mountains

i'm pretty sure
the mountains that shrug
themselves blue 
over there 
*pointing*
are getting taller
since i was a little
girl in a back seat 
being tossed between them
as my mother drove with
two hands on top
of the steering wheel--
on the way home yesterday
we wondered what it
was that makes a mountain
a mountain--
a certain height maybe?
an achievement
of a particular number of trees?
upon looking it up
i've found that they gave
up classifying mountains
(in the US at least)
nothing profitable
about mountains 
especially with all
these damn wild life protections
i sit in the middle
of the back seat on car rides
because i don't mind behind
caught between two other people
but it also means that
i can't rest my head against
the window & think about
what it would be like
to open the door &
roll out--
they're an illusion 
you know?
the mountains--
if i really got out 
they'd only be the size
of stepping stools--
up to me knees maybe
like the little plastic step 
my dad uses to change
light bulbs in the bathroom
if there's no requirement 
for a mountain 
do you think i could
be one then?
see if i sit out 
in the backyard
no
someone else's backyard--
kneeling maybe or 
raising my hands over 
my head--
would they mistake me?
put a plaque at my feet
& name me
mount honeysuckle
mount scabby knee
mount girl-who-cut-her-hair
mount wishing stone
what the difference between
a mountain & a wishing stone?
i'm thinking about the appalachians 
& how they're getting smaller
& if god is whittling them down
so that they can be used
as desk paper weights
or maybe flat enough
to get skipped three times
in the creek before
dunking deep down between
algae & crayfish--
the mountains that we drive
through on the way back 
to kutztown don't have names
& i feel bad for them
because no matter
how much they ache & grow
no one hangs a dog tag from
their neck--
they build bridges &
gazebos by the creeks
but no name--
does the mountain look
up at the clouds &
ask them--
saying-- 
give me a sign as to
what i should call myself 
but the clouds (as usual)
just laugh
that's what they did to
me when i asked--
the clouds are useful for many
things but not for answers
they move too fast--
swarming the faces
of mountains--
these white lacey veils
are the mountains getting
married maybe?
turning grey in their faces
as their marriages 
erode same as their bodies--
oh mountain if you 
promise to love me
i can find you a name
& i will sit at your
base every day until
we both turn to bones--
your limestone skeleton--
my calcium carbonate 
femur & vertabrae
i'll pick  flowers
from behind your ears &
kiss your moss pebble feet--
oh mountain is this what
it's like to be love?
i just want someone like
you-- someone who 
doesn't mind raising one
hand to hold 
the sky up 
when it's your turn--
i'll climb up you & help--
someone whose old trees
could dig their roots
deep into my back--
oh i just want to 
find you in the horizon
the pink-orange of sunsets 
like halos over our heads--
i could stay here
i could stay here 
teach me how to reach
i want to be a mountain 
with you
& when they see me
out the car window 
they'll remember that
i used to occupy back seats 
used to swallow paperweights 
used to skip
stones three times
before they dropped heavy
in the creek water--
can a mountain drown
if it's not careful? 

you screamed the fires
out of the pine barrens
& turn the copper water
to blood

the forest cleaning
herself of you

& you yell for her 
to forgive you for
being born the 13th child 

what of numbers
cursed out of frustration

oh he'll be a devil

my father would
check my head for horns
as a joke

laughing as he ruffled
my brown hair & then
i'd go back to
the bathroom mirror
where i learned to
snip them off
with nail clippers

mishap creatures we are

the stormy nights 
of our birth reenacting
the reluctance of
the forest to let us have names 

who here has named themself?

have you learned by now
that they call you
the jersey devil?

have you made other names?
out of the lichens or
the cinnamon fern or 
the asters you kiss when
you feel alone?

i collected buttercups
from the front yard to 
float in mason jars
for my mother when she
came home in the blue station wagon

we killed our midwives
out of fear

my father sealed the chimney  
& fireplace in our kitchen
so that i wouldn't fly
up out of it
like you did 

forked devil tails
unfurl into the roads
that separate us

is it true then
that we were always like this?

devil-hood red in our blood

the Leeds family
with their demons dormant 
in their blood

if you wander alone
long enough in the forest
you will of course
become the other

was it as deliberate for
you as it has been for me?

did you refuse to
swallow your screams?

letting them stretch
bat-winged between cannon fire
between bushes of
goldenrod 

i walked in the pine barrens
only once 
but i felt your life
throbbing
in the waters

you hid your face 
in the branches

hooves on asphalt 
outside my motel room

i saw your red glowing eyes
& you saw mine 

we traded

what do they know of rubies?

