where are you moving?

what kind of furniture do you have?

is your sadness like a blue arm-chair
or a sofa & are you taking it
with you when you go?

when we moved from the house
on main street we rented 
a U-Haul

image of yellow tropical
fish printed on it's side--

i swam-- bubbling bursting
on the hot june sun--

all the way down in hawaii 
where i was born

between the crests of waves
too big to be remembered--

up for air 
in the back seat of
the blue station wagon--

when you move make sure
you take only the important 
furniture--

take the light bulbs 
out of your lamps--

plant them in the yard
at the new house where
the lawn will be soft 

& ready

i wanted to collect U Haul 
trucks for their pictures--

there's one design with 
a horse-shoe crab-- 
ancient body 

arachnid-like aching 
for a dining room table--

another one wears a rocket
ship & we take off

without the traditional count down--

a violent blast--

i'm thrust into orbit 
& below me the earth is
nothing but an 8 ball--

a marble

i can see my house--
a monopoly board plot--

roll dice in zero 
gravity only

to watch them
drift away-- a new element of
orbit--

i want to rent a moving
van but i'm scared i'll
get a lame one with

a blank side--

i'd even settle for
the image of a canyon
to climb into--

arid & orange-parched--

i don't want to take
anything with me--

i want a smaller body--

portable--

compact-- 

me & you in the back
of a moving van--

jostling around each turn--
our father

the wild driver--

don't ask me where 
i'm moving after graduation--

i'm leaving my desk chair 
& my bed frame

like i said 

keep your sadness-- whatever
furniture that might be--

i think my sadness 
is the blanket your made--

it's holes are rifts

in universes i will
someday travel to & fix--

for now

this is the future

card board box me

wrapped in newspaper 

fragile fragile fragile

becoming bats or
nautilus--

the gaping mouth of canyon--

a swell of an ocean 
rupturing with yellow tangs

come visit me 

someday when i find
an address to hide beneath

until then think
of me when you 

those orange & white

moving vans--

i'm in the back--

eight years old & 
we're pulling away 

from the house
once on main street--

watching bones collapse

beams snap--

swallowed by dirt &
wandering furniture--
the dashboard we sold--

still holding birthday cards
in it's teeth--

wondering what it could
have done wrong--

fragile fragile fragile

where are you moving? 

filament 

from fairmount park
the city is the filament of a 
light bulb 

screwed into the back
porch lamp of my parent's house

on noble street 

there are places that 
only exist in the summer

& the driveway is one of them

bottle cap prayer cards &
carpenter bees 

selling gospel--
humming choir--

bartering their stingers 
to the wasps for a greater
chance at heaven--

each one an individual 
rosary bead--

back to the city--

i was counting each 
bright building from my 
parked volvo--

postcard picture horizon--

my engine had been
over-heating 
from the red stop
& go 

so i pulled over 
even though i was
only a few minutes 
from you apartment building

i didn't tell you
that i stopped over
here--

stepped outside the car
& leaned against the hood--

that's us right there--
burning inside someone's

light bulb--

edison-- trying every 
possible material to 

keep the glow going--

we are those bodies 
who banished candles--

electronic radiant birdhouses

if i shake enough
will we become that snow globe
on the shelf at the museum
gift shop?

swallowed by a belly
of white glass--

twisted into the 
ceiling fan--

whose wings are we
borrowing?

i wished you were there
with me so i'm re-writing
the memory with you 

we don't say anything 

the ceiling fan blows gently
as it extinguishing a flame--

you kiss me on
the neck & we're both warm--

find each other's light
switches on the smalls of
our backs--

a bedroom wall--

& the city was nothing
but coiled wire

but the inventors

cheered from the red birthmark 
clouds dusk

you & i became a light bulbs
there-- in each other's hands--

soft smooth glossy surface--

warm from being a city

perched so far in the distance--

i get back in the car--
alone in the wake
of an almost memory 
i finish
driving to you 

feel each filaments 
of my veins--

you make me pray to
bumble bees--

oh there are the ghosts
of candles

following me in
the street lamps--

all of them are us--

this weaponry

you will find me some
evenings in chain-mail--

skull encased in metal 

the minute man--

twist the arrow before
you yank out the shaft--

this way you will bleed less--

my father bought me red
boxing gloves & a blue mouth piece--

flatten your breasts with
gauze the way the
moon suppresses waves

when she's ready for bed

when she's tired of
hearing sailors reaching
for her--

copper fingers--

rest your bones in
an empty green bottle

is this the first
time that you dressed like
a boy for war?

