discovering the earth is flat

part of getting
older is figuring out
which parts of yourself
are loudest at night--
i'm here listening to
the cobblestones of
broken blood vessels 
up my thighs-- i'm sorry
body for making you
into a welcome mat
to wipe my muddy canvas
shoes on-- 
coming home again is
a process of taking
yourself apart--
learn to love like
shoe laces-- 
at night i lay awake
tired & full of tall-tale
stories not meant to be 
shared-- 
ones about
living on the inside of
my uncle's drum as he
walked down a road in
ireland 
we flow like
a trickle of blood from galway--
before the sun started
to blush tonight i
walked my feet full of blisters
& broke open the ocean 
beneath me as i stomped 
through puddles--
the water was a stained glass
window from the church where
i learned that we hold
god in our right hand--
when we were young we 
sat on the end of
our mother's bed & watched her
change out of her tight
cloths & thought nothing
of nakedness-- only
of the soft smell 
of her lavender-colored 
smell-- like a pretzel knot
of arms keeping you safe--
i have learned to keep
my discoveries 
inside myself but at
night they get louder--
whisper from both sides of
my pillow like two
lovers that i lay between--
i observed when i was very
young that the edge of the horizon
is flat & i'm not sure
what that means because no
matter how far i've gone
i don't think i've fallen off
yet-- i just know there's a ledge 
waiting somewhere over
the dotted yellow lines 
of the roads who get lost
in the corn & the soy beans--
when my mother told me the
earth was round i told
her that i couldn't see
any curve to the edge of
the sky & she told me the earth 
was too big to see a curve--
i'm still skeptical--
i look up old nautical maps
where giant ships spill off 
into the mouths of great beasts 
with elbows full of scales--
& the sensation of falling can
be so loud in my body 
that the pillows shatter
like puddles or stained
glass windows--
i scratch myself open
like horse hoofs clattering
on the stone roads through boston
that are too small to be
real-- 
my body becomes loud
about its smallness & about the smallness
of the earth-- how
dare we think we had escaped
the inevitable
ledge just because the earth
is a sphere-- the earth is
flat when you go too
far in one direction-- i wipe
my feet again 
on my hip bones-- ring
a door bell nestled in
my collar bone where you
learn to kiss me-- when 
i finally prove to you
that the earth is flat 
all things will be quiet 
then-- it will be morning & 
the sun will be back to 
cast shadows between 
our ribs-- what we keep 
lock in our own rib cages is
no one's business but our
own-- i get louder
& louder 
sprawled out
at night 
on the edge of my bed which
is also the drop off 
the side of the earth--
water gushes & sizzles
against hot pin pricks of stars--
i fall & for a second 
everything is louder
than a broken stained glass
window or the rapture
of a single blood vessel 
on my thigh--

