sparklers

II.
it was a week ago when i told myself
i was going to write about sparklers. they've
sat on the windowsill, still in their blue & white TNT package. 
i wrote the narrative of me going out in the parking lot,
blue lighter in hand, unlit stick in the other,
my shadow stretching giant across the lawn. magic is partially 
a matter of will. i, of course, meant them for us. 
for me holding a flame steady while you extend your arm, 
waiting for the impending aluminum-magnesium ballet-- 
the metal in your bones catching too. 
oh rebellious light. iron-induced. 
watch, i'll bite them in my teeth. white titanium mouth.
all celestial in us is brief.
I.
early grey dusk asks for scars, i'm tracing circle after circle.
here is where light was so loud it remembered us.
the red-iron pocket knife to my soft fruit-bowl belly. 
we came apart, my brother & i. box by box of sparklers beneath the deck.
my uncle had a lighter for a thumb. the last few seconds 
were always desperate. what to do with the temporary 
nature of the sun? god cupping his hand around the 
head of a candle & pursing his lips to exhale. i meant
to write this part first, i cut myself swallow-able. this time:
great hunks of watermelon & cantaloupe. this is messy.
mosquito bites behind the knees. light the last one.
i'll wait. we have boxes & boxes. 

aluminum earth 

i've noticed a steady increase
in gravity. don't give me the physics-- 
i want the truth.

you've felt it too

i've watched how you dig in the backyard
in a desperate search of time capsules:
shovel slung over shoulder, making welts 
in the earth-- 

the onion grass slipping between
our fingers & becoming eyes to be peeled
apart layer by layer. 

the earth's crust a kind of
18-rind clementine to unfurl & unfurl

the flesh is hot magma & tectonic 

there's the shorter days 
& shorter bed posts as evidence

this is the closest i will come to science

i don't mean time i mean the gravity pull-- 
i mean the way

the curtains have started opening themselves

the way the trees trunks have started to
push deeper in the soil like 
pencils hurled at the classroom ceiling

what will this mean for us?

i see it all aluminum

scrunched in god's callous fists 
as he makes a smaller & smaller planet

bone rubbing bone

sky scrapers kneeling-- 
this isn't all about height

i sit down at my desk & install 
a doll house window in my forehead

& all the people arrive like it's a 
drive-in theater

a memory of us with no gravity

in the bounce castle & afterwards 
in the forest behind the creek full
of ticks 

& mosquito bites like
pebbles skipped beneath the skin

keep skipping me stone &
record & sunday until there's 
no more pull 

until shoelaces untie themselves
& the final distancing occurs

before them we will be fantastically close

crushing alley & street

time square around everyone's corner
& machu picchu, a stepping stool to stand 
at while we wash out hands at the sink

i'm thinking about gravity because
i'm wondering if this will bring us
all close together 

i want to say "together again"

but distance is so so human

i have come to know 
love as an address & always 
a handful of miles away

i stand outside & let the GPS read me
how far gravity has to break the landscape 

like bread-- like manna

i've given up on the physics

you look in the window &
see a pile of barbie shoes/
un-used green & yellow thumb tacks

do you believe me about the gravity

the thumb on our chest as
we lie awake in separate beds

sunflower seeds to be 
pushed into earth

when each step sink you in soil to
your thighs 

you'll believe me

The Divine Law

1. 
i went looking for Sodom & found soot,
the floor of the world: my grandmother's ash tray.
as words for the wise, the angles always come
in disguise. their blue bodies & their bleached teeth. 
knocking on the bathroom stall doors 
at rest stops across arizona. the gas station:
the queer space takes over. paul echoing: men committing 
shameless acts with other men. what can't be purified 
with fire? what i love about the story of the Sodomites
is how god burned us down & here we are. as far as i remember
we never read this story in church. the angels knock
at my bed room door & i don't let them in because
i'm not hospitable. the unnatural children are often
born out of heat; cigarette buds growing legs to run.
2.
we make our own angels. we build the city back.
here is where the sun goes, tweezers to sit it
back into our eyes. the men who survived are blind
but we tell them it looks beautiful, they caress stone 
& weep. does it hurt when i touch you here?
the back seat of the car is a boulevard when you 
lay down like that. there's no angels there's no angels, 
only the sirens & Lot & his wife. They escaped the fire
& left us to our indulgence bodies. you burn me like brick,
like don't forgive me father. each time we find each other
i turn off the light, we became blind men to build Sodom
back from the dirt. i take handfuls of you. stone &
sand. eyes closed, my hands through your hair, a forest, 
all these skyscrapers. what a city, what a city. 
our angels: fine dust, grit in your teeth,
the neon ceiling of the gas station bathroom.

