the attic

our legos biodegrade in the attic
black doll-eyes sprouting wild the attic

dad plugs in more red distortion pedals
we hear his chords vexing in the attic

freddy's purple heart degeneration--
he weeps & locks the door to the attic

ragged plastic hair & Velcro dresses--
he made swallow him in the attic 

i'll be floor-board spoken from the attic 
a jar of foot steps across the attic 





 

03/19

growing

when we first moved in 
to the house on noble street
the back yard 

was only dirt

no christmas tree planted

no magenta alien flowers
popping up in mid-may

just wind coughing dust
bronchitis-lunged--

we had chain-link fence mouths-- 

billy & i took buckets
to make mud--

ankle deep in earth--

i painted my face
like a warrior & billy 
washed his hands with 
the garden hose

this was before 
uncle rich bought
the pile of red stones 
that would wait next
to the garage

perfect for a base
when we played tag

we imagined it
into a mountain--
standing higher than
the smokeless chimney--

like all father's
mine wanted a lawn to mow--

i had thought for
some reason that grass seeds
would be round 

little circles 
like the mustard seeds
mom ground to fill

jars in the cupboard--

how will we liken 
the kingdom of god?

it is like a grain of
mustard seed--

growing into evergreen tree--
into chimneys & wild onions--

dad bought grass seed by
the bag & i sat on
the porch while i watched
him plant the whole yard--

aching to 
leap in sprinklers 
as they caressed the unborn
heads of the grass--

when dad wasn't home
sometimes i took off
my shoes & ran 
once or twice through
the sprinkler--

i never told dad but maybe 
he knew

it seemed to take
forever to grow--

frustrated dad would
pace in the sun room
staring out the back window
at the sprinkler choreography 
& the mucky lawn--

at night in bed i 
thought of the grass seeds--

thin & white--
drinking with their whole body--

gulp by gulp

how long could they wait?

i felt my hair growing longer--

like i was floating
underwater at the pool--
 
inhaling sharply to check
i was still on land--

i wake up like
that sometimes still--
small & seed-like

glass of water 
by the foot of my bed

eventually the grass came
not slowly 
all at once--

(that's not really how it
happened but the story is
better that way)

all at once like
a ballet falling open--
ribbons & point shoes--

there was orchestra music &
the sun came up &
every hair of grass 
stood on end--

goose bump pebbled--

standing in the grass
i grow taller now--

grow knees & a heart 
the size of a mustard seed 
waiting for the wind to
scatter it--

waiting for god to scatter it--

mouth kissing garage doors--

making mud--

oh what kind of grass
grows in the backyards of
gay men?

ones that still sleep like this--

like a fleck of grass
desperately drinking water--

my father mows the lawn even
though it's made of mud 

i'm standing up &
jumping through the sprinkler 
under the stern gaze of the moon 

he doesn't notice




 

out-numbered

of course i knew we would be out-numbered  
this is back when i wrote down phone numbers

when there was a stroller that could hold me, 
we counted the houses by odd-numbers

the ants single file across the baseboard
chewing ankles & growing in numbers 

boys play with boys; girls play with girls, and you?
you will lean against brick walls out-numbered 

befriend the caterpillars & the gnats--
abuse the colors of paint by numbers

the book will have most pages mis-numbered
your house's street will run out of numbers 


 

03/18

butternut squash 

i'm thinking about
the butternut squash soup
my mom would make after
our last trip to the farm
for the season 

she'd slice the squash
in half

knife to my forehead--

split down the spine
the dictionary torn in two--

i'm holding my 
flat pumpkin-like seeds
& stringy sinews 
in my hands-- 

laid out on
a cookie sheet--
olive oil & a handful
of sea salt from 
the little jar by
the coffee machine 

these were giant
squash--

giraffe necked
contortionists--

i told you that someday 
i would come over
& make you soup

did i tell you 
about the squash or
was i just 
thinking about them?

i imagined you sitting
at your kitchen table  
while i leaned on 
a knife--

forcing it through my
torso-- the squash 
aching as it split--

how did my mother cut
them so evenly?

do you like soup
in march? 

it's still cold enough
to me--

the oven behind
my teeth-- 

on my back gazing
up at a red hot coiled sky--

are you coming in with me?

the squash roasted
at 450 & made the house
smell like winter should--

i know other recipes--

what do you want
me to taste like?

