backseat poet; 
the art of stealing your
family member's tongues

my whole family fits
on the side of a pill capsule.
i plant it under my tongue
to remind me of how to write
about this kind of love--
it's dry & silent to swallow--
full of so many voices
all tangled in saliva & 
crooked block-tower teeth--
we gather our yanked molars
collecting under each pillow 
& my uncle gambles with 
his baby teeth that never
fell out-- 
we play black jack at the kitchen
table between mounds of dirty
dishes-- we used the fine china so
it was probably christmas
before our table shrank to
the size of a pill capsule--
that's how i like us--
a quiet pocket of voices 
all knotted in my mouth--
you like to make jokes now
about how you're all going
to end up in a poem & it's 
true because you will-- 
i have all of you under my tongue--
& every bruise-- every plate--
every night where the moon
was too thin to hold a deck
of cards-- they're all
right here burning ulcers
in my gums--
count to twenty-one with me--
bite black licorice out
from between the grey night clouds--
my parents had two sons
& a back seat poet--
every single word i swallow 
until i'm too full of us
to not break open in stanzas
stacked next to the piles of 
dirty dishes that christmas
when we counted to twenty-one
until the moon was too heavy
for all of our teeth--

the hurricanes will
name themselves after us

i want to live so
loudly that the wind blows
my body apart like the
head of a dandelion-- 
let the people come 
makes wishes
on my limbs-- 
take my femurs
to use for oars for the flood--
we will
live full of storm-- full
of cracked-egg rain 
& jaw breaker
hail-- 
cracking our
teeth into pollen-dust-- 
to live as a poet is to 
watch your body roar gold &
then thin out into
soft white flecks of word--
you become so weak you 
have nothing left to do but
let the wind take each of your
words &
plant new bodies for
them to dare call weeds--
oh yes we grow like weeds-- a contagious 
kind of bone--
what have you known about
how the hurricanes name themselves?
out in the atlantic their bodies
knot into fists-- 
they tell their father's to spin
them on the merry-go-round--
or twist them on the swing set--
tighter & tighter
& they hollow out their
centers to call an eye & that
is where they sit to decide on a
name 
& what better to name a hurricane
than after 
a girl whose eyes are full
of lightning-- who breaths
louder than thunder 
& stumbles
as her body shakes the pollen
from all the plants on earth--
live so loudly that the hurricanes
fight over your name--snap tree
like wish bones to haunt
your mouth-- open wide to
eat the eye of the storm--
live live live 
like a dandelion--
unashamed to exist only 
for wishes & falling to pieces--
live like a beautiful disease
that takes root in an open mouth--
open your own mouth only
to catch hale in your teeth--
the fragments of moons shrinking
& falling to earth
out of their assigned orbits--
when you are finally tired & you
have scattered each one of your bones
the children of the hurricane
will come out of their hiding place
to collect the words you
leave strewn about the streets--
the ones that bent stop signs 
& ripped the red from traffic lights--
don't ever stop even when it hurts--
living loudly is like watching the 
world scream but when you
open your own mouth
all you can do is shake the
ground full of thunder--
& the hurricanes all pick my name
this year & they read my
poetry & throw my words 
violent tongues 
& catastrophic laughter--