i put my finger to
my lips & told you 
to you not scream 

not here

wipe your feet 

this is night is for us

how many highwaymen
have you eaten? 

molly pitcher 

i first met you
when you were filling
your metal canteens 
in the fleetwood pond 

& i told you that 
it's not good to drink
lake water

the algae's webbed feet
on your hands
you walked into 
a gust of wind

on the car ride home
yesterday we passed
a highway named after you
& dad began
to explain your story 

i told him

i know molly pitcher

& i thought of you
standing behind me
in the full-length 
bathroom mirrors in 
the back of 
the girl's locker room

you touching my shoulder 

your long grey skirt--
hair braided tight
against your head

dad tells me about
how to took to the artillery--
loading the cannons 
at the battle of monmouth 
in 1778

i find this ironic because
i remember your for
water

for the times on
the playground where i wondered
the parameter 
of the soccer fields alone
& you stood stoic beside
the treeline-- a cool
pitcher of water to dump
over me

washing me all over

my baptism was a process 
that occurred over
the course of several
of our encounters

sometimes you'd have
the green garden hose

telling me to kneel 
in the driveway 
as you put your thumb
over the opening

water spraying & 
rainbow laughing in
the brief mist

historians suggest
you might have been several
woman-- an amalgamation
of all the mircles
woman performed on
men's revolutions

as if there could
only be one

i have met so many of
you now

was i ever one?

we have little control
over the water we give

sometimes it comes
out of my palms like
stigmata-- 

& there are ghosts
who still drink me

the spigots in our veins

do we bleed water?

it is true then, that your
husband collapsed 
& you took his spot 
at the cannon

if you're anything
like me you wanted
to fill the cannon with 
daffodils & stop 
the earth from exploding
around you  

clumps of black ash
in your hair

braids coming unfurled

my braid
came undone so much
that they fell off my head

brown hair on the floor
of the barber shop

because we know all
free women must cut their
hair short like men 

i wanted to ask you
for advice 

when do you stop 
filling yourself up
& pouring out?

when do you let 
men fucked the earth
& wipe your hands on
your dress?

dunk your feet
in the creek

tell me molly pitcher

do you make it rain?

could you 
hale then on me?

like most of us 
you remember the exact moment
of your birth

the river cauldron
disaster-ing environment

we vowed to never make
a great war again & 
left the chemicals 
to remind us-- seeping
into swamp & soil

life run wild

cement igloos
clutch dearly to un-used
ammunition

at night when illuminated
by car headlight
they resemble crypts

they are your mothers of course

fathers are the ones who use
gun powders but women
of course know to hold onto it
swallow it until it becomes a child 

& i used to tell my brother
on brisk autumn ombra dusks
that the planet we were born on 
was close to the north star

i'd point up

i really meant we came out
of the stagnant water like you  

the water you don't drink 
from your cupped hands

that's what fathers say

& from there you stood up

fanned your black wings
like the monarchs we watched
hatching from chrysalises 
in first grade

the teacher pointed
& said 
they have to dry then
before they can fly

pollution ovaries
menstruating between 
blue gills & large mouth bass

they declared your
mother an EPA priority 
for hazardous waste

sitting in the reeds
you discovered your fingers
capable of rippling out
handfuls of grass

did you ask your mother
what she would name you?

only to see her stalwart faces

she didn't want to smile
for fear she would ignite

one spark could do it

bring the world war 
into her esophagus

fire & shrapnel

you're everything your
father wasn't

that's all she tells us, yes?

you lay down & let
the night bugs gossip 
about your size

you see your heart beat
in the grey tired souls
of moths

like me

you name yourself

there is no birth certificate

no doctor

an umbilical chord 
tethering you only to 
the moon

you don't cut it

let it drag us
into the bushes when
the sun comes out

what kind of body is this
meant to be?

see your eyes burning
red: your reflection
in the water

i reach for the tail lights
of planes at night

claiming the mechanics of stars

wash your face

collect fish hooks

save them underneath 
the flat slate stone

dry yourself 

i was born with wet brown hair

& it hasn't dried since

the pool at kutztown area high school

we're building a 
pool at kutztown area high school

on the second floor
with the staircase made
only of locker-casualties

there was a janitor's closet
we used to joke
led to tile floors
& chlorine

there's no pool at kutztown
area high school 

there's a lot
of us still floating there

on our back 
face up towards 
a flickering neon ceiling 

the construction was 
compulsive-- 
night after night 
we find ourselves
surrounded by
cement & tiles