& when the halves were done roasting
she would pull them out 
of the oven with the 
torn & scraggly green hot pads--

pan clattering on the counter

steam spilling from my sliced chest--
ribs like pumpkin seeds--
salt stinging in each gash--

all it takes is a little salt--

with the big metal spoon
she'd scoop the squash hollow--
emptying the skin 
of all it's soft insides 

dropping them into 
the soup pot to
be cooked down--

dull orange earthy--

this is how soft you've
made my body--

was it from sitting on
the radiator 

or from all the times you
kissed my clothing
onto the hard wood floor

let me do it myself
with the big metal spoon--

i'll start at my neck--
vertebrae & tangled blood--
down to my navel--

does your house smell like winter? 

put the soup pot
on the stove--

loving you emptied me
easily-- flesh soft 
& buttery--

there are not always knives 
needed to feel hollow--

again & again

one spoonful--

your tongue burned on
my teeth--

steam pouring into my 
face while my mother

gets out the ladle 

all we were fit into a bowl
handful of salt--

eat--
it's getting cold

 

03/17

blood

i watched the needle
go in this time

thin plastic tube 

my blood is
a really beautiful color--

like clay or flushed cheeks
or velvet cupcake--

not like a rose
because roses are over-used

there's something martian
about it--
like i could pull out
the syringe & pour 
onto the linoleum floor 
to make a planet--

i will need a space suite

would my blood look
different out of orbit? 

lunar even-- glowing
white--

saint catherine's milk
veins as they cut off her head--

i called you on the 
way home from the doctor's
because i know you hate 
having you blood taken too

you have thin veins
& the nurse moves the needle
in your forearm 

like a search light--

are your veins like
those little gravel roads
between the corn fields
behind our house?

the ones that shake the blue jeep
like a can of pennies--

i wanted to tell
you why they were taking
my blood--

that i take testosterone now
in little vials 

that my voice is a leaving me
& i hope you still recognize it
when i call 3 years 
down the road--

instead i listen to you
tell me about your blood--

what color is yours
when i fills little plastic vials?

i've always seen you 
as an deep purple man-- 
maybe sapphire like the creek water
when the sun hits it just right--

is there silt & loam?

when they're done
i always ask
"is that it?"

as the nurse in teal scrubs 
collects the vials on the counter--

i wanted to pick them up

i want to slip the tubes in
my backpack

i bet they were warm--

i bet they were oceans--
there was a wave in there--

the kind that knocks you 
down & fills your mouth
with salt--

i would have found
somewhere to pour them out

maybe even just the bathroom sink--

i wouldn't tell you this
but i liked the
way the needle felt this time--

for you
i'll lie 
& say that i hated it

just like you with your
thin veins--

are they large enough 
for us to swim?

drenched in clay--
martian maroon bodies--

before i called you 
i sat in my car--

running my fingers gently
back & forth across 
my forearm where the needle
had been--

next time they take your
blood-- steal the vials--

let yourself swim--

oh, what of mars is 
still in us?

03/16

 

offspring

what if i was someone
else's daughter?

if i walked out 
into the scraggly grass
of the backyard

the house on franklin street

two-year-old hands
ripping out dandelions 
& daffodils--

if barefoot & kidney bean toes--

laughing at the buzz of carpenter
bees as they ate the garage--

they carry me away--

biting the back of my t-shirt
to bring me home to the hive--

if you peered out the
kitchen window to check
on me & i was gone--

how long would you
have searched for me?

i don't ask out of malice--
i just want to know 

how long it takes to become
something else's child--

maybe it would be the herons--

they'd watch me from the creek--
dipping bills in water--

waiting for the right moment
to put me on 
their backs & dash off--

would they teach me
how to have long legs?

would i acquire a taste
for river fish or 

would i chew pond scum  
in protest?

maybe the wolves--

oh yes maybe the wolves--

like those little girls they
found Bengal India

are we feral girls?

i think i would have 
taken to the wolves--

the ones that lingered
near the rail road tracks--
escaped from the surrounding
mountains 

all fours-- i might have
gone willingly--

teeth growing into thorns--

oh mother & father forgive me

i cannot help the wild 
onions in me--

spine contorted--

what kind of poetry would
that leave me?