where my umbrellas elope to

i've been wondering where
all my umbrellas have gone to--
i don't have any right now
& i have become one
of those people who 
duck & run through the rain
with their hood
up & their arms 
sarcophagus-crossed-- 
like every small girl
who measures herself 
in crayon lines on the wall
i opened like a field
full of umbrellas-- 
a wet sock 
goddess-- a rain boot
girl who splashed
in puddles with her mother
when the sky could not
longer contain all 
she was feeling-- 
there are few greater moments
of relief than watching 
the heavy clouds in july finally 
let themselves go 
in the type of rain that hit
the windows of our house
like a car wash-- like
a fist full of water balloons--
like a burst of sky laughter--
we take to the porch 
& she sighs the biggest sigh--
free of umbrellas & roofs--
none of us tried to cover
our heads & we
all soaked down to the marrow
of our bones-- we were rain
bodies now-- movements 
of the ocean on land--
& the land was the sea was 
the sky was the rain--
oh & in the highest moment of
the storm that's when they 
got away--
the umbrella by the door--
the one on the window still--
tucked in the coat closet--
sneaky little devils all opened
like poppies or like tulips
in april-- tangled themselves
in the laughter of the clouds 
& ran away with each other-- 
handle by handle eloping
to somewhere in the fists 
of rain
where they all hang-- suspended
by nothing but a belief 
in crying with your whole
body-- a belief 
in the eyes of the storm
to open like poppies or like
the umbrella over
our heads when you walked
me home-- 
you had to hold it
for both of us
because you were taller--
you were always taller--
if you decide to come back 
meet me when it rain in july--
when the tree in the play ground
behind the elementary school
pulls out her hair in the wind
in a destructive kind
of joy that only leads 
to temporary rivers 
down main street-- maybe we'll end
up there in the field
of umbrellas in the sky &
we'll be able to walk beneath them
& watch the water roll
off their heads like tulip petals--
i'll want to take one
home but i'll know it's where
they belong--
next time one of my umbrellas
finds love & runs away from
me i'll think of you & walking
me home & the moments we'd
let the rain soak through
our bones-- i won't look
for it again-- i'll let it
hold hands with another lost
umbrella-- plant itself
in the soil by the front 
porch-- 

decades

when we lived on main street
my uncle told me that
eventually i would be 
one decade old & 
i was scared
because i didn't want to
wake up one day & 
feel different-- 
i used
to wait up till midnight on
birthdays-- watch the 
digital clock brand
each minute into the night--
hot irrevocable numbers--
i put my hand up
to the minutes & let 
the heat char my skin--
each minute a burn-- 
in the morning i would
go down to the pink
tile bathroom & wrap my hand in 
toilet paper so no one would
be able to see what time had done to
me--
i was turning seven--
like we all were--
i looked out my bedroom window 
& wondered if the world would 
look the same if i were to 
let myself fall 
asleep in the body
of a six year old & wake
up seven--maybe i would see
new colors like the butterflies 
or maybe all the changes
happened when you turned ten
-- i waited for
the moon to become a paper plate
& i sat out by the back porch light
in a merry-go-round of lightning bugs
& cicada folk songs--
i picked the moon off the table cloth of
stars & filled it with
fruit salad & birthday cake--
a dinner & a midnight snack & 
a breakfast--
i like to eat alone & my birthday is
no exception--
i always take a corner piece of
cake to get the most icing--
a red buttercream rose
stains my mouth & i kiss
the moon with pink lemonade lips
before i put it back into
the sky to hold another little girl's 
birthday cake--
still scared to fall asleep & 
wake up different
i wonder if people still count birthdays
after they're a whole decade old--
i light one blue candle & blow
it out-- i can't tell you what
i wished for or it won't come true--
i'm not the only one still expecting 
the wishes i made on thin dollar store
candles--
there are certain types
of magic that take time-- blue
birthday candles-- the bloom of 
butter cream roses-- the hot
kisses on the face of
the moon & the changes you 
don't notice as you wake
suddenly a year older--
the cicadas sing a 
happy birthday & it is you
who has to light
each star & blow it out again--