adult swim monsters & watching
the titanic sink in the diving well

i make up a legend about 
adult swim--
i don't tell anyone but
i imagine 
that the lifeguards
have to let loose 
the sea monsters
lying dormant in the 
blue depths of the deep end &
they know that they won't
eat a few adults doing laps
back & forth in the big-kid
pool. i eat a twin popsicle
& i never split it right down
the middle like
i want to-- i eat cheeseburgers
& sometimes soft pretzels 
dipped in artificial cheese 
& my mom says it's gross 
but i secretly wish that all
cheese was bright orange
& warm & goopy--
when adult swim is over
i wash the crumbs off
my hands on the first dive--
open my eyes underwater to 
the blurry deep & i see tentacles
reach up around me--
the bold bright eye of a giant squid
opens to watch me-- i'm afraid of
the deep end monsters
who wriggle out of my dinosaur 
books-- still waiting
on my spongebob towel in
the grass-- a megalodon grins--
mouth full of dull kitchen knives--
brushes past my ankles--
so i pull my feet in & sink deeper now--
i wonder if i'll grow gills--
a mosasaurus makes a snap at my toes
& i resurface-- squirt water
out nostrils & spit chlorine 
from my mouth-- the air
is whiter & static from the chlorine
in my eyes & some high school kids
play basketball in their swim suites--
the thump of the orange ball on the
asphalt court sounds like the creaking 
of the mast of a ship--
i look & see in the diving well-- the
final glimpses of the bow of 
the titanic descend into the cold--
everyone knows the diving well is the 
most arctic place in pool--
i swim under again-- blink as the lights
of the ship blare at me & i see 
various items floating up
& away from the ship-- candelabras--
frilly napkins--
opera glasses & the bow of a violin--
when i listen closer i can hear the phantom
of the band still playing on the deck &
i think of how many passengers are still
below deck & i know that history
is like a tape deck & i can't go down there
& save anyone from becoming
part of the ocean-- 
when i come up again for
air my brother billy
is sitting on the side of the pool splashing
his feet-- he's eating a blue airhead
& he doesn't know anything about
what all is under water in the big kid pool--
they call adult
swim again & i leap out--
having survived brushes with prehistoric
monsters i'm not prepared for anything
larger that might come out
in search of children's feet like mine--
from our towels we split cheese fries
& i try to convince billy to try the diving
board-- i don't think he'd be able to
see the last moments of the titanic so
i don't tell him that i did--
it would make him sad to watch
so many instruments fill up with water--
echoing their sounds into the tiles of the
pool--
we go to the baby pool where the water is 
shallow & warm--
sit side by side under the mushroom
fountain & pretend it's a waterfall--
we're loch ness monsters--
bellies full of cheese fries
& feet & hands wrinkled 
like wet raisins from a day 
spent submerged in chlorine-- 
we dry out like used twin popsicle 
sticks on our towels--
watch the sun melt into a dreamsicle--
orange & creamy at the center--
i can heard the violins
swallow water & the megalodon
scream into the diving well-- 

our ashes on spaceship earth 

when i was six 
my uncle took me to disney world.
i thought there was no need
for travel if the whole world
lived in epcot-- 
each country around
the lake--it was a showcase set out just
for my small feet.
i watched
the foreign flags spit angry fireworks 
at the florida sky & we climbed
into spaceship earth--
the silver prickly pear orb
where we were all born.
we were all there to float
down the river in a basket
like moses.
our caravan halted as we were
passing the animatronic 
michelangelo going over the 
same brush stroke of the sistine
chapel again & again--
we became trapped 
in his time loop curse--
our hands stiffened in the arthritic
grip of his hand around his paint brush--
we stopped like hand prints
in the wet frescos of 
sixteenth century ceiling--
after a time we all began to chatter
& from ship to ship--
passed messages-- suspended 
in time we thought about
getting out
of the boats & assuming roles in
the different scenes we had passed--
discovering alphabets in
the teeth of stiff Phoenicians 
or riding roman chariots
into orbit--
my uncle explained to me that they 
had to stop the ride because someone
had released ashes into the
water-- ashes from
someone they had loved-- 
my grandfather was 
ashes in an urn in the
attic so i understood
what kind of ashes he meant--
back then i thought we all died like
that-- a disintegration of
our bones like mortar & pestle
in our own sockets-- that 
maybe we all just eventually fell
apart into black dust--
we all just waiting 
to be scattered by someone
who loves us.
i wondered why
anyone would want to be part of
a spaceship perpetually  
trying to tell
the story of earth & always failing--
there were not enough animatorons
to show all the people we all
could have been-- 
there was no boy playing chess
with himself outside a cafe
in a small town that seemed
too big to leave-- 
there was no
diner stools or girls setting
dandelions to float
down the river outside her house
where the air smelled like golden
husks of corn in september--
i told my uncle while we were sitting
there-- waiting for time to start back
up again--
that i would want someone to plant
my ashes underneath a tree or throw them
around outside in the wind--
maybe in toss them to the creak
that feeds
the duck pond at fleetwood park
where i had grown up & leaned to ride
my bicycle
in the parking lot--
not all of us make alphabets or
paint the ceiling of big churches
but we all were born from 
the great metal spaceship earth &
we all fall apart in a jar
full of ash gripped tightly in
the lap of someone who loved us--
i reached down & grazed my finger
over the water near by the ship
to see if the water felt
different with someone's ashes inside--
it felt cold & the ship tilted slightly 
so i pulled my finger back inside raft
& eventually we finished
our trip through all of time as
we know it-- as usually my legs
felt wobbly
at the end of the ride &
for a moment i wished i were 
ash so i could choose
where to scatter myself
when the time came-- 