tossing stones in the perkiomen creek 

a pile of grey stones where my legs were,
knees, smooth & disk-like
with the gravel of my thighs

i disintegrate myself carefully,
limb by limb 

to be tossed,

the perkiomen creek makes a hungry mouth

tongue snake-flicking with
cool june water

your mouth, your teeth like 
store fonts or ivory 
piano keys 

we killed the elephants, me & you

& we found their remnants as
these rocks by shoulders of the water

shrug me into a parable about
falling into love

love, like the side of the cliff
you told me about, the one where
you're exposed & all the trees
laugh at you for being so 

vulnerable & human

each stone is a story i didn't
tell you

we talk about the bodies we've
been snowed in with 

& the trees start to shed their
ice crystals

the ones they've been holding
in for a summer-
day like us

i love it when you talk about
people the last person you loved

forgive me, but i find
myself loving them through you

i conjure their laugh & the curve
of their nose & their legs 
dangling off the side of the bed

morning sun striping skin

i want to thank them for being part 
of this yearning 

it all aches in me

the snap of stone on stone

the spark of water 

am i just a vessel then?

my chest becoming more pebbles to 
throw, take a handful for me 

i crave the slow-motion sinking

the feel of grit under finger nails

the birds skim the surface
to pluck gnats 

they pick us up by our shirt
collars & dunk us under

deeper than we thought

air bubbles turning into 
fragments of speech

i kiss you like the boulders 
as they smack into each other
down the side of the cliff

blood-vessels becoming
firework 

becoming broken 

this is me throwing me
throwing you

tell me their name again

i'll tell you mine 

& we'll watch the words elephant amble

shaking the night

you've left me here

removing the stones from
my bed & dropping
them onto the bedroom floor 

the fall of the baobab tree

cavernous us, with the throat
that grew around the peach pit

i shouted upwards & watched my 
voice become a tree with green-yellow
fruit & a prehistoric body 

the oldest baobab trees are 
1,000-2,000 years old

their leather-wallet ears
still ringing with the first 
shocks of gunpowder from 
the battle of Wolf Mountain River 
in China 

wanting to crawl into themselves
as they watched the Norman Conquest 
in Europe from all across 
Sunland, 

linking arms & humming when 
they felt the earth soak with
blood 

you tell me that some of
the oldest baobab tree are dying 

they crack from the base

rot of rain & drought.

i arrive inside, counting 
the tree's rings as they wrap me 
up closer, 

scarves of wood & voice 

& i'm in the downstairs closet again
at my parent's house 

where none of the mittens have matches
& retired coats hang from hooks

only there's no doors this time,
the ceiling grows upwards &
the walls sprout white mold

caving in

i'm here with the baobab trees
asking why they have to 
leave now

what new life have they discovered
away from the girth of their bodies?

do giants prey themselves smaller?

i run my hands across all their bodies

skin becoming human & soft

skin becoming feathered & fawn

how many animals have you worn?

before you go, teach me how to
grow with your own scars

twisting & knotting, 

pockmarked from run-ins 
with elephants & sharp intentioned
will of humans

i came here to find a jacket

the IV, an old root looking for life

i imagine the baobab tree does
not resist death 

not after this long

i sit as it lets go slowly

as it peels apart like a sinew-less
tangerine, lobes dropping
like pillows

in my bed i hold onto you

i want to ask you to count my rings

i want to tell you that 
i felt the sting of gunpowder in
the fall

instead i pull the room shut like
a curtain

peel open my chest

& find a coat to wear 
for the open door

revel

sleep: the obsidian room,
fingernails clicking on ever surface.