was your father proud
of the blood you managed to
dig up from

the backyard--

swing-sets into catapult--

so proud my
dormant weaponry 

& we read about the girls
in the civil war 

who swallowed gravel 
to deepen their voices--

kneeling in the dark
praying to god 

to un-sex me here

we cut our hair in the
ocean 

because the moon
is good at keeping secrets--

hold your musket ready--

grin like a horse while
they inspect your teeth--

i never questioned my
desire to fight & be fought--

the ghost throb in my
stomach where i had been
punched--

i savored the ache--

let it infect--

the will of war is contagious--
the desire to right
the wrongs 

inflicted on your body

girls: i suggest the 
bow & arrow

they won't suspect you--
their guns over
their shoulders--

& there you'll be 

cutting your way through air--

these days i keep 
a closet full of armor--

begin dressing at
the first blinks of dawn--

a shield glint in the window
behind the closed blinds--

this is the first lesson
& not being naked--

your flesh is epidemic--
is prone to bleeding if
left too long without metal

my father told me
that we don't retreat &

so when they blow trumpets
i got-- 

saint joan of arch

oh what kind of weaponous 
boys did they make us?

i think i want to stop dyeing my hair

eye-liner wing-beat heart
ripped teal stocking-thigh

what color is your hair now?

what kind of nature with bark
& woods-- 

what prickly weeds?

wash the onion grass before
you eat it--

cry orange & maroon
all over the bathroom sink--

play murder in the shower
this time with yourself--

whose blood was blue?

whose veins drained 
to dye your hair?

the fifteen year old 
on her knees praying to
god to make 
her cold & cobalt--

dragon knuckled--

he liked a fistful of hair
to grip like
horse reigns--

his love was a kind of
pigment-- 

raw scab & dry elbows--

i've had my hair dyed 
since i was fourteen &
you ask me what
my natural hair colors is--

i think of a river
mucky & brown-- shaken
by august down pour--

i wade in to my waist--

resist the urge
to let the current make
a stick of me--

no one teaches girls
what their hair is for
so i cut mine off--

hooves on asphalt--

a horse & buggy 
towards the meeting house
on sunday--

is your god wearing black?

is this a funeral for 
you or for color?

the calico cat under 
the shed--

head in the paint-brush sink--
burn of bleach--

the closest i've come
to setting my head on fire--

oh the phoenix

the brown-haired boy
phoenix watching himself

nature in the mirror--

i'm letting my hair
be brown 

& color is a ghost--

teal & indigo--

the eggplant hues 
of senior summer &
the orchid pink prom photos

still sauntering at 
the bottom of some drawer--

you colorful girl--

whose nature did you belong to?

oh what now 
is a boy with brown hair?

does he burn?

he's got rivers &

blue hydrangea petals
beneath his finger nails--

he grows in april when
the shower/rain 
is finally done--

standing in 
the fog of a bathroom mirror

the waist of 
a maple tree 

the way mud kisses shoes  

the sky left thumb prints--

The Adam 

it begins as you 
escaped from The Adam 

a fracture of ribs crunching
beneath you as you trespassed
in the skeleton garden--

bone in hand

you thief you 

& at the windows eden
is the name of his sister 

she eats apple seeds
& sends you post cards around
the holidays--

vicious trees with their 
varicose bark--

their bird-beak teeth--
grinning with talons--

where do you hide
when the world is his body?

when his hand-prints
leave their ghosts in 
the tide pools of your soul--

is your spirit made of 
water or fire?

you burning bush you--

you runaway prophet--

what happened to 
your one flesh?  

i saved his voice
on the answering machine
as a reminder of 
what running sounds like

to recall 
how easy the pairing
knife quarters the 
flesh of the peach--

a stomach full of pits--

these collagen promises--

you took my knees 

& kissed the physical 
out of my skin

until i felt un-real 
an elbow in the soil--

you: the garden with the white
fence, the timid plum tree 
& the latched gate--

you: the root--
the thick & purple veined--

when the landscape barters 
itself into night &
the grass bristles with
frost i want more
ribs--

i imagine perching over
you as you sleep--

bare chest & blank earth--

you have an unfair number
of bones--

& here i am clutching 
the one gift rib--
greedy boy of the dirt--

who shoved red pepper
down my throat & chewed
basil leaves on the porch--

oh i hate that 
i left a half of myself
in you--

oh how un-whole we 
are-- how unholy--

digging between the zucchini 
& un-ripe pumpkins--

loose earth--

i still don't want to see
god-- i know he's gold & 
busy cutting himself into
communion hosts--