& when the leaves turned
in autumn &
you gave up searching for
me would you
hear the wolves howling
& think that maybe i
had been eaten--

or maybe it was the
sigh of a passing train--

i like to think 
i'd be the same boy

carpenter bee born
heron son--

beaks & stringers--

what off spring will
they make of my body--

it's not too late
you know?

i'm not little anymore
but there's always going
to be the mountains
to crawl back to--

always the train tracks 
that remind us

that our own bones resemble 
step ladders--

if i disappear  
don't look for me--

leave my room empty 
to fill with bees & lady bugs 

& when the moon is full
& my tall legs 
dip in the creek 

you might hear me--

the mountain off spring 

the boy-girl of reeds & grass

 

03/15

suffragettes 

will you put jonquils 
in my hair?

let's planting tulip 
bulbs in the asphalt--

we'd make the streets rising like
bread on the counter 

you make me feel like a suffragette--

like the woman-sun 
as she cuts her hair
into a bob & drops locks
into the lavender rivers 
of our blood

we would make terrifying girls--

what could we do with the vote?

steal it--
ballots in our teeth

sprinting away 
into the night

clutching the hems of our 
long-sleeved dresses--

will you pluck off my
buttons like blackberries?

take scissors to 
my sleeves-- let's make sashes 
& banners that say

We will have what we want--

undress for me in
the quiet space at
the neck of the crocus--

this is where we will
be happy & alone

no i'm not a girl
at least not anymore but
if i were alive in
the 1920s i would have been--

maybe i would have even liked it--

when i was a little girl 
i rubbed dirt into my knees--

i would pull weeds from the
cracks in the sidewalk
& treat them like sisters--
setting them in glasses of
water on the kitchen table--

cut my hair into a bob--

we'll put on 
our beautiful sunday hats--

rims keep the church bells
from clattering out 
of the sky--

does heaven believe in jonquils?

is the sun yellow for us then?

i want to be suffragettes 
because i feel like it
would be wild--

it's not that i think it would
be easy--

just that it seems straight forward--

to believe that my voice 
is lodged in a vote--

waiting to be spat into
the smiling man's face--

his cheeks bleeding roses--

we would meet up after
the great march on a street corner--

you'd light my cigarette
& we would whisper 
revolutions small enough
to sleep in flower beds--

you would tell me
that i remind you
of a crocus-- the first
ones in the spring--

the ones that
come up without warning
in the front yard
of the church on Chestnut street

i'd kiss you & 
you'd make me promise
never to tell--

i'll spend my first vote
on you--

to have us made into
locks of the sun's hair--

feather-falling in the street--

03/14

graffiti & the garden of eden 

does god set timers on
his iphone?

one to bring the sun
up & one to remind the moon
to feel ashamed of her
white naked body--

does he have one
for how long the earth
is supposed to last
or is he winging it?

would he notice if
we went back to the garden--

in canvas shoes & 
shaved heads--

i imagine him
sitting on the brown
recliner as he watches 

the messiah doing dishes 
by dull kitchen light--

mary with her feet up
on the blue ottoman--

the garden of eden 
perching silent in 
the backyard--

tall sunflower & ivy--

would you
like to come with me?

no-- 
i don't
want to be the first
woman or the first man

i've just always
wanted to make 
mischief against
paradise--

when my mother first
told me about adam & eve 
& all that sin

she was shocked about
how fervently i defended 
the snake--

i crouched by rivers--
flicking my tongue
in the hopes of summoning him--

apples in his mouth--

twisting stems--

the ground rotting
with fallen pears--

overgrown fence--

let's be naked
in the tall grass--

cans of spray paint
clinking in my backpack

& i'm thinking about
the railroad bridge that
hangs over I-76 
on the way into Philadelphia

the language of fat pink
& white letters--

the graffiti artist dangling 
in the night to write
their other names--

does he float?

