the moon fit on the face of a penny 

you can't tell the sun to 
go to sleep in august-- she
reads by flashlight
like i never did--
i envy the kids who had
that kind of focus to
crawl under their on blanket
canopies & walk on the roof
tops
of words-- have always been
a back porch person--
i don't pick up the moon on my
my night time walk because 
it's a heads down penny &
those are bad luck--
i'll wait for a day when it's a 
quarter or a nickle but never a dime 
because dimes have a way of 
getting lost-- 
i need an umbrella out here
to shelter myself from 
falling flower petals off
& stumbling stars--
the bees get drunk on the 
stone path from nectar & 
drops of star light--
they buzz in the backdrop
of disembodied voices--
the cicadas all hiding & singing--
a bird crooning to 
his lover from between
two telephone wires--
i remember the first time i discovered
binoculars in our attic--
i rushed outside to try them 
out on the night sky & they didn't
work too well at catching stars but
across the yard i saw our
neighbor in her window--
so much like a ghost in a pink bathroom
& maybe she was washing dishes &
maybe she was wiping off her hands--
her mouth moved like a puppet 
& i couldn't see who she was talking to
but she smiled in a way that you
only do when no one is watching you &
i felt so small-- like my entire
existence could fit inside the frame
of a penny or a moon--
i stepped inside the lens of the binocular 
so that i could see everyone like that--
in their windows-- making themselves 
a game of quiet charades--
i turned back to my own
window & saw myself their combing my
long brown hair wet from a shower--
i want to wave to her but i'm stuck
inside the left binocular-- focusing
in on the moon & trying to
see the face everyone has been talking about--
when i climb out the bruises
of dusk are gone & the night 
is heavy in the downpour
of street lights & blinking
kitchen windows--
my neighbor has left the portrait
her figure made behind the glass & i 
hang the binoculars back around my neck--
i go back to the stone path around
my house where i walk myself 
into a blank page-- my body a
comma maybe or an em-dash--
i trust a night in august--
she's reading the people in
their windows like no one expects to
be watched-- 
the august night is somewhere between
a mother & a dropped coin--
pick her up & keep 
her in your back pocket
for when the sun puts the street lamps
out-- as careful as an acolyte--
snuffing out her candles one
by one--  

take your shoes off at the door

let's escape back into our
bodies tonight-- i want to show 
you something inside me.
go ahead--
strap me down in the dentist 
chair. this time i won't squirm
quite as much.
fight sleep with me-- 
fight laughing gas--
fight anesthesia 
     fight the rustling
of the moon in my back pocket--
here hold it for me & give it
back when we wake up--

often when i lay on my back
in bed i feel light bulbs
bursting from the ceiling &
there i am again getting
a cluster of teeth pulled out
or a hole drilled so far
in the back of my head that
i didn't know 
i had teeth there--
mouth fulls of the taste
of gloves.

i'm inviting you inside-- peel
my mouth open & take off
your shoes before
you enter-- one 
step
     at a time-- use my teeth
as a staircase & slide down 
my gravely tongue.

what all do you keep in the
small cavern of
your body? 

how much of yourself
have you eaten?

take notes on the stalagmites
& stalactites & forget
which one's are on the ceiling
& which ones grow like 
crooked dog's teeth--
remember to hold
hard lemon candies beneath
your tongue or in the
pockets of your checks like
a secret-- growing thinner
& thinner until it is spoken.

i wanted to show you what i look
like on the inside-- all
pink & full of watermelon vines
from
all the seeds i've gulped down
without thinking-- 

trim the apple trees trying
to take roots in my pelvis--
visit the grape vines making
a loom of my ribs--

take me in-- 
fill your backpack with
fruits-- 
write down my laughter
as it descends down
the lining of my throat--
make sketches of the fears
god etched in my bones with 
a paring knife--

before you go 
i want 
you to walk back up the staircase
of my teeth-- crawl higher 
& take a seat behind
my eyes-- 
adjust them 
like your own kaleidoscopes
a handful of color--

i take the moon out of my 
back pocket as a snack
& everything inside me
turns bright & brilliant--

have you been brave enough
to eat planets out of the sky?