digging a hole in
the roof to fill with
rain water

this pool isn't for gym class
this pool is in violation of
safety codes
this pool tastes like salt
packets & dew

floating with gym uniforms
like sea weed

it's a secret 

this pools is a 
drowned prayer 

where we'll send off
trigonometry notes 
& wilting copies of
canterbury tales 

like bodies on the river ganges

beneath the surface 
if you hold your breath 
you can hear the echo
of every one of us
who ever played with
pastels-- 

throw clay into the table
to get out the air bubbles

a mermaid voice
filtered through 
locker combinations 

the morning announcements 
fracture and ripple

i wake up many times
at the very bottom

laying on my back 
lungs hallways rushed 
with water

after this long though
you learn to hold your breath

you learn how long
you can go without air

we're champion divers

inhaling at the corner
of deisher lane & 
running to gulp air
at the last bell of
the day

i don't visit the school

but i do still work
on my breast-stroke

sometimes freestyle

arms like windmills

on days like this
it's only me

but the bottom 
of the pool is made of glass

& through it i watch 
students

books clutched to their
chests-- kissing boys
in hallways corners

kissing bathroom mirrors
& hoping to find a lake
written behind their own 
reflections 

i stare out the window
of 11th grade chemistry 
& hear the corn turning
into water

turning tentacle & 
kelp forest

there are peaceful moments 

when i remain perfectly
still & i can listen 
hard enough to find my old voice 

it still paces underwater 

grass stained shoes 
from the morning walk 

white bleached hair 
smoking from flat iron 

she's bleeding 
crushing strawberries
in between her fingers

someone throw her
in the deep end 

she'll swim
she'll swim

Verdun

you make ghosts
to fight the great war

boiling boots & belts
buttons breaking holes 
in bodies

thumb tacs in the wall

the floor of your son's room
with all his uniforms ready

will you fight for Prussia
for Germany?

whose honor medals are
blooming on your coats

rusted gold daffodils

snap the necks of rotary phones

there are so many men
who reenact that the ghosts
of dead soldiers are aroused

waking up in Newville
Pennsylvania

this isn't France

you tell me about
the battle of Verdun 

how when the bombs
went off there were people
instantly buried just
sitting side by side
in the trenches

rifle barrels gasping out
of the fleshly fucked 
earth 

even metal needs air

have you ever 
breathed through 
the barrel of a gun?

dad, i'm thinking of us 
in the car ride across 
long island 

passing a cemetery 
with cramped 
headstones:
my crooked four-year-old 
teeth with the names of
dead men written on 
them in sharpie

you say

before your time
they'll dig them all up
& build a strip mall there

i see bodies begging
to not be woken up

packed together like
my brother & i 
in bunk beds

one hour more
one hour more

i tell you that when i die
i hope someone burns me
so that i can take up
less space

become a handful

the texture of my
body finally made malleable
& silty after
all these years

leave foot prints 
in the loose backyard soil
after it rains tonight

you say you can feel
the raining coming 

the grey sky making
moth wings of us both

we should travel to
Verdun 

stand above the trenches

skeletons still pacing
beneath us

radios crooning shrapnel 

their Gatling guns 
resting on chapped lips

opening mouth to the field

choking on Germans  

dad, i want to pull them up
by their bayonets

like other root vegetables

orange carrots & 
blue-toed potatoes

if we have to be in the war
can we at least be the angels?

the ones when the smoke clears

shutting eyelids

let's stop here on the side
of the highway

dig a trench 

& watch the ghosts migrate
across the ocean

cross highways &
toll bridges

should we re-bury them?

should we bury ourselves 
while we're at it?

you helped me pull out
each of my baby teeth 

tombstones 
one by one

drop names in the hudson

Life is worth living

-Sign on George Washington Bridge 
crossing from  
Washington Heights NY
to Fort Lee NJ

we trapeze 

the GW bridge ushering
us into skeleton

we're talking about
how mom is scared of
driving over bridges 

of cars drowning
themselves in water
like lemmings

i tell you
that i know how to escape
a sinking ship

wait for the captain 
to dissolve like
an alka-seltzer tablet

bubbles around our
cold water bodies

we'll float to the surface

dad says that from
this height we 
would die on impact

& the sign out the window
lets us know that 

life is worth living

& i say that if 
i were going to jump
off a bridge to kill myself
that i would probably
pick somewhere with
clearer water

dad says that you
would be dead before
you knew the water

i don't want to but
i see us outside
of the car-- leaning
over the side of
the cement railing

i could stand on the ledge
if dad helped hoist
me up 

i remember the jungle gym
where he used to 
hold me by the waist
while i pretended to 
swing from monkey bars
that were too high up

has anyone ever called
the suicide hotline number in green
type-face across the button
of the rusted tired sign?

