slot machine 

someone asked me "are you american?"
& i said, "no, i am a slot machine"
which is another way of saying "yes,
& i do not know what that means."
in the airport at midnight in las vegas 
all the purgatory seats surround an altar of chance.
the planes take off like coins. my flight 
is delayed & there are ghosts mixed with travelers
mixed with disciples mixed with glorious non-believers.
i wish i was a non-believer but instead
i consider the odds. a woman tells a man
as he returns from the pulpit,
"i thought you were winning?" he says with
a hint of despair, "i lost fifty."
i am just tired enough to think, "maybe
the lights would give me fifty." balance the scales.
let me eat something sweet & ruthless. 
i check my bank accounts for the third time today. 
i buy water in little space ships. have i avoided 
a confrontation with the machine if 
instead, i watch others play? press a button.
cascades of digital gold. i am prying apart
the words "country" & "land."
"gold" & "whole." "chance" & "destiny." 
i miss the call for boarding. end up
at the back of the line between a man 
who keeps trying to call someone 
who will not pick up & two children who
do not let go of each other, their guardian
gripping a stroller, eyes shut. i savor the un-american
parts of me. the yearning to be swallowed
in places like this. to be unexceptional. 
to make it home in pieces. an unnamed part of me
left behind in the miniature sin city 
that glows loud & wordless 
out the tiny airplane window. 

stone soup

before i knew the stone soup story
i thought people gathered to eat the rocks.
that maybe in the boiled water
even the stones softened like sesame buns.
a sweet ringing kind of broth. 
in our yard on summer mornings 
i used to sometimes put a pebble
in my mouth while they 
were still cool from the night. once it turned into
a new moon. i was on the surface 
looking down at the gumball world. 
at the diner in the town where i grew up
if you go there in the dead of night
they'll still make you a black & white milkshake.
then if you say, "could i have a stone?"
they'll lead you to the quarry where 
a glider crashed when i was in high school.
no one inside. a roasted bird or pterodactyl. 
i get a pot & go into the yard. i pluck
all the smoothest stones i can find.
i ask the ghosts to help me. the work 
with their third & fifth hands. a pot
heavy with pieces of the thrumming earth.
fill with water & i get them boiling.
i know i am not jesus but i hope
they turn into fishes. i would release them
into the thickening clouds. a whole school
above. instead the rocks sing for us. they sing
about whales & about the earth's core.
how there is a pizza shop there that 
still sells dollar slices. it is 2002 & no one
knows yet how to microwave an apple. 
the water flies away. leaves the stones,
angry from the heat. there is no soup.
maybe in the story but not in the dark. 
i try to pick up a rock but it burns
through the floor & down into the crawl space
where the rats stare at it like a prophet
& then up at us through the floor. 

sick 

i get the disease from not using the moon
or at least that is what the telephone doctor thinks. 
(i can't afford a blood & guts one). 
all my teeth fall out so i sell them for 
a red wagon to carry my lungs in. 
it is so hard to remember all the ways
we are supposed to keep our bodies. i forget
to drink water & i turn into fruit leather. 
i don't remember to eat & find myself
a werewolf standing on the ridge & looking down
at the big ugly mcmansions that stain
the hillside. i don't breathe for days & then
i'm gasping & trying to take in as much air
as i can. i don't mean to neglect all these things
but there is only so many caramels in a sunrise.
only so many postcards that say,
"it is time for us to shuck you again."
i go to a secret healing fountain & there's
a cardboard sign hanging on it that reads,
"out of resurrections." i am used to disappointment
so i don't get too upset. i just go ahead
& book a television treatment. something
really loud & blue. i keep thinking that one day
i will get on top of all this bile stuff. i'll just
move through the world like everything
is silk. i have never felt like that. instead.
i put my bones in the dishwasher. i watch 
woo woo tiktoks about healing my inner bird.
the bird gets cooked costco style. i eat it 
with my hands tied behind my back.
the moon is here & i take it in the form
of a little dry pill. the shell tastes like
a beetle skeleton. i walk all the way down
to the place where the frogs are born
with my lungs in the little wagon. 
the frogs say, "we are sick too. how do you
fix this?" i tell them we all have to start
investing in clouds. or so i am told 
or was it buy a tree & dance? i can never remember
what we are supposed to do so i don't do
any of it. i bite my nails off. peel my flesh.
pick at my wounds like a cone-less dog. 