black piano key teeth 

tell what you think of me now--
i ask my ten-year-old body.
i meet her at the
front door of the malt shoppe
with her crisp black belt slung 
around her neck & an audacious spoon
in her fist.
i tell her that i've become a mouth of empty 
bowls & a voice of 
vacant swivel stools--
i explain how they're
stuck in my throat as squeaky
hollow apologies
to my body.
she doesn't say much &
holds to door open for me.
she has bare feet that must
feel cold on the checker-board
linoleum floor.
she think it's funny that
i send myself sympathy cards 
full of spoons- we laugh
when i tell her how they clatter on
the kitchen floor when i open the
envelopes
& my OCD seems
so absurd when i'm talking to her--
like motions from a children's record 
telling all the boys & girls to
spin round & round like spiders--
i tell her how i  
lick the sweetness off stamps &
i confess that
i'm so afraid my own teeth
that i want to take them out one
by one--
watch--i say--
as i chew with the sound
of black piano keys.
oh black belt girl if you
could only pull out
my spine like fruit roll-up--
the flick of your wrist that once 
moved the floor boards to
break themselves-- 
peel me out of this body
i want to be stronger-- i want
to believe in something
other than the tally i've been
keeping on my wrists--
i say
i ruined us-- i ruined us--
the malt shoppe is 
just like it had been--
a row of red padded stools &
candy jars in a line like
the canopic jars of a pharoh's
tomb-- only i'm not prepared 
to burry her here--
she asks me where all my hair went
& i tell her one morning
i woke up to the sound of
morning doves on the ledge outside--
opened the window & their
wings sliced it all off--
i explain how i
watched it fall in the front
lawn like the dead branches of 
evergreen trees-- their ghosts playing
tag by the mailbox &
i ask her what she thinks of spoons
& she tells me she thinks of
them like boats. 
sarah scoops
a bite of banana split into her
mouth & we float in the channel
between chingoteague & assateague
in a kayak again-- 
we can see my father
ahead of us & clams click their
jaws like castanets all around--
i ask her where she learned to 
float & where she got her
teeth from & she tells me that
we're both floating & that
they're my teeth too  
& we're back in the malt shoppe.
she wipes syrup drunk strawberry
from her elbow & offers me
a bite of sundae--
i refuse & sip my diet coke--
i imagine the ocean fizzling around
me-- waves of foam & bubbles 
in our stomachs-- i ask her
where we went wrong-- i ask
her how she could ever think she
was me & she doesn't look up
from the banana split-- takes
spoon after spoon of herself--
we float in the peel-- spotty & brown--
i brace the counter & cough up
all the spoons in a clatter
of black piano keys
& the radio plays
"the leader of the pack" again
& the walls are poodle skirt pink
& i ask her what she knows 
about re-learning how to eat--
she picks up a spoon 
that's fallen on the floor-- wipes
it off with the fabric of her
karate uniform & hands it
back to me & we're floating
again & this time the sun is setting
& we both reach up & take spoonfuls
of the sherbet sky--
she laughs & tells me that 
she likes my nose ring &
i tell her that i love 
her neon blue nails--
she tells me that sherbet 
has milk or cream & that 
sorbet is different because 
it doesn't have dairy--
it's just frozen fruit--
so i ask her what the sky tastes 
like-- & she tells me
it's with-out-a-doubt 
sherbet but
that everything she
eats with me always
tastes a little bit
like a sunset or a 
black piano key--
we eat until 
there's no ceiling
left to the sky--
hold the cold spoons
under our tongues &
i tell her i'll send
her post cards & someday
she'll find me floating 
with her in the cupped
palm of one of the thousands 
& thousands of spoons
we could float on.

