snowflake photographs

i got a toys r us microscope.
i wanted to see everything. 
eyelashes & fruit fly faces.
once, my own blood smashed
between two glass plates. i considered
myself a scientist. i wanted toi 
discovery something but i wasn't
sure what. winter came. less to see. 
in school we learned about 
a photographer who became obsessed
with photographing snowflakes. 
obsession is my favorite sacrament
for any animal. at first the flakes
would melt while he lined up 
the shot. i thought maybe i could
see what he did. this was back
when we lived across from the park.
i walked there on an afternoon
when no one else but my sibling
was home. it was snowing. just flurries.
i caught one & rushed it inside,
just to find it melted. a wet blotch
on the piece of paper i had taken with me. 
the teacher had projected his snowflake images
onto the walls. i remember thinking that
they looked like moth eyes. so many
little diamonds. the sky knitting 
so many tiny cathedrals. i imagined
stepping inside one just for its moment,
one second before my flesh turned
walls into water. he photographed thousands.
learned to bring his camera into 
the new england cold. i gave up quickly
on being a scientist. never managed to see
a snowflake alive up close. my obsession was
not as material as his. i am still collecting 
patterns. turns of the tongue. blood
dried on a microscope slide. the bulb
glowing in the corner of that demolished house
across from the park. so many fly-wings, beating. 

milk bath

last night the ocean
was full of tornados. i invited you
when i shouldn't have & everyone
was awkward. i found a patch of mushrooms
to harvest up the street. we slept in
bunk beds. you parked your car
across two spots & i thought "wow."
for years we had no bathtub so when
it finally arrived on centipede legs
we tried to not to question it.
you told me, "i am going to get younger."
i have never been one to try & prevent aging.
i welcome it. i do not have anything
that i need to preserve. i am a queer
monster baby & that is all i strive to be.
the windows of the air b&b shattered
in the storm. i thought, "i hope this doesn't
destroy my phone" as the waves crashed
into the living room. i wondered too
if this was retribution for using easy-life
machines to get closer to the water. 
the water says, "i do not recognize you.
please come home." i will be walking my house
around & think to myself, "i want to be home."
there is no conclusion. the word unwound 
& rewound. i stained the negatives so now
we have to pretend like we know each other's names.
of course, i know yours. i keep it written
underneath my tongue in case we run into each other.
walking in the shattered glass i realized the water
was not water at all but milk. i laid down
in a white glossy puddle. cool milk. 
flies starting to arrive to the scene of the crime.
you never got younger to the best of my knowledge.
the milk bath sat for days. turned into 
a shrine to our faces. a halo of wings. 
your skin, soft as mold velvet in the dark. 

vineyard

on the side of the hill
the grapes grow like eyes in the dark.
this year i started craving grapes.
i fill bowls. learn to swallow them
like great beads. a rosary without
a string. i imagine a vineyard
all to myself. the vines, like lost 
jump ropes. the snake who eats 
his tail. i could walk there in 
the moonless-dark to see all the world
wide open. i have gotten less hungry 
with age that is except for grapes.
i want to be so full of grapes that
the vines mistake me for a great fruit. 
that they try to feed me light color & crush.
my lover tells me i cannot buy
any more grapes. the fridge is full
to the gills. i weep. what will i do when
my hunger returns? when i am armless
& have to slither through the brush?
i wash them in the sink. hold them
up to the light. at first i prefered
the green ones but lately i have needed
deep purple grapes to fall asleep. 
once when i worked at the apple orchard
they sent me to the vineyard a few fields down 
instead. the people were different there.
everyone had grapes for eyes. they plucked 
them out to work without all the sun.
i watched them grow-back. a soft swell.
i woke up in the middle of the following night
to check that i still had eyes & not fruit. 
in the mirror i saw the vineyard behind me,
large & outstretched. i turned around
& walked the rows. maybe i never came back.
here i am though, a grocery store ghost
chasing a sugar night. i put one in my mouth
& it blinks. 