through the eye of a needle

i do not have a camel or even a dishwasher.
if i have learned anything in the last few months
it is that the other side does not exist.
i'm not talking about the afterlife. i don't
have time to worry about that. i mean 
whenever there is a door there isn't a door.
i mean they will show you a hallway of needles
& tell you the world is yours for 
the shaking. you will hold out a pinky finger &
try as hard as you can to fit through 
the eyes. none of them will open. sometimes 
i consider making a deal with a mosquito.
drinking garnet blood until i am as fat as i can be.
then, thinning to the size of a whisper & maybe
just maybe fitting through. 
we are giants to some creatures & ants to others.
when i was small & church-going i remember
the priest giving a homily about the phrase,
"it is easier for a camel to fit through the eye
of a needle than a rich person to get into heaven."
i guess i am in fact talking about heaven. i don't want
to be on the same side of the end times 
as rich people but the presence of an empire is always
a plummeting set of choices. you can be
the knob or you can be the hinge
but you can never be the way through. i sometimes
consider going to a psychic off the highway
because i would like someone to lie to me
really sincerely. for them to take my hands
& tell me that my (not dead) father is trying
to confess. i buy more needles. pile them in 
the dancing place by which i mean the bathtub.
if i dive in i will have to pass through one. 
i promise i'll write. i promise i'll bring honey 
even if it is just a thread's worth. i want to betray
every horror. be softer & maybe in the mix
of all of it, collapse the throat. never make it back. 

survivor man 

show me how to shuck a desert.
i watched in the summer when the windows
turned into gnat wings.
my brother & i home alone 
in the house without a door.
he put the leaves in his mouth. 
we would do the same in the yard
with the spring onions. surviving beneath
the sap-sick pine. he fished with his hands.
plucked bees from the sky. 
slept inside the body of a great beast.
sometimes i would take notes
in case i ever found myself
alone. the black  & white marble notebook
open like a butchered bird.
nothing but a knife. i took out
the kitchen knives & laid them in a row
on the table. traced the blades to find
which one was the sharpest. that one
i would steal in the event of a great
survival. when it rained. water soaked
through to his bones. i shivered too.
wondered what it would be like
to sleep in the yard without any skin.
i wished i could survive like he did.
instead, the summer shrank. my father
filled orange paint buckets with amber bottles. 
laughed at the lilting moon. 
boredom like a third brother in 
the old farmhouse. wind & the gritty speakers
at the local pool. school, the always impending doom. 
small again in the halls that smelled
like bleach. i wanted to crouch in the brush.
dirt beneath my fingernails. only for me
no camera crew. just the best kitchen knife
& maybe a lighter from the birthday drawer.

check engine light

let's see if we can just make it until the sun
finally bursts. it won't be that much
longer now but i don't want
to live through the end of the world
without a getaway car. plus you & i both know
you are not ready to die. 
i put the key in your mouth 
& close my eyes. i drive eyes shut &
just hope we end up where we're supposed to.
gas stations bloom & we go to drink 
some sick nectar. 
i wish my skull had little lights like yours 
to show people walking by that i am
not all there. that there is something
unnamable wrong. i always think
the check engine light looks like
a little fist. a clenched halo. we drove you once
for miles & miles with no oil at all.
you bleed beneath the parking spot. 
couch up a dinosaur. every time we get
on the highway i beg you, "let's keep it going
just a little longer." one more city.
one more road. one round-about. 
the brief solar systems we make. 
i put the key into my own mouth
to try it out. a thrum inside my chest.
a sea of gasoline. a beast for an engine. 
i keep a map in the glove box 
in case i have to walk home without you. 

hitch-hiking 

i can find my way home. 
i am done ubering places. the smell
of strangers' cars. their sadness
& my sadness making a sick soup.
since our car wouldn't start last week
i have been trying anything.
once on the side of the road i saw
a few deer grazing. i offered them
one of my hands if they would take me
back to the hole in the earth 
that i climbed out of. they did not
accept my hand which was lucky
because i needed that for the vultures
who brought me to the coffee shop
on hamilton the next day. they tossed
it around a little like a fidget toy.
i was hoping they would attached it
& consider taking up an instrument 
or something else they couldn't do before.
money is always winged but not
in an angel way, more like in a moth way
or, truly, in a cloud-of-gnats way.
you smack what you can. i stick my thumb out.
this is why i insisted on keeping 
one hand. a truck pulls over. the man driving 
says, "this hull is full of ghouls
are you sure you want to get in?"
i shrug. it's better than guns or bombs.
he takes me past where i was supposed
to get out. we keep going & going.
i do not beg him to stop. i am so tired
of trying to get somewhere. i am so tired of
searching desperately for doors
only to find them opening to brick walls.
when we finally stop it is in another state.
the one without a name or country.
a gas station where we eat something 
full of glorious sugar & fat. 
he says, "i do not know where i am going.
i will take you home soon."
i do not rush him. i let him run the truck
into pieces. the ghouls run free
like decapitated balloons. we sit side by side
on a lost people bench. 
stick our thumbs out & wait. 