does he hang upside down
on borrowed spider threads?

i'm thinking of the 
steel beam that says 
"i was innocent once" 

that one always makes me want to 
stop me car in the middle
of the high way so 
that i can try to reply--

i want to find that tree--

the one we all sinned for--

i want to write on the trunk--

just in black--

nothing intricate--

something gritty about
knowledge 

is it vandalism if it
was once our body too?

paint the vines red with me--

i'll get naked & we
can be brick walls-- 

necks of buildings--

fat thighs of a freight train--

i want you to write on
me with anonymity--

eat apples
off the ground--

 

03/13

choir practice 

you used to sing in
saint mary's choir

this was vocation--

opening your voice like
a pocket watch--

like a tulip bulb--

it was march & 
i was fifth grade fat as a 
knotted tree trunk--

& the back seat of your blue jostled
as we drove up past
the air port dinner--

at night you would sit in the sun room
tape recorder praying--

the choir director had recorded
herself because you didn't
read music--

mass happening upstairs
as i sat in the dim living room--

i made communion of oreo
cookies & apple cider &
sometimes a metal bowl of grapes--

your foot tapping made the
pulse of our house--

your guitar ached as it
leaned on the book shelf--

i think i believed in god back then

& maybe so did you--

back when billy & i sat
in the gathering area after school
while you went to choir practice--

we watched you through the glass
windows into the church--

dusky golden glow of
light behind the altar--

the rest of the church 
dull & shadow heavy--

monsters belly-crawling
beneath pews--

sometimes we went outside
& sat near the garden--

the one you had planted
the year before 

with lambs ear & daffodils
& the pinkish butterfly bush
humming mouth full of bumble bees--

the grass turned indigo 
as we swallowed the sun 
like a eucharist host--

knees stained green

we could hear 
every one of your ghost hymns 
as they emptied from 
stained glass windows--

i imagine the skull
of god is something like
those windows--

kaleidoscope & cavernous--

reverberating vaguely of 
your voice

oh father forgive me--

i pinched the butterflies
by the wings to hold them still--

took handfuls of mulch
to feel the dirt beneath my
finger nails--

but always paused when you sang
the canticle of the turning 

it has always been my favorite 
song from church--

it's the only one i can sing
now from memory





 

03/12

grapefruit 

you said your mother made
you eat grapefruit for breakfast

purple-pink flesh--
torn out with the spoon
dip in sugar when no one  
was looking--

juice down your arms--

this is our first lesson
in how a body should be bitter--

should sting as it comes into being--

when i was little sometimes
i would swipe lemons from
the fridge-- cut them in half
& dip them in the sugar bowl--

like crystals off your 
puckering body--

& my skull was a grapefruit 
to be sliced in half--

tart & resentful   
on your tongue--

i miss the breakfast bar
in the living room--

the swivel chairs--

the dead light bulbs--

i miss you in spoonfuls lately--

leaf of basil 
forkful of fresh salsa--

you're chopped--
onions & tomatoes-- 
fierce cilantro

what is to be done 
with the over protective
skin of grapefruit?

worn as an overcoat

when i leave mine 
in the cubby at elementary school--

i learned early 
from you that womanhood
is so much like grapefruit--

like grandmothers
in the sink--

cutting hair--

round heads--
round cirtus swallowed whole--

lemons swallowed whole--

the chairs swallowed
whole

the violets on the sink
swallowed whole

biting corridors of
a body--

you said your mother
liked grapefruit--
sometimes eating it
pre-cut in fruit cups--

& on her windowsill
she had an antique brass scale with
fake grapes & pears
to balance the sides--

each time i would 
walk over while no one
was looking to 
squeeze the plastic orbs--

as if one time
i would arrive & find
them plump & full of juice--

i don't like grapefruit

what's left of my girlhood 
in laid out on scales--

is maybe in your throat--

is maybe bitter &
bruised pink--

i sometimes sleep
in the rinds--

comforted by the smell
of metal knives

& dead light bulbs--

mother, let's eat something sweet

the lemon has two halves--

climb in the sugar bowl 
with me 

let's be women