there's 2 gender 2 genders 2 genders
& i didn't cover it-- i let it keep
talking until it's voice echoed in
the kitchen. i stood naked in the mirror
& took the silver scissors to my body--
the pieces of felt drifting to the bathroom 
floor. wash the soul down the sink if
it refuses to take. i tell you
i find comfort in churches but i don't
tell you that sometimes i wake up
in them-- on the altar, empty. i look
up at the skylights & birds smack--
trying to shatter the window. a cardinal
a blue jay. a swallow. there is no priest
only the laughing of the baptismal foundation.
the shower is hot & i leave the curtain open
so that i can watch the mirror slowly
fogging over. when the mist clears there
is no reflection. i want to tell you that
court houses are made of wooden blocks
i want to tell you that your body is your
& yours alone. there are certain locations
that make real our own smallness. i tear
the pages out of an old bible. only,
they grow back so i take the book
to the shower, open the pages. ink drip
down to my elbows. what is it god what 
is it god? what could he know about water?

seal the record 

with the big metal shovel
that dad keeps in the back of the jeep:
the shovel he uses for mulch & stone.
with a handful of sand. with a pot & pan--
take the lid from the shelf my the kitchen
cabinet. they named me after my grandmother.
with the wooden spoon & the vegetable oil.
pour me down your throats with the good china.
i'm crouching patient in the tea cups.
i'm on all fours, sliding into the mailbox.
i dug her up from calvary cemetery 
for this--shook her in her box. 
she blinked & was startled. i brushed
the dirt from her face. she made me 
wash beneath my fingernails like all
grandmothers do. hot sink water. no one
was home & the screen door banged like a shotgun.
i told her i was changing her name (my name)
& she said we should get a bible & 
erase it from every page of the old testament.
she peeled the name off like shelling
peas-- tossing the husks onto the living
room carpet. a few she put into her
pocket "for good times sake"--
what will we call the wife of abraham? 
i ask & she doesn't look up from 
the book. in front of the judge i'll
tell him that my grandmother says it's okay.
that she doesn't mind having a grandson
instead of wife of abraham. 
seal the record with the envelops &
the gravel driveway. with the broken scissors 
& the plastic tablespoons. she picks up
the names in her dress & pours them
into the coffin with her. she says she'll
take good care of them-- lays them out
like a blanket for her to nestle back down
into. i apologize for waking her up & she
puts a finger to my lips. always
always always. again i use the shovel 
to place eight feet of soil between us.
mud on my hands i climb into the kitchen
sink & pour the water over my head. 
i sit in the spaghetti strainer.
i pick myself up by the handle &
walk home. with a locked front
door. with a shovel. with a shovel 
with a shovel.

 

susanna cox & the smoke

driving home, i mistake the
burn piles for fallen airplanes,
columns of smoke billowing from behind
silos & red barns. they're killing 
susanna cox against next week up
at the fairgrounds. i blame
the fires on her, angels nose-diving
into the Oley countryside. they shatter
just above the clouds from the humidity 
or grief. angels often combust in water.
she's break off the oldest trees at the base 
& tossing them into the flames. 
it's been about 200 years now since
they hung her for the first time.
what is history but a series of 
trials & juries over vulnerable bodies?
they're summoning me to the stand & i
plead guilty because i already now
they need girls to keep the first going. 
i see her on the side of the road,
she nods because she knows she can 
trust me. she's holding an armful
of hay like an infant. they killed
her for murdering her newborn. 
illegitimate: unlawful, not in accordance
or acceptance-- what kind of body 
can be born with the law wringing 
its neck? i sometimes wake
up with course thread around my throat,
i cut it off with a scissors i keep by
my bedside. i'm telling you this because 
i trust you. if you find me from the ceiling
know there was a due process know
that there was a verdict. at the fairgrounds 
she crouches down in the hay maze looking for him.
She whistles & doesn't know what to
call a boy with no name. rustling
the hay she names him after the sound.
i help her search even though i know
he's not there. they used his body as 
a brick a long time ago for the pavillion
where they're reenacting her trial again.
i'm 15 & were skewering the ox. i'm in
the bonnet & long red dress. 
it's body becomes black & chard from 
the coal under its hooves. it was dead when
it arrived but sometimes i still 
think i see it shake it's head-- blow smoke
from its nostrils. that was the first
time i saw susanna cox. she took a pocket
knife out to cut slivers of meat off
the animal's shoulder. i never told on her.
she's cutting off her hair & 
watching each strand contort
in the fire. i ask her what she's doing so 
far from the fairgrounds today & she
says that this year she doesn't want
to watch them hang her, not again.
one too many times. i take a handful of
hay from her & rustle it. the boy wriggles from 
the earth like a toad. he has a book of matches
in his teeth. his mother strikes one
just to watch it smolder & blow out.