when did i become insect? metal?

limbs as sewing needles, in & out of 
the shiny earth. 

repeated myself
like a wave, 

the spinning of the one-wing fly
 
sometimes you have to pull
sleep from your mouth.

unhinge your jaw like
how the adder consumes the deer,
hooves & all.

how typical is it of a us
to write poetry about 
not being able to fall asleep?

when i was younger i would
pluck out my eyes with the closest 
pen & set them on the laptop screen 

another version of
myself with tangled brown hair 
& long finger nails is 
crying in the corner

i sit up, obelisk me

tonight i want to revel 
in my restlessness

i want to reach out the window
like a cupboard till 
i find the spice jar you 
come from

cloves maybe or anise

i'm rooting in the bottom drawer
of the grass outside where
the ants whisper war plans

i tell you about the fields around
my parent's house

i don't tell you about
how sometimes when i drive at night
i'm so tired that the sides
of the road fold me in

i drip molten copper

i wax candle across your skin

i headlight into a tree.

i imagine you with me
awake & talking the room full 
of moths

every time someone says something 
i want to keep i see it growing
wings & ambling on the ceiling

i turn myself over 
like biscuit dough

i, i, i, i, i

outside the government 
is taking pictures, surely

finding all the children who
learn to not fear this awake.

the world last night was
the sound of four closing doors

of your foot steps under my eyelids,

my heart hammering floor boards
to thrum under.

i became small & crawled on
my knees beneath the pillow.

i met you there & there was a lake
& the water was cold chrome--

was neon diner ceiling.

what do you do with
your un-sleep?

do you count backwards?

i start at 99, 
98, 97,

& the walls shuffle like
a deck of cards

i think to myself 

if i stay up all night

good men

pulling the seeds off 
feather reed grass, strand by strand.

i opened my hands & watched them
disperse like falling jet planes,

me, the parachute 

you, the sky pulling me open

i was walking down by the empty ball fields
& conjuring a bat to smack 
at the dirt, 

letting the wind 
escort a few men's ghosts around
the diamonds-- 

glistening in the earth

i find the stains growing back
on the knees of my pants,
green & smudged maroon clay

do you scabs sometimes form
continents-- ports & harbors 
on the elbows 

i find a need to write a definition
for what a good man is
if i'm going to be one--

is it something to do with 
sturdiness?

i break the bleachers into
popsicle sticks 

i take a bite out of the 
neon green soft ball my father
is harvesting from the bucket 
in the garage

i un-screw light bulbs all over
the house to put them back in
again, 

i want to be useful,

i'm thinking of the basement 
with his wall of wrenches & hammers

i want to fix us,

lay us out on the model train table 
& bury us in ball field dirt

i'm starting over from scratch

no box mix blood & screw drivers

no knuckles, this time

no cassocks or lawn mowers

i'm taking pollen & smudging
it under my eyes like war paint

this is where we take apart 
ourselves & tell no one 

no tell everyone

pocket knife the tears
from under finger nails

this is where i draw a god
in the mud with sticks 

he asks me what business
i have here making
a body 

i syringe 

i peel

i fold

i want a smaller 
& gentler world

just big enough

the size of hotel shampoo
bottles

where the ground trusts me
no to leave scars

where my own mouth 
lets me eat stars, burning

holes in my gums,

drinking rain & collecting
on the sidewalks

i kick at the sand again,
this time near the pitcher's mound 

i see my father

he crouches in the outfield 

& takes a pairing
knife to his callous fingers
like apricots

tell me, is there
something to make-good 
with us?