we put a cupboard in the fireplace
 & filled it with mason jars--
 my mother's pickled beets &
 sandy mustard glowing like 
rusted halos-- boiled blossom
 rows of raspberry & blue berry
 jam-- we kept our summers in
there like a fire burning in december
when our christmas table gets 
smaller & smaller until we all
open up the cupboard & stare into
it like a television of sun--
we remember the smell of fresh sage
& eating berries until we were sick 
& wearing stomachs like steel bowls
of this fruit-- one by one we crawled
inside & closed the doors behind us--
& of course it was my birthday again--
the finger nails of july--
& the cake tasted only of firefly
glow & the inhale of the corn 
thrashing in a gust of wind
from my father's blue jeep as it
races with a railroad tracks--
each bump a calendar square-- we
run away from the seasons around
us-- seal summer in mason
jars for safe keeping--

skin.

i tattooed the clouds
on my skin last night.
every inch was
moving with the insistent
pull of the wind &
i grew my
hair long again
to feel it fall off in
october. it fell in clumps
& gathered
at my feet with the rest 
of the leaves--
blood-red & brown--
& when you touched me 
you felt the sky move
across you-- 
a laugh of static &
storm--
i stood your hairs 
on end like soldiers & you told
me to roll-up the windows--
veil me in fog-- your bride
of backseat love & 
driving to 
park in strip malls to say 
i love you in the kind
of way you can't in a bedroom.
you can kiss my blood
into rain but you can't
take my skin--
it's not something that
can be shared-- & you will call
me selfish for leaving you
only with storm clouds painted
on your shoulders--
i point to my arms & say
here i tilled the rows
of my wrists to write
my self-love in thunder--
my freckles grow into 
watermelon-- 
swallow the black
seeds & grow vines from
your throat--
silly backseat-lover
with a mouth
like a window full of fog--
leave hand prints on 
my collar bones--
i have had match sticks burry
their heads in my forearms--
i light the birthday candles
with my fingernails-- 
this body
has know windows-- 
this body is in  
violent love with itself &
this is what loving a boy
full of clouds is like--
i don't want you to eat the 
fog away with that mouth
of yours-- 
i want you 
to pass the clouds over your
shoulders & feel how heavy 
water can be when it 
becomes a storm-- we're about
to rain-- we're about to rain--
roll up the windows 
the water is getting in.

sadie hawkins & our hair
full of hindenburg fire

she sits on a bench in
the park-- pushing back 
the hem of her cuticles--
& november is a face
laughed full of leaves--
she's catching love with
a thick leash of rope because
sadie hawkins knew that 
that freedom was a mouthful
of white-picket-fence boy--
my first dance 
in high school was
a sadie hawkins dance--
as if a 9th grade girl
could have a say in what
boy she picked to excavate
her body for a night &
every 9th grade girl knows
sadie hawkins-- she yells
at them to call them 
"little sluts" as they pass
her bench in the park--
she was a homily 
woman-- still a "girl" 
at 35 because she was
doomed to be a fisher of men--
she shift for
them like gold--asking
for god to keep her name 
under his tongue--
oh we all knew sadie hawkins--
believed her-- trusted her-- 
learn from her & with our
butterfly nets out we
hunt for red velvet cupcake
love from the bake sale 
in the lobby--
oh how they would eat us--
our soccer goals bellies filling
up with disco balls-- 
he brought
hammers & picks-- a shovel
& a pan to collect my pieces in--
no fourteen year old girl could have 
known yet that boys eat geodes--
use women's own ropes to tie
them to their park benches--
gnaw open with teeth-- our 
bodies crowded each other 
like gymnasiums reverberating 
with light & sinking balloons--
we fell like hindenburgs--
each & every one of us as we
thought about all the times
we had run away from her
when we walked late at night through
the park on sleepovers--
heard her calling
"slut" & "Whore" into the disco ball
moon as if attempting to banish those
words forever from underneath 
her tongue-- when she was done screaming
she would sit still for a few moments--
panting & sweaty from the moist
lips of august-- fail to 
light a cigarette & instead set
flames in her hair & laughing
like a phoenix she told us
to run & never believe anything they
tell us--
in the bathroom mirror 
i stared at my own smudged face
after the dance & never felt so
devoured--
i sat on the toilet & cried--
ankles sore from being perched
in black heels-- this was only
the beginning of what it was like
to have a girl-body--
the art of giving away yourself--
piece by piece so you're 
easier for him to swallow-- 
my body became a gymnasium of
sound-- i lit
the match & held it close to
my hair-- considering how fast
my bleached hair would erupt
in fire-- i blew it out & dropped
the match stick in the sink--
it sizzled softly like a faint
neck kiss-- a brand-- a burn--
& i'm still unlearning 
the doors he opened for
me on ever inch of skin--
this is a prayer to sadie hawkins--
the patron saint of 9th grade girls--
we believe so firmly in you
& they'll tell us
we choose to dance 
these bodies into ash
smudged on the bathroom mirror--