collecting 

i've been collecting footsteps--
round & melon-like heavy in a basket 
like the one you used to use
to hold potatoes at the market.
they roll on top of each other--
some gone bad in the sun-- rotted
skin & sun baking smell. the yellow-jackets
come to eat. they land on the soles of
my feet & i shoo them away before 
i start walking again. if i get stung 
you'll have to take over for me. i started
picking the foot steps up because i was hoping
i'd find all my old ones. i want to 
put them in the bottom of my sock drawer--
slice them up when i run out of apples.
if i'm thorough then no one will be able
to say that i was here-- they'll come
through this small-town years later 
after i've long moved away 
& they'll find all of these impressions-- 
the old man who walks his bassett hound-- 
the two women who hand out jevoh's witness 
pamphlets by fifth avenue & the man in the
lime-yellow shirt who gets up 
to run even in the snow. everyone's 
taste different. some sickly sweet 
like overripe mango-- the small prints
of children by the graveyard & those
from couples as they both sit on 
a bench by the park pavilion. i'm not
going to tell you about this project.
you would probably tell me that it's 
neurotic-- that there's no use in retracing
all the steps i've laid in the last 
five years. my room fills up, i have
to be careful to not leave more 
marks while i'm collecting the old ones
so i wear bubble-wrap on my feet. i'm already
packed to leave. the UPS man sometimes 
picks me up & i shake my head & gesture
to my lack of postage. some footprints
are, of course, hard to find. i spent
yesterday by the bamboo thicket where 
i kneeled, running my hands through 
the scraggle blue night-time grass. 
this was from that night i ambled
out of the party to be alone, tucked
my feet under myself & took bites
out of my heel which tasted like the
rind of an unripe cantaloupe. when i find
the prints they're syrupy & the juice
drips down my face with each bite. 
sometimes i can't help myself-- i have
to eat them right there. i don't want
any help. i do want you that to know that
you can come see the ones of yours 
i've been picking up along the way. 
i know we haven't talked in two years but i
have a shelf in my closet for you. 
your impressions  taste like tomatoes & sometimes
a fresh fig. don't worry i'm not keeping them
for myself. these are yours. when my room
is emptied out & there's nothing left of
me around here you can still go back.
i'll leave the door unlocked. in the closet
will be my old earrings from when i was a
girl & the pile of every step we took
together. ripe & soft-skinned. do
you still like peaches? 

weight watchers

the ice cream sandwiches in the fridge
were worth 3 weight watchers points which
meant nothing to me as a 7-something-year-old.
the sexy "skinny-cow" sprawled out on the box with
the measuring tape snaking around her waist
like a constrictor. i woke up in the middle of
the night to check on her, to ask her how
she managed to pull her waist in like
a draw-string bag. Jean, the woman who started 
weight watchers, would gather meetings in
her living room-- desperate women in a circle,
a seance to summon the sugar out of their
bones. i'm fascinated by her with her plastic
black & white barbie hair. i imagine her
husband as a door frame, her up at night
giving sleep-less manicures to the doorknobs.
she's smiling in photographs, big, like a 
slice of moon. i see her in the kitchen. 
she hides mallow-mar bars in the cupboard--
eating frantic over the trashcan. they used
to make these tiny chocolate cakes that were
worth 2 weight watchers points & i'd peel 
the numbers off before eating them--
wrapper crinkling in the sink. you are sitting
at the kitchen table asking
again if you doing weight watchers made me 
anorexic & i'm trying to convince you that it didn't.
there's the lovely Jean with her weekly
recommended slab of liver-- stuffing the organ
in the blender to make it go down easier.
she had two husbands (as one does)
& the second was a bass player like my brother.
i see him in the corner of the living room,
walking the instrument-- two fingers thrumming 
string. he lets his wife work. she's openning
all the windows downstairs to call the women 
inside-- they've been moth-smacking against
the windows, all in their nightgowns looking
like moths. the shelves in the living room 
are lined with  weight watchers guides & i used
to page through them mindlessly. here is how
to determine the point value of a slice of
pizza, a roll of sushi, a cup of tikka masala.
Jean starts reading from it &  i cover my ears.
you tell me to go up to bed but the staircase
closes like an esophagus-- tongues flicking
for steps. her first husband is here now,
begging for her back & you cover my ears 
& tell me not to listen. in the living room
the furniture all turns into ellipticals
& you get on. Jean tells us that it's never
too young to start getting healthy. she picks
her mouth off the end table to smile. 
how many weight watcher points is this worth?
i ask the wall of food catalogs & they flush 
like butterflies or geese-- flapping mad up into
the attic. this isn't your fault. this isn't
your fault. the pumpkin pie in the oven 
spits numbers on the kitchen floor. you make
it every year & it's my favorite pumpkin pie
even though it's a weight watcher's recipe. 
Jean's there to pick the numbers up & press them into
the crust. i don't blame her-- i don't blame her.
i see her ghost crouched in a full-length mirror--
running her fingers across the soft skin of 
her stomach. i ask you to help me break it
& we toss the thing off the side of the deck--
glass all over the driveway. we eat two ice cream
sandwiches. leave one in the ice box for her.