why aren’t my hands pot holes to hold rain water after it falls? so that boys in rain boots can splash murky waters at the girls who pretend they don’t love it. so i could look into my hands & hold everything in a missing bite of earth-- god built the atlantic slowly by chewing away at the dirt until his mouth was full of fish when I needed to pour into new places i’d spread apart my fingertips to let the clouds drop hail like glass eye balls-- but my hands are dry from space heaters that cough me into raisin dried-sleep & I feel like bent branches that once held a girl who was going to climb to the top of the tree snow takes deep breathes but somehow always drops through the hardwood floor * i've been googling the galaxy sometimes i think it's all so small-- all the clouds of star & comets who always slither themselves away like the decrescendo of a snail-- yes i guess it's all far away but in a picture a being as small as me can stand back at it all-- a pot hole in the road-- a stagnant pool of tadpoles who are actually meteors chasing the bones of allosauruses who burrowed beneath the craters that would become lakes-- that would again become oceans-- a scar above god's left eyebrow when the moon stone-skipped on the surface of his face i've been googling the galaxy in an attempt to feel larger but we are so small-- i reach out to extend to the walls of my room-- a fist of saturn-- my hair in the eternal fires of mars-- wrists wrapped in andromeda * the rock store in search of planets my father keeps a wooden chest where all the planets have come from-- some of them sleep in beds of cotton coffins-- pockets of galaxies where the suns are quiet for now-- sleep & uninterested in burning-- fern fossils that were once the scales of my neon tetra fish-- the ones who ate themselves to death because my brother & i didn't know to stop feeding them pieces of saturn ring-- we went to the rock shop when we wanted more planets-- you can never have enough planets just like planets can never have enough moons-- enough children to keep in their own dark cotton galaxies-- the wooden chest that waits in the attic for us to take our planets to-- the ones from the shelves of the rock shop-- the tyrannosaurs teeth from us who would be king-- the bite of a memory of we carnivores
Uncategorized
06/16
you can travel too-- my mother says because that's what mothers are supposed to say to their children who tell them there is so much to see between the corners of their room-- i google mapped to see how far away you are & it tells me there's no walking directions from pennsylvania to berlin-- it makes you take a plane but i think google maps has little belief in the will of humans to walk across water for their brothers-- it tells me if i were to take a plane from the philadelphia airport this afternoon i could be there outside your door in ten hours & ten minutes-- don't ask me where the ten minutes came from-- i'm assuming it is acknowledging my tendency to get distracted on street corners-- maybe it knows i stare too long out airport windows-- maybe it's guessing i'll get lost in berlin without a knowledge of their language beyond being able to count to 7-- it's not that i don't want to walk across an ocean-- i do-- it's just that i feel like i'm too big to travel that far-- i'm already filling up this room so much with the sound of my fingers across my laptop-- this is keyboards turning into rain-- this is another night when the moon tries to come in through the window-- i tell her she's too big & i'm too big & there's not enough space to store anymore planets in here-- but moons are impatient & she finds her way in by breaking the window from & tossing the shutters to the side like stiff eyelids-- i have a habit of letting her do this-- so i stay away with her until she falls asleep again-- she tosses & turns until she's warm in a black of star & darkness-- i'm not sure anymore if the night sky is the ocean between us or the sky that i would walk on to visit you-- i am a tourist of my own bed room where i talk the moon into going home-- i'm a nomad down the same sidewalk-- i watch june draw the night around us like a lid over a pot of tomato soup-- our mother is making on the stove-- & the house always smells like the spice cabinet crashed in through the window-- i'm a pilgrim on the front porch-- & there's a home somewhere that we come back to but it's not a place-- it might be where the moon finds us or it could be anywhere we travel to-- i am the door knob sightseer-- i am the ten minutes on a street corner in one of our two cities-- i am feet on an ocean & the persistent belief in my own ability to fill up an entire room before the moon comes crashing in
06/15