put your shoes back on
when you exit-- 
i'll still be laying looking
up at the ceiling--
half expecting it crash down
on me-- half expecting the
sun to come barging through-- 

dress up

did you notice tonight 
how all the trees are made of your 
great-grandmother's yellow sweater?
you step outside to go harvesting because
you remember losing that
sweater at the museum 
when you were shorter than the
kitchen counter. 
you dreamed about it for
weeks after your mother told
you it was one of the last things
she had left from her grandmother--
you remembered how it felt around you
& wondered if she knew you were 
wearing it.
you don't know your grandmother's
name or what her face looks like.
sometimes you wander out
into the forest in the back yard--
the one that spills down from
the mountain.
the trees are made from all
your dead relatives clothing
& the bushes are ripe with 
costume jewelry--
broaches & clip-on earrings &
necklaces of fake pearls strung as
plump as blueberries.
they're engorged from
weeks of eating moonlight.
you walk until you can't see
the porch light anymore & 
sleeves dangling from each branch 
sway in the tentative july breeze--
as you walk the clothing takes
you into the skeletons of
different people--
your grandfather's blue jeans
sag around your waist until
a leather belt pulls them up with
a whoosh from the belt wrapping tight
& your back bends like
a comma-- 
take a breath & 
swallow your feet into your
other grandmother's pointy
colorful shoes-- 
the glossy ones 
with the squares of red & blue
& pink & lime green--
around the bend hangs
the grove of your father's 
canvas shoes. 
in side it dwells each pair he
laid to rest-- 
gnarled laces
dripping between brambles
of misplaced zippers-- 
they knot
you up like spider webs.
you try them on one at a time &
eventually you find a pair that
fits you-- they're black (of course)
& the souls are so worn down that
you can feel each stone
beneath your feet.
the farther you walk the more
layers of clothing you gather--
a shimmery blue dress with frills sewed
by your grandmother-- a rain bonnet
from aunt joan-- a turtle-neck sweater
from cousin donna & 
your mother's jean overalls with the
pocket in the front--
heavy & hot with clothing you
kneel by the moon--lay down
to sleep in the blankets of clothing
& jewelry the trees have adorned you
in-- they sing about how beautiful &
handsome you look to be able to pull
off so many different fashions--
ears bitten full of clip-on earrings  &
neck embroidered with reigns of 
fake jewels you
close your eyes & wake up empty
in the back yard where we have
always only had two trees--
neither of which make of sleeves--
your eye lobes still throb 
from the clip-ons.

drive us home

drive us home.
the tide is coming in again.
the sky bruises from
your body smacking up
against hers
in your uncontrollable
attempts at flight.
you were trying
to shatter a hole
through the sky to let
the stars in. 
they swarm like gnats 
buzzing against the flushed
face of a lamp bulb on the porch.
i drive home at dusk because
i like to watch the way 
the land changes in the dark &
how august grows out everywhere
to take you in--
you get to feel like a blood
vessel or a jupiter beetle.
whatever happened to all the lightning
bugs?-- i ask to no one 
from behind the wheel of my car.
i remember them as i'm 
bat by corn husk eye-lashes 
-- their bodies whipping 
under a trance
from the moon.
she's growing fuller
with each headlight philosopher
who pauses to think about how
much their bodies have changed.
we become part of 
the rising of tides of corn.
we're lost but we don't know it yet
because of how much different the road
looks at night with the shadows 
loaning their bodies to 
everyone's ghosts.
i want to be smaller & wet
from a shower--
pretending i just stepped out
from the rain forest--
i want my father to hold
me in a towel like a bruised
plum-- i pull leeches
out from under my eyes & my
skin is left the color
of the last notes of sunset--
we've written so many poems about
dusk that it almost felt futile
for me to try to tell you
about how the drive home feels
sometimes-- especially
when your car grows a sail & the 
tides rise under the glow
of the occasional porch light--
we're nothing really.
we're a collage of memories about
falling asleep in a passenger seat
& trying not to let the waves 
sweep us under & into the soft
wet soil--
i want to be peeled open
like an ear of corn--
yellow & white & listening 
for the wind to teach the fields
to hush--
i spend the whole drive wanting to just
pull over--
i don't know what i would do once
i was pulled over but
maybe i could run my thumb over
the bruised forehead of the coming night
sky-- 
pluck out a few stars like blueberries.
i'll keep them in my pockets 
 &
promise to give them back someday 
on another ride home when
i think too much about all
the hurt i've given the sky
to make her bruise so easily
under the weight of people
wanting
to go back to homes they no
longer have & bodies they
no longer live in--
i see her in the shadows 
off the stalks-- a small girl
as tall as an ear of corn--
i bite down & gnaw
her out of the road.
i tell her to help me
drive home without falling asleep
& she does & 
back in my room i wonder
how much of the roads we
drive are made from fragments of
our old bodies teaching us 
what it means to grow--
peeling us open & tossing away
each layer of husk until
we're naked & white &
laying face up on our beds--
body sprawled open
to catch any stars if they 
should fall-- buzzing & burned
from the scortch of the moon. 