corset maker's nest

i tied a knot around the moon until
she severed in two. i tried all i could
to put her back together. tape & glue
& even a photograph of my father 
as a child. i try to keep track of all
the smallness. make my case to the fawns
to not get older. to not put the cd wrack
on you head & run i like i do.
in high school i put my girlhood on
& went to the mall to try on corsets
with my friends. we had one changing room.
our shadows shrunk. i was the only one
who didn't buy one. i lied & said
it was because i didn't have any money
but the truth was that i was terrified.
i saw how, just with bone & ribbon,
i could be stuffed into myself. now i like
to watch videos about corseters. see their waists
turn into moons. this is not erotic but
just practice. i want to know the technique
for splitting in two if i need to. i have 
done it before. on instagram i follow a turtle 
account. a turtle is born connected 
to his brother. two sides of a moon. 
they both move their arms as if they're swimming, 
the water, not able to hold them. i search desperately
for a video of them apart. wholeness is 
a myth of gender. i want the story to be over.
the reveal. their delight in two separate moons.
instead, there are no more videos on 
the account. i loose the second moon
in my scrambling. the one we have left
is the one we have left. my friends wore 
their corsets to bed, trying to squish 
their innards together. i was full of regret.
not just for not getting the corset but
for the ways my body refused me. in the window
the second moon was wading into
a little pond behind my friend's house. 
she was singing with the bull frogs. she was
glowing like a liver in the dark. 

cathedral of dominos

we should not move. we should
instead hold our breath to keep
the sky in the sky. i once found in
a field-side forest a cathedral 
of dominos. i cannot believe how much
i did inside it. i kissed boys. i kissed girls.
i wore wedding places. i ate a ghost
down to the bone. nothing destroyed it.
every day though i was aware of the walls.
how, one wrong breath could undo 
the whole thing. i would stare at 
my ceiling all night imagining someone else
finding my secret place & destroying it
while i was not there. i would then get up
& walk barefoot through our neighbor's yard
into the corn fields to find my cathedral intact.
once in awhile i would wonder who made it.
why would someone make something
so beautiful but so easy to destroy? i guess
that is the story of the world. a town 
up the street from where i grew up 
had a tornado the year before i was born. 
it tore doors off houses. followed
the railroad. a wheelless train. tore up
a whole street. today there are
mobile homes there & a few split houses. 
i started to find dominos everywhere. dominos
in the sink. in my hair. sometimes they would
talk to me & say, "build." i would of course,
what else is there to do with you hands &
all the dead? i lost track of the cathedral. 
they harvested the field. i would walk but could
never find it again. once though i found a domino
in my sibling's bedroom. that made me wonder
if maybe they had been there too. had we
been there at the same time? had they at least maybe
gotten to see it come undone? that is my only regret.
i wish i could have seen the way the dominos
fell into each other. the chatter of their teeth
as the walls peeled away, leaving us bare 
to the moon. 

toy boats

on the horizon is a bathtub full of hair.
let's take the scavenger hunt home. i find
a shoe & you find a portal. in the newspaper
there is an article about drones. they are
now delivering everyone a shopping bag
full of toothpicks & radios. do they know
something we don't? i prefer to know
less about what is coming. lakes will swell
& lakes will swallow & i'll still be here
with a rubber duck & a spoon. in the city
i parked bad & pretended not to get a ticket.
the ticket read, "i am so sorry, i am trying
to be an animal." i tried to find the parking cop
but he was not anywhere to be found. 
instead, the wind blew harsh & the roof pigeons 
were huddled on an awning. i think sometimes
about plucking one from the "wild" &
bringing them home. sometimes i too feel like
i was domesticated just to be sat outside where
the nights are heavy & everyone is hungry. 
i don't take baths. not really. my mom always has.
when it comes to letting the lightning down
all i can think about is, "who will drive the boat?"
the boat of course is plastic. a toy. whirlpool bound.
still, i am holding a fake steering wheel 
& pronouncing that it is time to hide. time to
barricade the sun. in the tub, i used to always
find sharks as a kid. their fins circled & then submerged.
i learned to hold my breath. to sit inside
my father. his body, a lighthouse. his hands,
like toy boats. i call the coast guard. they are
a.i. automated now. you can ask a thousand questions
& they will just respond, "we will be there soon."
for my whole life "soon" has lost its gills.
they never arrive. my father reaches in the waterfall. 
a ghost puts on his good hat & walks past
the house for the hundredth time. 
the bath i draw has whirlpools. i get in anyway.
let them suck me like a boba pearl up a fat straw.
someone's mouth is on the other side.
please tell me your mouth is on
the other side.  

tea set 

i first noticed it with the coffee mugs.
they used to hold a wild gulp
but came to only allow for cautious
sipping. each day my plates get smaller.
i am unsure if there is anything
i can do to slow this down. the spoons
are tiny. make it way too hard to eat yogurt.
in the first weeks i wondered if maybe i was
getting bigger. headed towards a 
clifford the big red dog kind of situation. 
sadly thought i still fit in the house. 
still have enough space on my slice 
of the bed. it is just the dishes & utensils. 
my tiny forks. i sit on the floor. tell my lover
we should have a tea party. he does not
enjoy things like that & he begs me
to take this seriously. i typically am not
the kind of person to stop an object in motion.
i prefer to let people break up with me. 
let the one ugly apple rot & turn
into chicken snacks. time turns into broth. 
i wish i could shrink with the bowls.
stand on the kitchen counter & sleep inside
one of the good slippers. instead i am
holding a knife that fits on the tip of 
my finger. i am standing with the fridge door open,
eating grapes from a pile on the shelf. 
i understand why my objects decided this
was their only option. it is tiring to hold.
to cut. to lift. i too shrink before a mouth.
i forgive them. find them in the drawer just
as grains of sand. my lover is outside
carving the earth like a turkey, looking for gold. 
i let the dust pass between open fingers. 
my lover knocks on our own front door
& yells for me to come outside.
in the field behind our house he has made
a knife the size of our house. he asks,
"will you help me bring it inside?" 