fountain hunger sometimes a poem only has a title so the author can pretend that they meant something cohesive by writing it. i make a lot of poems without ever writing them down but this is one i'm writing down & also throwing away on the face of a penny-- this is a poem written on abraham lincoln's nose-- so small you can't see it-- i've been thinking about the fountain at the mall i used to go to in high school-- the one with the pet store where you can hold puppies once you get a driver's license-- with the food court on the second floor-- chick fil-a behind bars on a sunday between taco sensations & subway-- down below right outside of boscov's is a big fountain with a wooden bridge across-- i've dropped so many pennies there & i wonder if they're still waiting to become a wish i've long ago forgotten-- i've concluded there's probably someone whose job it is to collect them-- angel or maybe a janitor who works the night shift on the first weekend of every month-- they keep bags of everyone's fallen copper desires-- do they buy a taco upstairs with them or spend them on a sundae at dairy queen outside the front door? if it were me i wouldn't be able to part with them-- so many relics of people who all wanted to take out a piece of themselves & throw it into the fountain-- -- there is a certain type of empty hunger that makes people throw their change into an artificial blue body of water-- a sort of hapless type of hope we give to our children-- my uncle was the first one to teach my brother & i to toss pennies into fountains-- eagerly he stopped us on the bench next to the bridge & pried open his leather wallet-- dumped a handful of pennies into his hand & split them between us-- confused we watched as he tossed a few as examples-- a spurt of water following the satisfying plunk of each as they descended-- i remember asking when the wishes would come true & my uncle had said eventually eventually we all will take our hungers by the handful & throw them away to drown-- i have kissed several boys on that bridge above the ghosts of people's pocket dreams-- the fountain is a graveyard & an open mouthed wind-- an ocean-- i'm writing this poem because i have wanted to walk into the fountain for a long time-- take off my socks & shoes at the edge & wade in-- water to my calves-- i want to catch the wishes as people toss them-- hold the coins up to my ears & tell the presidents to whisper-- tell me all the secrets we can stuff into a pocket or the bottom of a shoe-- i want to know what parts of you believe enough to throw your change in a wishing in the artificial fountain outside the boscov's at the mall-- i want to collect enough pennies to buy you an ice cream around the corner-- sit on a bench & talk about all the boys we've kissed on bridges & all the pennies we've dropped into the fountain as a resolution to a hunger that filled us up far past the depth of the blue water beneath our knees-- this is one of those human places we don't have to understand-- this is the bridge where you're allowed to forget the details & it's sunday remember so chick fil a is closed up stairs & the fountain cleaner is coming tonight to fill a bag with pennies & use them to buy himself tacos for dinner all alone right before he locks all the doors & stands on the bridge alone-- only to repeat the process by tossing his own pennies off into the water-- sometimes a poem tries to describe a feeling we don't have words for-- i'm calling this the hunger of fountains-- a purely human endeavor-- a type of modern baptism in search of a god who would grant wishes-- we built a fountain
06/14
trick or treating in june-- ring the doorbells of the lamp posts & we'll fill our pockets with lightning bugs in candy wrappers-- you ask me how many more months it is until halloween & i laugh & tell you that it's tonight-- i can tell because of the way the moon is following us down the gravel pathways through town-- the ghosts stir in the teased hair of the maple trees-- the cockroaches are walking into the veins of the houses on main street-- so we sit on the front porch & carve a jack-o-lantern out of cicada melodies-- light the fire in it's belly with the flicker of sun flame burnt on to our shoulders-- the lightning bugs push free from their wrappers & fly out of our pockets to bang their heads on the lamps & fly higher to the stars-- bang their heads into Orion's belt-- we ring more door bells & no one seems to have stocked up for the night so we buy a bag of candy corn to plant in the backyard for next year-- we're going to grow a maze to get lost in together between the stripes of white, orange, & yellow-- we put on our costumes even though it's thick & soupy outside-- after all it is halloween-- you're dressed as a witch & me as the grim reaper from when i was eight & just becoming fascinated by death-- plastic sythe in hand ready to collect the souls of a the crickets who chirp out the temperate & the spirits of the cicadas who wait for us for sixteen years underground-- we sit under the street lamp again with empty pumpkin buckets & i tell you i had been hoping most of all to score some Twizzlers & you say you would settle for any type of chocolate-- you make me want to kiss the orange into the leaves on the trees for you but instead i ask to kiss you & you say yes-- i love you like cicadas who become jack-o-lanterns & our front door we imagined in the torso of the street lamps-- i love you so much the moon followed us home & got stuck in the hair of the maple trees-- i love you like halloween in june-- unexpected & too early & too late-- bright like the sun fire off our shoulders-- bright like the open mouth of the jack-o-lanterns we carved on the front porch--
06/13