on learning your body is a fig tree

the first time you wrap your
breasts you understand fig 
trees in winter. 
in the north east 
they grow like permanent immigrants--
a constant process of waiting-- 
passports in their pocket-books & 
they trim their finger nails
in the sink & think to themselves
how their body comes so easily apart
like the lobes of a clementine
or the unfurling of the moon
as it's whittled down by 
a dull-knifed god who whistles 
in apple seeds until there
is nothing left of it in the sky--
a dark night of star fragments &
cloud--
all of the lunar body 
sold away to keep his dandelion
promises 
& all there is left to do is wait
with your  
roots balled in the
back of a garage-- 
remaining
there till the windows clear 
of frost--
you grow figs on the inside of
your body-- plump & 
glistening like sugar stones--
you slice them off with 
a paring knife & crouch naked 
on your knees to see what the inside
looks like 
a fist of syrup dripping
between your fingers--
you say 
"this. this is my body"
wrapped tight & you 
spend the rest of the day
picking the fig fruit
from inside yourself-- filling
cardboard pints & giving
them away 
to let strangers 
eat them & tell you that
they taste strangely melancholy--
like stale gummy worms or 
over-ripe peaches--
brown & drunk with sun--
so i wrap myself up tighter
again & wait for april to
come with the fruits again--
faint & green protruding
from my chest-- i prune myself
in the bathroom mirror &
branches collect on the tile floor--
leaves clog the drain &
i stand impossibly ripe
in the shower trying
to stop my body's shape from
blushing hot in the sun--
i'm starting with a paring knife
across my shadow-- 
one fig at a time & then
wrapping myself up tight again--
i pray to stop growing like this &
i watch god replace the moon
with a heads-down penny 
from his breast- pocket-- 
he promises
tomorrow night he'll flip it
& we can make bets about
the color of the apples this year. 
being trans means owning
a body like a fig tree-- 
a clogged
drain full of leaves &
an obsession with watching
how gracefully the moon can change
her shape without thinking--

vending machine pilgrimages 
to the edge of a dial tone

1.
approach the vending machine &
try several times to insert
the crinkled dollar bill from
the back of your pocket--
the one with someone's phone
number scrawl above washington's
head like a password--

2.
write down their number
in your phone contacts 
& tell yourself you'll
call them one day &
let them know that their
phone number is on a dollar
floating above washington's
head like a halo--
maybe a lover scribbled 
the contact down after a night
in the city together--
by the light of passing street
lamps in the back of
a taxi 
he promised to call back--
he always promises to call back 

3.
enter the code
for the item you
intend on purchasing with 
the crinkled dollar which
the vending machine finally
accepts after several
pleads & presses

4.
enter 'EXIT'

5.
wait a moment to ensure
no one else is watching you--
no one else is allowed to
be watching you--

6.
when you think you're
alone is when you should be 
most cautious--

7.
open the flap & reach your
hand inside like you mom 
always told you not to do
even if your bag of twizzlers 
was caught on a rung
on the way down--

8.
there is a moment of 
disbelief when you first encounter
a vending machine-- it's
as if you alone have the power to
conjure items from 
the slot at the bottom--
when i would visit my mother
at work i liked to sit 
in the break room &
parcel out my quarters to make
the most items as possible
fall from the little rows
inside the vending machine--