or maybe they argue with
the sign

it's smug statement
written in metal

oh what a body made of metal

i didn't know
as we drove over it but
George Washington Bridge
is one of the most frequently
fatal bridges in New York City 

is there something calling from
the water?

headlight angels
murky beneath the surface

a barge boat collects souls
in fish nets &
re-sells them to the pawn
shop up the street

yearly there's about
70 people stopped by police

12 dead in 2016

looming near the edge

do they talk to each other?

is it crowded?

jostling between all the
margin bodies

the ghosts thick & 
smog like 

the truck in front
of us black cloud-coughs 
& we roll up the windows

their fingers snapped off
like twigs-- 
reaching into
our blue ford station wagon

i want to take them all
with us

let them sit on
my shoulders like gulls while
they think about
how steep the drop 
will be down to the hudson

i have wanted to
be dead many times in my life

it's more of a weather season
than a worth

what is your life worth?

is it worth water?

dad often mutters
these things like pennies
dropped into ocean
into river

i wish i were dead 
wish i were dead 
wish i were dead

are there all us ghosts
then out there?

does the sign cover
her eyes in fear of us 
or does she watch like
a mother

call me call me call me 

am i there somewhere
stuck pacing 
back & forth 
back & forth

is this the story
where we're found
on the banks

our clothes like wet 
wash clothes

we cleaned our face
in the same bathroom mirror
when we got home that night

scrubbed bridges
from our teeth

life is worth living

mothman 

"Couples See Man-Sized Bird ... Creature ... Something"
-Point Pleasant Register 1966

this is a promise to not
be scared of you when we meet

to not runaway

your eyes burning red match sticks
against the black ragged backdrop
of a body

who were they to you?

that first couple you revealed
yourself too in the cold
of november in point pleasant, west virginia

they had already been 
unnerved by the WWII munitions plant
& it's vacant promise of
detonations long reverberated

she asks him from 
the passenger seat

do you try to forget the war?

& he stares forward 
hand on the steering wheel of their 
black Chevy Bel Air 
& says 

not tonight, everything is lovely tonight

how badly have
you wanted to be 
in a love poem?

& there you emerged
in the rear view mirror

"a large man with ten foot long wings"

car horn & tire squeal

were you scared of
losing them with out 
explaining yourself?

would you have told them
war stories?

stories of chemicals
birthing your in the flat
lands behind the TNT plant?

stories of porch lights
you had worshiped?

stories of men who you
left azaleas 
in their mailboxes for?

are you gay like me?

i knew that i wanted
to be your lover 
from the first blurred 
photo of you from
the summer of 2007
when the town was startled 
that all these years
& despite all the heart break
that you had somehow
survived

i too exist in obscure images

standing in my bedroom
staring into my iPhone camera
& snapping photographs 
of my body too eagerly

my hand shaky from posing

unfocused face
blurred dull peach skin

what could the cryptozoologists 
read me as?

am i a flatlands monster?

a jersey devil?

or am i a mothman like you

i wish it would have been
me all those years ago

in the black Chevy Bel Air

i would have pulled over
& maybe we could have talked
in the back seat 

i would have taken you home
& asleep on my sofa 
i would make waffles in the morning

when others asked me
if i was looking for a wife
i would smile & tell them
that i was happily taken 

at night i would come
home & we would lay together

the distortion of 
our nonsense bodies 
making dimming the boarders
of our own skeletons

i want to be a bleary 
image surfacing on
the far reaches 

i want to be indescribable 
with you 

we can take long walks
through the vacant military 
buildings that now
decay in the depths
of the wild life reserve

you'll open your mouth
to speak 

echoing sound of car horn
& scream

i'll put a finger to
your mouth

could you love
an bleary boned man 
like me? 

mannequin 

for most of
my life i've been somewhat
terrified of the mannequins
in clothing aisles

in macy's with my mom
there was a few years where
they had bubblegum bright hair
painted on

hands on their hips
staring me down like deer
in jeep headlights--

their thin fawn-like ankles 

i tugged at the edges of
their clothing-- sometimes
clothes-pinned tight to
their hard white plastic skin

it must be a taut life

when they breathe does
it feel like there's fingers
gripped round their thin necks

i in no way resembled them
especially as a young girl

my root-beer barrel torso 
& tree-stump thighs

while we were picking out
clothing:
pleated skirts &
wispy white blouses 
i would frequently come
to their feet as if they were
statues of unknown deities