the miller's daughter & 
all the other girls who turn straw into gold--

how many of us have 
been the miller's
daughter &
how many times will
they tell us
to turn their rooms of
straw into gold? 
this is just
the story of another woman
locked in a tower praying
the sky clean of magic--
laying face-up in a book
of fairy tales whispering
to every little girl who
can read
to 
run run run
these hands
were not made for miracles--
there is little to believe
in alone in the dark &
there wasn't enough straw
weave a ladder to
the moon-- 
oh the miller's 
daughter sold
her herself piece
by piece to rumpelstiltskin
like all of us were taught to 
do-- to crawl into 
the king's bigger & bigger
rooms of straw-- our bodies
a vessel for precious metal--
have you ever been
kissed like a gold earring?
he saw our noses like 
diamond studs--
on the third night 
we all cut off our hair 
in the hopes he might mistake it
for straw 
& turn us into gold too--
& when there is nothing left to 
trade she promised
the parts of herself 
she hadn't held
yet-- the children inevitably 
waiting to become flesh & gold--
we all have a demon we pray
to-- give away ourselves
knuckle by knuckle
by wrist by elbow bone
but if i were the miller's daughter
i would send the imp home
on the third night-- tell
him to turn another girl's straw into
gold-- my blonde hair on
the wooden floor i would 
crawl into the pile of 
straw & sleep there until
morning-- 
when the king would awake &
my father would awake
& rumpelstilskin would awake 
they would all see how small
i was in such a big room--
they would all know
there was nothing left to
do but to cut off the rest 
of my head along with my hair
& all through the next day &
all through the next night
i would hum
straw into gold
straw into gold
& a phantom of the demon 
would taunt me & promise 
me the world if only i would
let him turn the third room
of straw into gold--
but i would die like that
& when the king cut off my head
my left over hair would
fall to the stone ground
as a fist full of coins-- 
a laugh of everything
locked in tower rooms--
we girls were meant to take up
so much more space--
we girls were dismantled 
piece by piece to bargain for gold--
we girls die when we stop 
dividing ourselves up
for the devil in our windowsills--
for our father who tell us
to build a sky
for the kings who build towers--
there will be other girls
who keep their heads-- there will
be girls without knives to cut
off their hair-- there will be
girls without demons to sell themselves
to-- but i'll die in a heap of
coins as the miller's daughter--
eating my name while
children sing out out of story
books 
"Tonight tonight, 
my plans I make, tomorrow tomorrow, 
the baby I take. 
The queen will never win the game, 
for Rumpelstiltskin is my name'"

trust me with my own body

or what is left of it--
re-loving yourself is so much
like looking in a window--
i watch myself
take off my overall dress--
next, my knee high socks--
i wrap my shoe laces 
around the banister
as i creep downstairs to 
sneak out past the television's
night time vigil over
the living room as it tries 
to comfort the house with infomercials. 
i lay naked in the backyard
again-- an act of self-eviction.
the grass prickles me
like my own leg hair &
i don't notice all the bugs
like when i was eight
& my own freckles were too
loud to feel the soft
feet of ants or jupiter beetles--
i replace my femurs
with the connect-the-dots
of constellations-- 
i'm the big dipper
for you to fill with cold
soup or vanilla bean ice cream--
the cancer that grew claws 
& cut off orion's belt
to make a sling-shot--
i use it to fling softballs
into my neighbor's windows--
sometimes mental illness feels
like you're your own real estate 
agent-- only you're looking
for what place you used to
call your body--
every day brings another musty
type of rain-- the kind of rain
that smells like rotting books
& luke warm tea--
peel open the book spines 
looking for the way your own back used
to bend like the stitches
of a softball-- the window
breaks & the house fills up
with cricket prophecies & jupiter
beetles trying to hold
onto what was left of the moon--
there's a 'for sale' sign 
painted in red on my chest--
but that was always there--
he painted it on when he tore
off my shirt-- when he first 
used his claws to clip 
off my bra-- a sling shot
cut from orion's waist--
i only use my bras to throw softballs
now 
since he used mine as a 'for sale'
sign-- i've been up 
& down this street four times tonight
& none of these bodies
remind me of my own-- so
i lay down again-- set back to work 
replacing each bone with 
a pair of stars clasping hands--
my hips were made from the 
bodies of the gemini twins--
i feel like them-- like 
a mirror breaking into itself--
begging the red out of skin--
trust me with my own body again--
wherever it is i'll pull
it piece by piece
from the teeth of ursa major--
from the belt buckle of 
orion-- taking off his stars
to stand bare-bodied
in the heat of the moon--
there is no bed room to go
back to-- only a yard 
where the stars ascend in
the bodies of the fireflies--
i catch one in my cupped hands--
press her back into the
sky-- she dangles like a light bulb
on a string--