post cards from arizona & jars full of rain

i tipped over the terrarium
& the two toads scampered free
into the hot breath of july rain--
the trail was saturated in twilight
color-- jagged emerald leaves--
each gravel of the trail by
the stream was a freckle
washing away in the dwindling storm--
i told them to write to me &
left my address on a sticky note
on the ground next to them--
i said
tell me where you go
& where this rain takes you--
i watched them crawl into 
the forest-- caressed as
if to pull their mother's long
skirt over their heads--
i cried not because i had let
my two pet toads go but
because when i was little
& freckled 
& emerald green-- 
my father 
& i would catch toads--
i would beg him to keep them 
in the terrarium or the sand pale
on night longer but we eventually let
them go into the yard by
the sun of a porch light--
growing up is something about
release & keeping mason jars full
of rain from all your favorite storms--
at home i keep them in the cupboard
by the fireplace-- open them up
when i want it to rain from the
ceiling even if only briefly--
there are storm clouds collecting beneath
our pillows-- hail falling
from the arms of a ceiling fan--
turn on the sun &
wash the gravel from my hair & my hands--
i sat in the back seat of my car
to twist on the lid to the mason jar full of
rain from the storm
my toads went back to-- i put the
jar in the trunk & now i open
it sometimes when i feel especially lonely--
they return-- the both of them
--hop across the floor of the living
room-- mouths full of crickets--
throats pulsing like trampolines--
on monday i get the first of many post cards--
an image from the petrified forest 
national park where all the trees
are only memories-- a fallen limp
across the from of the card with the national
park logo in the corner--
i find it odd that they decided to travel to
a place with so little rain-- i consider
sending them a mason jar but i suppose
if they had wanted rain they would know
where to find it--
the card doesn't say much--
only that they had stopped at a lovely
mexican eatery on the way down & 
that they hardly ever considered eating
crickets anymore--
i don't write back to them--
just keep the postal cards in the top
drawer of my desk--
i leave their terrarium empty
& somehow haunted 
in the open window of my room--
the rain falls again from the ceiling
fan & i return to the front
seat of the car to drive home--
gravel freckled & green 
from the rain-- 