i can't re-conjure your
voice anymore but

sometimes your laugh
rustles leaves & 
i think about 

laying beside you 

severed & murderous
on the cutting board sky--

clink of knife--
i minced garlic &

you opened the sliding glass
door with a handful of 
tomatoes & finger bones--

molecular

do you feel
yourself 
molecular?
the collaboration 
of thousands 
of little rooms--
the office building
in the city with
the green lights
up its spine--
sometimes when 
i can't sleep
i lay & think 
of 7th grade biology 
when we first really
learned about cells--
i think of them like
bedrooms to pace
in-- soft 
desk lamp glow
& end tables
to perch a coffee mug--
a window towards 
someone else's city--
what color are your
stop lights as they
reflect?
do you sit 
criss-cross on
the carpet floor
of your cells?
you nucleus boy
with the mitochondria 
harping on you
about needing more
energy--if 
we're going to 
have a metropolitan body--
we're going to 
need to stop
staying up
so late trying to
read the hotel bible
tucked in the top
desk drawer--
you feel yourselves
curled up
in bed-- wrapping
bones in 
psalm pages--
you turn to the story
of esther & 
recall it was 
your mother
who told you to
tempt kings but
never too far--
always in the name
of god--
you wonder if
god has ever been
this small--
a membrane--
vesticle & ribosome--
has he made churches
out of one of these
rooms?
how do we live
in so many small separate
spaces?
there's enough fire exits
to assemble into
poetry--
what parts of you
are angry & red &
heating up?
i decided to go
wandering tonight--
come with me
if you want--
i'm going door to
door to introduce myself
to each mosaic-me--
i've been thinking
we're less like a puzzle
& more like 
a broken glass of water--
take you time as
you take inventory
of all the floors
of your body--
if i'm not mistaken
your soul has an
elevator-- get off
on the fourteenth 
floor (which is
actually the un-named
thirteenth floor)
i'll be there carrying
a potted fern & 
pocket bible--
these margins--
these lock bolt doors--
turn a thousand door knobs
before one opens
& we come undone--
metropolis us--
a quiet shatter--
invade me 
like a bouquet--
i want to open
every single window 
i want to relearn 
capacity-- 
do you see me 
molecular-ly?
like a room
you could sleep in?

The encyclopedia of dreams 

other-wordly weight of a book--

seated on my 8-year-old knees--
a thousand page child-- 

number my heels--

my uncle bought a lexicon--
an encyclopedia of dreams--

night-blue shaw--
fading coin-face of the moon-- 

sulking 
becoming a bookmark--

whose planet did we
lose is the flyleaf?

press gravity
caress dust jacket--

i wanted to be 
as hard cover sturdy--
but (again) i find myself
malleable-boned--

we dreamed ourselves a series of 
answers-- 

how is it that we became encyclopedic?

only my uncle was allowed
to page through the book

i would sit by him
at his sketch table & relay 
the previous night's dreams--

combing for omens--

i saw dogs & glass tables &
mountains of my father's 
green beer bottles

& the book read 
guardians & inheritance of
revered objects-- 

this is
our furniture--

our future with legs--

the principle of authority--

the vessel--

we became lost among
definition-- talisman nomads--

my uncle the fortune teller
with his great big book
beneath the carcass 
in his bedroom 
we only read dreams together--

it is a task best not pursued alone 

but i was pink &
soft-elbowed & obsession wracked
with page-touch desires--

book carving girl--

& what kind of paper does
god write a dream on?

i had a deeper fear
that i'd find the
dream book empty

thousands of white pages--

wordless turn & turn 
& turn
it wasn't so much a fear
of lies 
as it was a fear
of being un-readable--

of language's sly escape--

coat-hanger lock picked 
into his bedroom 

startled by his realm--
wandering socks 
blanket mountain ridge

the book--half-open
by the side of the bed--

held my breath
before stepping inside

one foot at a time--

words floating up around me--

deep in definition--

printing parable 
over skin-- 

let's fulfill prophecies--
i spoke eight tongues
as my uncle walked in the room

& he noticed 
nothing out of the ordinary--

as i slept submerged &
unnoticed-- 

book-spine heavy 
in dream

cyborg 

inject me blue 

the process is methodical &
painless

or so i am told

i knew i was a cyborg from 
an early age--

i dreamed in wires &
a more efficient heart
to keep you in--

touch me-- i do not want
to forget what skin should feel like

what should i call myself now?