hook

we went fishing in 
the duck pond--
let my father skewer 
each wriggling worm on our
hooks--
they spoke to 
us in a sign language
we pretended to not understand--
watched them spell 'fear' 
in the contortions of their
bodies-- handfuls of hearts--
i heard each one louder 
& louder until the hook
entered their body & the worm
coiled into herself to relinquish 
all semblance of language--
mute at the violence of the hook--
we dangled them to catch
& release blue gills &
trout-- sometimes we
wouldn't have worms & my father
would ball up potato rolls
to stick on the end of the hooks--
no matter what i was always
scared of getting them caught on
my finger or any other part of my 
skin-- one year when the whole
family rented house in cape may 
a cousin flicked 
his line back & caught
his hook in his brother's freckled
shoulder skin &
with a flick of his wrist
tore into him--
ever since i have
trusted nothing about hooks--
so it is amusing now
that i open my bed room window
& sit on the ledge as if it
were the rock we cast lines
on-- this is another catch &
release only this time 
i'm plucking out the stars & using
them like potato rolls on the end
of a hook that
i found in the old tackle box
in the garage--
i'm fishing for my body back
after all these years of
living between the hearts
of a worm-- i'm here to eat
my own sign language-- 
bite into a hook & watch it
puncture my gums-- this
is the only way to come back--
catch & release 
catch & release--
there are not enough hooks
to hold onto my body--
i have gills as deep blue as
the night sky in july--
all full of moon belly &
lightning bug morris code--
i pull the hook out & the world
tastes like metal--
i know i'll have to haul
my body back up from the water
again-- this is what healing
feels like-- like fish hooks &
stars rolled up like potato 
rolls & you father listening
to your muddled sign language
that neither of you understand--
this is how a body cries for help--
this is how you catch yourself--
hook in mouth--
release me when you're done
so i can swim-- 

awake

when i was seven & i woke up
in the middle of the night
i would lay there & wonder
if i was the only person 
on the entire planet who
was awake-- i marveled over
the fact that if a star fell
i would be the only one
to report it in the morning--
sometimes i'd sit up like
an obelisk & watch the
nomadic headlights of cars
peer briefly into
my dark room--
i would imagined walking in
my pajamas down the double
yellow lines of the street outside
me house-- the cars would be driven
by the tree's shadows-- night puppets
made from moon glow & cicada
witchcraft-- 
i would walk through the empty town
& go back to sleep
on the front porch of our house
as if it was halloween & i 
was waiting for trick-or-treaters--
the older i get the more 
the guitar strings in my forearms 
start to rust & the more
my movements sound like
soda cans spilling from the recycling
bin & onto the driveway--
my wrists are tangled--
a nest of red wires & double
yellow lines to walk down-- there
are shadows beneath my veins
cast by the moon--
i'm trying to cut light into
my body-- 
on my back i think of all
the places i could be laying
when i fall asleep again--
the underside of a leaf-- the
neck of a shoe horn-- the bottom
of the stainless steel sink
where my father is slicing
watermelon even though he should
be sleeping--
he flicks the black seeds out
with the back of the knife &
vines grow thick in the backyard
where the new plants take root--
they eat bites out of the moon
like a great lemon meringue pie--
& then i'm sleeping
& everything has flooded--
the world is full of water
& i'm on the back of
a string ray as she glides along
the bottom of a fish tank-- her
arms flap in measured beats--
her wings are 
the hems of my mother's summer 
skirts-- we fly higher & higher
until i look over the side & below
us is the ocean of soy beans 
& gravel roads & cows laying down
in the rain--
i ask what a string ray is doing here
& she doesn't respond--
i wake up beneath the tree in my
back yard-- pull on a sweater
to cover the rusted tally-marks
i'd drawn on my forearms--
no one needs to know about
the guitar strings i drew
last night from the corner of my
room while the headlights searched
the darkness for me-- 
i swear to you there was a moment
there-- on the back of a sting ray--
from the bottom of the kitchen sink--
from the trapeze of double
yellow lines 
when i was in fact
the only human awake &
i was so big i could
fill the whole night with
my arms stretched out
like the wings of a sting ray--
take a slice out of
the moon & leave the rest for
everyone else who will wake up alone
before we all reunite in the morning
to talk about the fallen stars 
we saw while everyone else
was asleep-- 

rainbow parachute, the modest death of butterflies
 & our hearts against a feather