7th grade mummification

i like to say i
hardly remember 7th
grade-- i know i must have
discovered checker-board vans 
& the thrift store that sold 
fifty-cent fish nets &
neon skinny jeans & olive green
eyeliner that orbited my lids 
like saturn rings--
in 7th grade we were got busy
re-living ancient 
history in a class devoted
to re-building the pyramids 
& erecting edible ziggurats 
from our desks--
pink frosting cake & 
kitkat temples 
for the ceiling tile gods--let's
build ourselves closer to the
sky-- none of us should get taller--
opened the windows & thought
about falling two stories
down to the soccer field below
where all the boys played capture the
flag-- grass stain gladiators 
& we all wanted boyfriends
after we learned about the pharaohs--
at least then we wouldn't die alone--
twelve years or two-thousand-- we were
far too old to die so young--
if nothing else we knew we believed
in the river to the underworld--
the one where they would weigh your heart 
against a feather--
we all knew we were too heavy--
we all know we would watch
our hearts swallowed by the devourer
as thoth-- the scribe
god would stroke the
gator-beast's neck-- there
we lay on the priest's table
in preparation for our inevitable
mummification in eighth period
history class-- i took the night
before to construct a mask of anubis
to conceal my face & i felt
powerful & ancient--
we took turns taking out each other's
organs & filling the canopic jars--
rubbing our bodies in salt to
keep our bodies clean & fresh 
for the afterlife we were too
heavy to reach-- blow away the
feathers with me-- then there'll
be nothing to weight us against--
sing a pyramid song with me
& i wore the anubis mask 
all period & after school until
i walked home
from school across the damp
grass of my backyard
adjacent to the school-- i removed
my ceremonial robes
in my room upstairs & looked
at the face of the once jackal-headed god--
plump freckled face of girl
so willing to attempt flight
out a window-- building pyramids
on her desks & reaching 
for the god who blared from
the white neon lights of each classroom--
we all secretly believed in
the love of isis & Osiris--
even if it was incest-- at
least they had each other
& a sun for a father-- what is there
to remember about 7th grade
if the soles still peeled off
my checker-board vans & the
fish nets were still too tight
to fit over my thighs--  
we small ancient people--
mummifying each other & filling
canopic jars with all the apologies
we'd save for our throats--
weigh my heart against the feather
i swear to you i'm not afraid
of how heavy i have been--

i feel like i don't deserve 

the love poems god writes 
to me-- 
her mountains that
nail a picture frame
around the murky blue 
& deep indigo sky--
her trees that hoist
the clouds on their backs &
shake silk worm nests from their
leg hairs--
my mother points out the
way the farm hills around kutztown
swell & crash in seams of corn &
patch-work soybean-- a tangled
thread cocoon & cursive poetry
tongue--
she is an iambic god--
a structural traditionalist
who unravels open into free verse as
she drops the moon from a yoyo string--
i hang on & get sucked into 
her night catalog of punctuation-- 
outside of kutztown we pass the
abandoned water park-- 
slides filled with ghost children
spilling down on their bellies--
wind-blown hair laughter rattles 
each twisted neck of blue shoots--
i feel empty like the water park sometimes--
like i want god to laugh into my
hair-- wash my freckles in chlorine--
i want to smell fresh & indigo &
stand at the top of the biggest slide
there with no fear of becoming a yoyo string--
come back & write me another poem
god-- & another & another
until the water starts flowing again--
i'm telling you, i'm going to buy 
that water park-- pull the
'for sale' sign out of the ground
& re-paint the
pirate statue by the front gate--
i would spend the first night sleeping
under the roof of one of the 
little pavilions-- laugh at how silly 
it all is-- watch the sunset blush
as she reads the same love story over
again-- the one where god loved
her enough to make her body an
act of poetry-- that's all
of us-- i think to myself
-- that's all of us-- a little
pocket notebook-- a knot 
in a yoyo string suspended
over a town called kutztown with
an un-abandoned water park 
jealous in the distance-- 
hush-- i'm here to fill you
up again--
i'm here to remind you
of all the space you have
left to  be filled & 
tonight the slides are dry &
i am feeling my body as a love
poem-- a husk of corn--
a nail in the side of the
mountain-- 
no i don't deserve the love
poetry god leaves for me--
writes into my body in the language
of freckles & 
sun burn from 
climbing up the ladder
to sit at the top of the tallest
slide in the water park
until the moon rolls off the yoyo
string & night is dark &
full of insect laughter &
the cautious chatter of stars
they give themselves away to me
as punctuation--
marble bags full of periods--
let's end this day in a circle 
or a seam-- a stitch in 
the hips of the hills--
bruised indigo & standing 
as determined as the fading
pirate statute at the gate 
to the water park that is
now another piece of 
this body--