lust is the big cruise ship pulling
into harbor, the one we're all going
to get inside when the time comes.
when the gods get bored & flip
the poles like a light switch,
when we realize that the stars are 
microscope eye-pieces, staring at us,  
the specimen's floor is white hot lava.
what an ocean the asphalt can make when you pound
on it till it ripples. the heat reverberating 
from the pavement is the ghost of 
my night shift father, lilting in &
out of sleep under the sun. the sun; 
bored of roofs & newspaper gift-wrap 
rips the darkness from beneath his
eyelids until he turns spectral. 
there's still an iteration of his soul
walking on the ceiling of the battery factory 
at midnight. that's when i meet
you deep in the ship's hull. i tell you
i lust you & it feels like a need to
pick up all the seashells off the beach
for myself, making necklaces under desk lamp,
hanging them from the rear view mirrors
of abandoned rust snickering cars
along the sides of highways. i tell you
i want to tapestry your body & we find
the wrong blankets to sleep under.
what's your room number? is there 
a spare key to this cock-
pit. you tell me there's no laws on the
ocean. the albatross is my father &
he's already sunk, sweeping sand
with a blue-handle broom. he's day bound now,
shooing away the dark like a swarm of gnats.
i'm making a night shift of us, a ghost
to board the big boat. the ink-stamper mattress
so that tomorrow, when we've both
fallen off opposite sides of the ship, there
will still be finger prints to wash off,
i want to remember each point of contact,
thumbtacks in the globe, cartographer-skinned 
children. we say "you're so young"
"so young" to each other. what is the queer body on
an empty vessel? hallway after hallway,
the sun rolls like a bowling ball,
for now, my love, we have this

end of season 

the strawberries are humming,
insect angry as i lift up leaves.
green skirts, knees & necks
shy from hands rooting through them
all day in the pin-pong sun. they're holy 
from the mouths of caterpillars. 
i imagine myself letting the bugs 
come to take bites out of me,
poke my finger through the holes like
a mouth chewed sweater-- like stocking runs.
pluck me apart a little more.
i like this idea of coming apart while
feeding another creature. i might
want to be buried in a strawberry field,
just maybe. crouched between rows of tired 
berry plants i think about Ontelaunee orchards
where we went picking as children.
strawberries for jam. boiling in our hands.
we were too eager. i ate them as i went,
one for the bucket & one for the mouth.
kneeling, fingers gory, wiped on my thighs.
my freckles turn into the little red bugs,
start scurrying over my body.
today it's late in the season 
& i'm finding the mashed red elegies 
of too-late strawberries. a proper
burial will come with the rain. i found
a few to eat, bit down on them right there,
the juice turning metallic in my mouth,
turning salt & blood. turning blister &
barefoot. i can hear you telling me
to wash them off. i smile smug & chew 
despite the dirt. the sweetness comes
back into focus. i find one to take back
with me-- it's shaped like a furious nose,
pricking with tiny seeds. i think 
how brave the strawberry is to wear
it's freckles like that, unafraid 
of them turning into clover mites.
i gnaw the last one from the drivers seat of
my car. the sun has a lazy eye & 
the bar doors are open, spilling with 
bok choy & ruffle-skirt lettuce.
it's late in the season for strawberries.

despite all attempts,
i have learned that the skin
will not become stone no matter
what you try to etch into it. 
on my right forearm i have
Vonnegut's mantra "everything
was beautiful and nothing hurt"
chiseled into tombstone. i wore
the rose print dress & the artist 
held my thin arm to keep me steady.
we stopped half-way through 
after i felt the room lurch, fainting
starts like blowing dust off
top the book shelf, taking the finger prints
with it. tear needle from plastic.
i don't want to be sterile.
the fury of spiders opening mouths to scream.
his skin was courser than mine.
i read that tattoos aren't just 
ink plunged deep into skin, 
they're actually fought like infections, 
cells coming to rescue the dermis 
from our images. the human is a body
of symbology-- the hawk, the tiger,
the dragon. a man whose name i do not know
presses into me, this time with the needle.
he says i should "lean into the pain"
& i laugh because i hate to writhe for anyone.
when he asks what the scars on my forearm
are from i tell him "poison oak,"
when they were really hot heads of matches.
i think of my skin sedimentary. the layers
of scar, the wounds beneath ink colors. 
my newest one is still healing. it scabs--
coming off in flecks of dried blood & tissue. 
alone i watch it, expecting to see the
cells in action, arriving at the surface
of my skin, like humpback whales, breaking
the ocean for a gulp of air.