last chance 

i watch you paw through
the last chance bags at the back
of the market. where we go 
the grocers round up the fading
apples & wilted cilantro to make
dollar bags. i used to resent them.
the pooling rot liquid at the bottom
of the plastic. spilling mush strawberries
into the sink like melting hearts. 
now, i look forward to what we salvage.
sometimes we find worms & let them go
into the back yard. once, a crow.
another time the bag was murky.
when we opened it we found a little 
replica of ourselves. you were dry
like old carrots & i was ready to collapse
from the inside the way cucumbers do
when you have waited too long. 
we did not know what to do with them.
you said we should eat them. i said
we should bury them & never speak 
of it again. when i feel like the world
is ending i try to remind myself that 
we are not the first people to feel like we live
on a last chance. there is sugar in 
the heavy cantaloupe & the mold-knit blueberries.
when the sky was red from the fires
a few months ago i pretended we were
just inside one of the bags at the back
of the market. you told me it is dangerous
to play too much pretend in times
like this. you save the seeds. you swallow
all that you can. today we have grapes.
we eat them as fast as we can. 

eucharist 

the church we went growing up
was surrounded by corn fields. 
had a limestone kiln with a mary statue 
built into the belly. i haven't been catholic 
for years but i still dance with the sacraments. 
my favorite has always been communion. 
i live by the notion 
that we should take our gods into 
our mouths. that is why i eat blue corn 
& potatoes. why we grow tobacco 
at the edge of the garden where
it mingles with the orange sunflowers. 
why when we stumble upon a sassafras tree
in the knotted woods, that i break 
a leaf onto my tongue. the word "eucharist"
comes from a greek word meaning 
"thanksgiving." gratitude might be 
the only sacrament. the sun tastes like citrus in the
wet morning. at church there were always
people who did not want to touch
the body of christ with their hands. i always
thought they were strange. they would open
their mouths & let the ministers place
flesh on their tongue just for it to dissolve
like a rock thrown into a pond. 
i am unafraid to hold 
the divine. i pick berries until my hands 
are red. i cup the goats' faces. catch spiders
to let them go by the porch light.
my hands were made for communion.
for holding lovers. taking each other in
piece by piece. our flesh, my gods. 
the soil, a mother. the sun, all teeth. 

window potato

i potted you on the back stoop
facing the alley where the kids screamed
on plastic bikes & the people moving out
always dumped their half-crushed bedframes. 
the dirt from the grocery store still smelled
fresh & reminded me of every backyard i've ever
gotten to stand in. i noticed you 
opening your eyes in the bowl on the counter.
no one had taught me to swaddle my potatoes.
i guess it was only a matter of time. 
you sprouted one wide & hungry leaf.
i didn't do any googling. i just did what 
made sense. every heart should be buried
in a window. back then i was lonely in 
new & strange ways. my partner was turning
into a camero in the street at night. her eyes
were headlights & i had to cover my face.
the apartment cockroaches had finally 
dwindled to a bearable rate. one or two in a week
instead of marches & swarms. i needed you.
once you were planted you bloomed.
flowers & leaves. the sun felt more real
with you there in the living room. 
at night you would talk dirt with me 
& i would talk back. we would dream a pot 
big enough to burry me too. i told you
i would open a big yellow flower as well. 
i did not plant you right. i know now that
you are supposed to sever the arms 
from the heart. the potato came to rot 
in the earth. stole all your eyes with it. 
i asked over & over, "what if we drive 
to the park" & "what if i reach my hands
in deep." you ended after about a month. 
no new roots. a bundle of fingers reaching
for that round & burning sun. i took you
back out to the alley where the kids were
screaming all their plastic. my partner 
drove loud & endless. headlights 
in the thin hallway. a cockroach on the wall
as witness. i kept your flower on the windowsill.
a little shrine. until it molded. i am sorry
i didn't know how to keep you. 
my partner & i slept like oars of 
a spinning boat. i would paddle. then, her.