& i woke up with bionic fingers 
copper & steel--

cold from sleeping
by the cracked window--

january took too long 
& now we're dead--

my brother & i making tin foil
armor on the floor of the living 
room--

planning a war--

reynolds wrap shields & 
blood turning surreal-- breached 

blue from the needles
we kept beneath our pillows--

at night we sleepless 
played in father's forge:
saw table & welding flame--

whose sun is this blaring
on the concrete floor?

fetch glasses of water 
to make small oceans--

i cannot drink anymore out of
fear of short circuiting--

i want to be a lightning cloud--

zeus kneeling in my joints--

the life of a cyborg 
is one of borders & no-borders--

i sometimes tear holes in
the neighbor's chain link fence--
eat rust-- taste rain--

blood tastes like metal &
metal tastes like skin--

whose handy-work am i?

whose make-shift daughter?

when i'm done you might not
recognize me--

i'm painting my glass
eyes blue in the bathroom
mirror--

i'm searching for spare parts--

(just so you know)
i'm keeping my collar bones--

& when you touch these 
contradictory skins
i can recall all

the fragments of
this body--

when i ask you to 
touch me it is not that
i want to be made whole

it is that i want 
you to inhale these ironies--

the robot & the boy
who stand barefoot--
lean on bed posts

i want to be your stained glass
window--

drip the sunset over me--

do not be afraid of
the cold parts--

i took the spokes of 
my old bicycle for ribs--

reflectors behind my eyes--

the darkness is only
the end of a yo-yo string--

the sun in coming back 
& when it does i'll tell you
a better story about me--

in the mean time 
i want to be held--

the machine was a girl &
she had pig tails--

you are why i keep this skin 

am i too cold?

mute

when i was 7 i discovered the mute button--

held the remote out like a wand--
separated sound from the room--

where did their voices go on the television
screen as the news caster discussed 
the recession & the threat of hurricanes--

tongues meet in the rafters of
the garage like birds-- 

feral cats telling secrets on 
the concrete stood 

i banished mouths

i sent our names into exile--

i took the remote with me
to school in my blue & yellow
back pack & sly pointed it
at teachers--

eradicating their voices--

oh stone her-- she's 
playing hop-scotch alone--

that's me under the maple tree
where the caterpillars are
fat & wearing over coats--

i turn the sounds of recess
on & off with the red 
button at the top of the grey remote--

no one seems to notice but me--

i bask in flickering silences--

the kind of ballet of mouths
opening with no noise--

Clay skinned his knee & 
no one heard him holler until
i took him off mute

for a moment i crouched there--
dirty-knees in the shadow blanket
of the tree wondering

if i should let him scream--

i felt god-like

taller than a swing-set--

how tempting it must be for
god to not extract all sound from
our landscapes--

silent film-- we'd turn black & white 

he wouldn't do it forever--

just so he could rest--

taking warbler throats in mason jars--
wind chimes in a bouquet by 
heaven's front door--

he would probably hesitate 
before muting 
my mother's dissonant 
kumbaya as she rocked back & forth
at the side of my bed--

i was 4 & i now i'm 
too old to remember what her voice
sounded like in the capsule of
my bedroom--

night light eats us--

car tires in the rain
make no hush--

what sound does a candle make?

when i came home from school that 
day i set the remote
back on the coffee table 

took a step back--

went into the bathroom
to test out the function of
my own voice

singing "Yellow Submarine"

my soft lady-bug tongue--

swarming--

fogging up the mirrors--

don't mute me god

i know i can be difficult
but look at all this sound in me

exit 422 towards pottstown 

i almost always miss the exit home--

road turning vein-- turning tail light fangs
turning water--

faucet handle highway--

wash my hands in rock salt & left lanes--

kiss the steering wheel--

i drive inconsistently

sometimes inspired, i'll go 73
miles per hour in the left lane-- 

passing a mega bus & several white
vans with angelic headlights--

other times my volvo's engine 
earthquake grimaces-- 

i don't always notice myself
slowing down until all the other cars
flick their left turn signals
to rush around me 

50 miles per hour on the 
schuylkill expressway

i get possessed by radio tower ghosts
& the neon signs of Chinese restaurants 
as i leave the city

you said that you always
wanted to make a model & i said
i once made a model of the titanic

the truth is i never finished it--
i didn't seem worth finishing
a craft that will inevitably sink

but see the city in rear view 
mirrors is only a handful of
christmas lights-- 

a model that we could set 
on your kitchen table--

listen for the chirp of
car horns & sirens--

there's me slowing down
in the right lane--

the size of a bell--

independence hall still ringing 
with treason--

i always miss my turn
or i take the wrong exit--

it goes without saying that
i'm usually preoccupied thinking
about you--

specifically about how you
have the power to stop the city--

could you teach me to be a model?

helicopters drop like mosquitoes

the sidewalk-- a fault line
to fall in

when you walk away from 
my car i wait a minute or so
in silence--

a men in a beige coat walks his
white terrier--

i want to wave to him but 
i know that's not really proper
city etiquette at 9:30 at night--

i know i'll miss the turn
again--

the best part is having
to take the next exit at valley forge--

it loops me back around like
thread through the head of a needle--

i feel carousel

record-player

back on the same road as i started

i could miss the exit again &
again & again 

trapped in rear views of
a city on your coffee table--