9.
now open the flap wider--
yes wider--
yes like the mouth of a snake--
clutch the quarters in your fist

10.
now it's wide enough to 
crawl inside--

11.
crawl inside--
make sure you shut the
flap behind you-- you wouldn't
want anyone else getting ideas--
this is yours now--
all yours--

12.
peel back past the rows of
marching items--you're here to
go deeper

13.
you reach farther & your
hand touches a dark damp
surface like dewy grass &
you can't see anything but
you know you have to go further--
it's dark back there behind
the rows but it's getting
bigger & bigger & less cramped--
& after yanking through the snugness
everything is open-- black 
& vast & blaring--

14.
silence can be so loud

15.
you don't think about
leaving or how you would leave 

16.
you think about wrapping your
entire body in plastic--
you think about silence & 
how loud it is
you remember feeling around
at the back of your closet
after reading 
the chronicles of narnia 
& wondering if there would
ever come a day with a door
just to escape through

17.
& in the darkness you
remember the number on the dollar
bill-- you repeat it over & over
so you won't forget but
for the first time 
you can't find your phone so
instead you whisper the numbers 
over & over as if pressing keys  
in the air with your tongue

18.
dial tone
dial tone

the birdcage metaphor

i will be another person
to describe my body
as a birdcage-- only
this
time it's being used 
as a garden & i can feel
the purple petals of the
african violets pressing
up against each rung of
my chest-- 
i spit out flowers & my
esophagus become a stamen  
my tongue grainy & dripping
with pollen i double over
like daffodils after a bite
of post-winter frost--
heave yellow dust from my
mouth & out my throw crawls
the heads of the hydrangeas--
i open wider to pull 
them out-- 
one by one--
each cloud of petals reminds
me of tufts of cotton candy
& i take a bite but it reminds
me how bitter flower petals are--
i take a match stick
to the dripping purple & blue
hydrangea skulls & they ignite--
burn like basement light bulbs
or dim porch lamps cluttered 
with moth wings--
the petals push harder & harder
on the inside of my chest--
there's no way out but through my
finger nails & there's never been
enough fire to take from the
moon to prevent my body from
going up in a blaze of vine
& bloom-- 
this is the kind of
death we get;
on our knees mouth wide open 
& full of burning flowers
we can no longer pull out--
this is another birdcage 
metaphor about what it's like
to live trapped inside a body--
& the hydrangeas are my mother's favorite--
she says they used to grow 
around the outside of her grandmother's
house-- & sometimes i ask myself
what kind of house i'm living in--
with no room to breathe between 
the impatient fists of violets 
& the grit of yellow pollen
on my teeth--
i bloom burst & take my freckles off
as seeds to plant some flower
less likely to catch fire in the
heels of my feet-- stems
branch up through my ankles--
wilt with me 
in this post-winter frost--
can't you feel the pollen under your
tongue? dry & sweet 
& prying apart your teeth
to make room for more petals-- 

candles.

when i was seven or eight
(or some other age lost in
heaps of summer)
i used to prayed for power outages. 
the silent flicker & then
darkness in the flailing arms of
july storm-- the whole family in 
the living room screams 
at the abruptness of the dark--
we're reminded what we've been
using to sweep night from
the living room floor along with
the tails of the poisoned mice--
my father would
open the top drawer farthest
to the left all full of lighters &
half-used boxes of birthday candles
to take out
our baptism candles because those
were the thickest ones
we had aside from the pink &
purple ones from the advent wreath--
we could have pretended it was
four weeks till christmas--
lit a candle every hour
until midnight-- without the clocks
we could own time & 
i secretly hoped that it would go on
for days--maybe forever even--
i could imagine being
happy in a future without 
power & maybe i would tell my children
decades later after they were born by
candles that there was a time
when lights flickered like
eye lids & the street lamps 
carried our names like postage stamps--
i walk out onto the
porch & notice that my skin
glow out there as if my flesh were 
a white burning candle ignited
by the wind striking matches against my
skin-- i become the first candle
to only flicker under the barrage of
rain-- nothing put me out
& my father sits on an upside down
paint bucket &
inside two candles sit on the
kitchen table-- a third my mother
finds 
makes the room smell like evergreen
forest & the christmas tree's ghost
comes back a skeleton bare of needles--
the lights flicker back on suddenly 
as we're climbing the steps to bed
& i am always disappointed &
i always imagine myself running around
the house & turning everything off
again so that is can be dark &
we can glow on the porch--
match stick bodies-- each
inch of skin struck into fire--
the night becomes a mouth of 
ash-- we blow out the baptism candles
but the room still smells faintly of
of a pine scented yankee candle. 