caress their smooth bodies
looking away so as to not
stare too long

pink hand up a calf muscle
brush against a bottle-neck wrist

i don't touch them anymore

i imagine them waiting for the
aisles to empty

sisters

neon ceiling aching

they share stories at night 

while workers stock the wracks
& windex the tall 
full length mirrors

they weep about how many hands 
they felt across their skin 

how the jeans were tugged
at around their waists 
how their busts where fondled
& their necks tickled 
by un-named fingers

they scream sometimes
but only when everyone is gone
scream about wanting 
to break their legs in enough
places to make joints

a pair of knees

for the ones with approximate faces
they feel each other's
contours-- 

thumbs across

eye-divots

this is where your eyes would be 

this is your sealed lips

this is where i would 
kiss you

for the active wear bodies 

they imagine themselves with
hands or feet 
or heads-- 

some want thick brown hair

others want size 8/9 men's shoes 
because there always seems
to be that size in the sale bin 

i sometimes wish i was
as ambiguous a body

enveloped in blankness 

un-answerable

t-shirt pinned to my back

i have never felt like
anyone has touched my skin enough 

not like how humans touch
mannequins but how mannequins
touch each other

searching for a discernible feature

something to make one
another unique

separate from each other

maybe a large hooked nose 
or dimples 

when the morning is close 
& the sun is a handful of
plastic gold streamer

they pose-- kissing
the backs of each other's hands

i stroll among them 

& they're frightened because 
i'm supposedly
human

i ask them to touch me
all over

their nail-swallowed fingers

they've never got to touch
a human like this before

i'm warmer than they
thought i'd be

oh will they tell me
something worth while about me

is it my freckles?

my rib cage?

my skin clothespinned
up my back?

yearbooks

i only have about 
six yearbooks from
kindergarten through 
12th grade

they're haphazard on
the floor of my old bed room 
with the rain forest
rustling on the walls

this world is for posing

book clubs & 
softball teams perpetually 
lining up for the right shot

i didn't have a good picture
of myself until probably
middle school

in 5th grade i had
startled wide-eyes &
hair sticking up
like a handful of dry 
november leaves

2004 there's black & white
candid shots
of the playground
3rd grade

if the photograph 
had remembered color 
my jacket would be lime green &
a boy would be daring me 
to cross the monkey bars
but my arms are too weak

i've been thinking about
all the yearbooks i'm missing 

the ones we didn't end up buying

i didn't get one for all
of middle school 

i think of my young stout
self lonely on other people's shelves

sitting at the lunch table
by myself with a cup of
apple juice & a turkey & cheese sandwich

i think of her thick hair 
& the knots at the base of her neck

does she sing in chorus photographs
or just mouth the words?

are there images of me at
hawk mountain in 6th grade?
sweaty & at the back of the group

sitting at north look out
& chewing sour cream & onion chips
one at a time-- wiping crumbs
on my jeans

it bothers me that i don't
know what images of myself
those years have

did i smile for the class photos?

i've been thinking
that maybe god makes his own yearbooks
for all of us

that maybe there's some
big hall in heaven full of volume
after volume--

he takes pictures of everything

squatting in the window
with his disposable kodak camera
when we played inside
for recess on a rainy day 
in March of 3rd grade

there's nothing that special 
other than that Mrs. Bowman
let us use with her stuffed
sheep & we all played pretend

flash in the window

sound of winding camera

the angels take part too

they're skilled at night time photography

sitting in the evergreen
tree in the front lawn to
peer my bed room between
the wispy green blinds 
to see my father reading
me the 5th book 
from the series of unfortunate events

he takes sips of magic hat beer
& his white socks have holes
bore in the heels from acid
at work

i don't think i'd like
to see those yearbooks

they'd be too large for
a human lap

like those dictionaries
at the library that 
lay splayed out on their
own pedestals--
a little ribbon to 
keep your place 

only god reads them

touches their spines
sending goosebumps through
the year

it comforts me 
to know that they exist

that even when i forget
to take pictures that 
the greater powers are 
working on the next volume

i see angels
in the dark rooms of heaven

close-pinning each shot
on the wall & standing back
to survey them--

they agree that this
year they should include
a few of me & you

my head resting on
your shoulder 
the  blue couch a kind
of palm that held us

the silhouettes of our bodies
in the glow of tea candles
on your book case

the back seat of
my car with your sweatshirt
& my jean jacket 

oh god please tell 
me you got that one

i'll step back
into that picture someday 
when you're not keeping
eye on all the yearbooks 

ripples around my feet

the photograph swallowing me
like a warm puddle of 
melted sleet