i don't remember much about
elementary school-- it exists
only as a series of nonlinear
narratives
strung together with 
summers as big as my mouth could
hold-- full of blueberries
& watermelon & spitting
cherry pits off the side
of a brick wall in the park--
there was of course first
grade when we all grew butterflies
& let them go in the courtyard &
i wondered if it would be possible
to tape little letters to their legs 
as messages for whoever found them--
i would later learn that most
butterflies do not eat once
they emerge from their
chrysalis-- a water-color spattered
decrescendo of life
wing flutter until
she would fall as silent as 
a pressed flower--
we made our own sarcophagus 
out of clay in what i think
was 4th grade & mine had the head
of thoth (an ibis) 
because he's the one
who weighs your heart against
a feather
when you float down the river--  
& in 3rd grade we all made indian names
as our earliest act of colonialism--
mine being 'blue feather'
& we pretended the classroom 
was an iroquois long house-- a bound
fire made of construction paper
heated the whole room--
i forgot about picture day
nearly every year & sometimes
accidentally wore
the shirt with the hole in the collar--
recess a caterpillar tree & 
fifth grade girls learning to 
watch the boys play football &
learning how to kiss under the yellow
slide-- hang upside
down from the monkey bars like
trapezes artists looking
for a glimpse of butterfly flight--
of all the moments there
is nothing i'm more nostalgic for
than the rainbow parachute
from gym class--
i was the only way i had encountered 
to thoroughly pause time-- no
one was big when the gym
teacher got out the parachute--
we were all small children who
knew we were small children
& in the moment we only wanted to
be small small children who 
were allowed to hide under the 
eclipse of the rainbow parachute--
all hands gripping around the circle--
a merry-go-round of color--
pinwheel out the window-- we all
lifted up the sides
as one bunch of children who
would come to forget each others names--
who would get our periods next year
up the hill in middle school & mistake
ourselves for dying--
who would never come this
close
to touching one another but
for a moment we butterfly flew-- 
& pulled the parachute down around
us to make a dome-- we were 
a colony of obscured sun--
a kaleidoscope igloo--
we all had done this before & we
all knew the sky we had made
would fall & yet for a brief
inhale of the fabric clouds we
could see of each other across
the great lung full of water color wind--
we were all a package-- a dumpling--
& as we let the sky droop
& our colony flatten we were 
draped in the parachute--
we landed each all alone--
poked our head out from the swishy
fabric & begged the gym teacher to
let us do it again & again 
& again 
until we were in fifth grade
& the sky was closer to
our hands & the clouds were just
another type of pillow
& the walk up the hill didn't make our
legs hurt &
when we pulled down the parachute
we thought only of how desperate we
were for a summer-- any summer
day-dreamed of spattering
ourselves like watercolor
& filling our mouths with watermelon
seeds again to spit out
into the back yard
& silently wish they would
all take root & grow a garden--
pull the parachute over
the sun like an eyelid with me--
we can be a lung together & we
can pretend our hearts are 
light enough to be blown away
as easy as dried butterfly wings--
light enough to float high 
above a feather
when the god with the head of
the ibis weighs our hearts
in the kiln room. 

fossil hymn 

the wooden chest in my
bedroom holds all types
of ocean-- too alive
to be a graveyard--
haunted by the spirits 
of sea urchins who 
now spend their days in
a desperate
search for their needles--
i open the drawers 
& open my
mouth to let the fossilized 
sharks teeth sing 
through my jaws-- 
they carry
words without syllables--
without tongues--
full of sand & old secrets
about where to bury yourself
to  become a fossil--
the skeletons of the dried
sea horses interlock their
tails & try to float
out the window-- but
i always catch them before
they can escape-- i tell
them this is where the
oceans are now-- 
waves crash in the third
drawer of our wooden
chest-- 
my father & i stole
the ghosts off the
beach so that we
could have a special place
to get lost in-- 
sometimes
when i'm trying to sleep
i hear it singing a song
that we sing in church around
lent or maybe it's advent--
it's a kind of purple song
that reminds me 
of the inside of conch shells--
like a throat or the soft
belly of a toad--
this song tastes like
blue cotton candy or maybe
like putting a dollop
of honey on the end of your tongue
the song melts
until it bleeds away entirely
to the faint hush of car tires
on the road outside my 
window at night-- there's somehow
always a car passing my-- headlights 
blaring like polished tiger shells--
on mornings when i feel like 
the world is too much to eat 
i take out the sharks teeth
& replace my own teeth
with them one by one-- i
use the needle-nosed pliers
to yank out my human teeth & 
i sing with the
razor teeth of grandfather 
sharks & the birds outside
the window remember the song
from sitting outside
a church somewhere but
they too can't recall exactly
where they last heard
a melody so old & purple