for reader,

some people nimble
on flyleafs like
stale potato chips or
waltz with their tongues
savoring the forward but
i am a devourer of
dedication pages--
i want to know what the story
would be like if we left
off there-- in
the lips of an author
attempting to leave their words
for someone-- so many books
left to mother's without
names-- let's all write
a book for our mothers & 
leave it on her door step--
& maybe she'll never read
past her dedication page or
maybe she'll read the whole
thing & feel like it didn't
have an ending--
if i open the book & only read
the dedication maybe i'm
a different type of reader 
sifting for a life at either 
end of an novel--
a brief shout of a human who 
tattooed their mouths into
pages-- kiss
me like you would or mother--
i become frantic--
tearing through all my favorite
books to find out who they're for--
stuffing crinkled pages into 
my mouth--
for eugene-- for ester--
for my brother-- for ted for
jeanne & art &
the front steps of my house
that have become my jaw--
for the porch in the summer
leaking with rain-- for mornings
without power in the great snow
storm-- for dry june thunder--
for wet grass turning into
an ocean-- for the windowsill
in the girl's bathroom on
the second floor of the high school
that still hold our worries--
& i sit on the floor
of my bedroom in a mess of books 
stripped of their dedication pages--
mouth full of someones
& i bend over to pull them all
out again--
no one is vast enough to 
hold so many names--
after i get them all
out of my throat their
names are still printed on
my tongue-- i hold up a napkin
that is also the first page
of a book i'm still writing--
i kiss it & it
says
for reader,
this is all for you--
for eugene-- for ester--
for my brother-- for ted for
jeanne & art &
the front steps of my house
that have become my jaw--
for the porch in the summer
leaking with rain-- for mornings
without power in the great snow
storm-- for dry june thunder--
for wet grass turning into
an ocean-- for the windowsill
in the girl's bathroom on
the second floor of the high school
that still hold our worries--
for reader,
for everyone who will
ever open a book-- peel out
the dedication page 
& thrust it to the back of their
own throat like a promise 
to read deeper--

the right two people 

i want this to be
a story where the right
two people just need to
kiss for everything to
mend itself back together--
i can lay here sleeping
& pretend to be beautiful 
if it would mean all
i needed was a kiss
for the grass to grow 
lush on my legs again--
up my thighs-- green & 
thick & full of anxious 
jupiter beetles
& resting lightning bugs
all waiting for night to
come back so they 
can walk in the blaze of
the moon--
they kiss each other awake because
that's the only way they
know how to begin again--
i often dream about replaying
a day to try again--
instead i feel like
i fight each day like an 
ice cube-- 
fading valiantly 
into a sweaty water glass
grasped tightly in the callous 
right hand of my father
on the porch outside-- 
his arms are collecting sun burn-- 
i think maybe if
i gave back my eyes--
let the crows kiss them out 
like black olives or 
fat grocery-store-grapes--
maybe i could feel tired
again 
& the stars would
stop fidgeting under the
supervision of the moon-- 
this round wound
tore in the night sky
also happens to be
my mouth trying to swallow
air to breath--
it keep getting clogged
with flecks of star light
& lightning bug homilies
from the grass--
maybe i'll be the one
to find those two
people-- the ones
who need to kiss each other
to make everything right
in the world--
i'm sure it's not
me because i spend most of
my day kissing picture
frames & escaping into
the grass growing
tall as the pussy willows
on my legs--
i hope they don't try to love
each other--
i hope they kiss & walk past
each other-- 
give a cordial
bow of mutual thanks for
mending everyone on earth
& continue on to opposite
sides
of the sky-- the sun eats
the moon 
every single time--