stick your neck out

i'm ready to be charcuterie.
get the tiny knife to do the trick.
there are not enough ghosts 
for us to round up anymore.
we'll have to make some. i'll use
the tub. i'll use the binoculars.
our neighbors are home from
wherever they go in their big truck.
i wonder if they think about us
when they're gone or if they 
pretend they do not live on
a winding road on the edge of everything.
the mountain is on fire. my mountain
is on fire. by "my" i don't mine 
"this is what i own" but instead,
"this is what holds me." i've started to make
the big calculations. how much danger
are i ready for? i watch the news 
& they are plucking people from
the ground like eagles & rodents. 
i know i'm just a field mouse
who learned how to text. my neck
starts to grow. not like a giraffe but
like a goose. i buy bigger & bigger hoodies.
my partner says, "this is enough."
that is the problem though. there is 
always another person who needs
a ride. there is always another way
to be fed. he locks the door at night
so i don't keep going out flying. the geese
are in full force. they are not going
anywhere. no more migrations.
the government said we don't get
to leave anymore. i make a burn pile.
my head reaches the sunset. fills my mouth
with orange creamsicle. i'm ready
for the carving. when they jar my head
i hope i turns into gooseberry jam.
that i feed someone & they cannot shake
the urge to do the same. my partner
buys a kite. sends it up with a note
that says, "i made dinner." the night
has all the men still working. the fork
is never long enough to reach my mouth.
i do not eat but i know it tastes so good. 

salt lick

i get waterfall mouth. no one
is going to take the sky from me.
i've watched movers come
& remove our bones pile by pile.
we showed them the holy stone.
how it thrummed like a vein
of fish. the taste of salt like a twin knife.
one in the teeth & one in the dirt.
i will take my risks. come to where
my body calls. sometimes it is
in the den of guns. other times 
it is on the side of the road
where no one remembers.
hitchhikers join us in partaking. 
a bent knee. a wooden moon. 
i mistake real trains for ghost trains
& ghost trains for real trains.
there is not always enough time.
get in get out is the advice i give.
it's not comforting to know you are
feasting in the realm of meat
but since when has a body been 
about comfort? 
for prey, our bodies are 
a site of betrayals.
call of the stones. waves far away 
eating at our hooves. i want a tongue
i can turn into a bomb. turn over
& there is the shiny destruction.
decades ago men filled the mountain
with dynamite. salt burst into the sky.
we opened our mouths.
closed our eyes. ate. 

bird bath 

if i were a better poet i would
tell you the truth. i know we're all
past wanting that though. i used to have
a bird bath in my bedroom. i left my window
open to the world. first it was just chickadees
& wrens who came. then larger & larger birds.
a hawk & a vulture. then the impossible birds.
the pterodactyls & boys. my father lives now
in my childhood bedroom & i don't know
if there is still a bird bath. i hope there is
for his sake. who or what
does he invite? we have always been
the same. prone to secrets. collectors.
rocks & feathers & exoskeletons. yesterday
at an intersection in my hometown
i saw a person i used to know. he was driving.
or maybe he wasn't. i have invented him
places before. in new york, once i  thought i could
run into another boy who lived there. one in
millions. we are not as rare as we would like
to think. the orbits that run us. then there was
a bird bath again & the boy was in the bath
& i was weeping. i remember so little 
about him now. i keep boys like rosary beads.
my thumb runs over them always 
in the hopes of getting away. i have never
washed myself there, instead, i've always let
the baths be for other creatures. 
when i got home i thought about his car.
a burnt orange. i thought about the chickadees
& how they kept me company when i was dying.
there is never enough water to wash away
what you do not want to remember.
this is not the ritual of the birds. i ask them
what what they bring to the water 
& they say, "this is not water." i do not know
what they mean. i have driven to the ocean.
found a parking spot & walked out
to the big bird bath. the gulls turning
into boys. the boy driving away. his long fingers
curled around the steering wheel 
as if it were a wrist.