a god who grants blue bicycles i would make a terrible god because i'm bad at saying 'no'-- i would give people whatever they prayed for (not because i thought they needed it) but because i'm bad at saying 'no'. with as god no one would ever die & the rain would stop & start without warning & sometimes a night would burn longer than the moon-- there was a boy at children's mass who said he was praying really hard for a blue bicycle-- we all used to walk two-by-two to the rectory during the homily-- our children's crusade-- an exodus from the big warm belly of the church-- i used to sit on the grey carpet & wonder what the adults did in the big church without all the children-- i imagined them pretending to crucify different people each week-- a role playing procession around the church-- i could see the priest painting on stigmata on the hands & feet of our parents-- today the thought is absurd to me but it troubled me from the back of the children's group where i thought mostly about eating doughnuts in the gathering area after mass-- we were learning about how to pray & the blue bicycle boy didn't seem to get it-- he kept saying that he was praying for a new bicycle-- a bright blue bicycle but it never ever came-- i imagined a shiny two-wheeler waiting on his porch-- a silver bow around it's handle bars & a tag would read to bicycle boy from god shut up & stop praying for the bicycle-- i heard you already-- our nun tried to be patient you shouldn't pray for things like toys she said & she added unless you pray for them for other people the boy nodded i'll pray for one for everyone i didn't raise my hand to say anything as we talked more about praying even though i usually liked to have the right answer-- i didn't have any right answers about praying-- i prayed like someone would count the rotation of a bicycle tire around its orbit-- a spoken memory of our mother's mother's mother's rosary beads that smell like roses because they're made of roses-- there was a cross on the wall in my bed room i would hold to pray the our father when i was scared of ghosts-- i told the bicycle boy on the walk back to the main church that my mom's friend was dying & the when i prayed it didn't help he told me the story again about the blue bicycle & how he wondered how god would bring it to him-- i told him my mom's friend was dying & how i wondered if my praying was making him sicker & he told me the god would leave the bicycle on the back porch next to the recycling while we were all asleep we didn't say anything else i imagined god as an old man at a wall of ringing telephones-- each with another glory be or hail mary-- a penance-- a prayer for a dying friend-- a mouth full of incense & rose petals-- i would walk down the line & cut the wires of the phones-- no more prayers for this god-- the answer is always yes-- save your friends from dying for once & eat jelly doughnuts in the gathering area every morning-- walk two-by-two while our parents reenact their own crucifixions-- & there is a blue bicycle on the back porch & there is a blue bicycle on the back porch with a silver bow & the faint smell of roses--
06/12
where do you keep your endings? i keep mine in a ziplock bag at the back of my underwear drawer-- they're there next to the bag of thick brown hair my mother saved from my first hair cut-- it wasn't the last time i would use scissors to feel lighter-- i keep my endings on the head of a match or a blue birthday candle-- i keep them on dog-eared pages of books i haven't been brave enough to finish & in my pillow case at my parents' house-- i've befriended the em-dash even though it reminds me of a coffin-- open casket i climb into as a form of protest-- i've never gone to an open casket funeral & i hope i never have to-- i'm trying to live in resistance of punctuation & i don't believe much about endings or what people say they remember best about you when you're dead-- let's face it everyone has a nice smile-- everyone dies too young-- everyone's outline in chalk never fails to look like a question mark asking god where their body is going after all these years of ending sentences & turning off lights on the back porch-- i'm the kind of body who lies restless as a semi-colon-- awake through the night my eyes become hole-punchers-- weighty circles attempting to make a collage of street lamp & half-eaten moon-- when i die i hope to return as something with less punctuation-- me & you we could be street lamps-- the type with brachiosaurus necks-- jaws opening into streams of light-- be a dwarf planet with me-- be a sun so we can die so extravagantly we destroy the mouth who spoke us-- i traded my periods for freckles-- i stole a handful of stars & forced them into the poetry i've been writing for you that's never done enough to read aloud-- let's meet here again across the sidewalk from each other on a brilliant diagonal-- i'll pretend i don't see you until we flick on at dusk-- blink moths out of our eyes & meet under street lamps that are also the necks of dinosaurs-- if you could keep your endings somewhere would you keep them next to mine? would you bury them in a shoe box like our pet turtle or would you put them on a coat hanger so you wouldn't forget where to find them--
06/11
exo-skeletal i've been living on the outskirts of my own body where my tongue gets caught in gum wrappers & rotisserie chicken bones-- i use a pay phone to wake up & to remind myself to consume something other than air-- use the chicken bones as antenna-- my heart runs on a backwards bicycle chain-- i count my legs-- this skeleton of a dead spider folded lawn chair-- this is where all the beer bottle caps of my father have rolled to-- where they fell from the porch like cut off thumbprints-- this is where all the uncounted calories turn into cheerios & crawl out of my mouth on their eight legs while i'm sleeping-- living with an eating disorder is like existing as your own exoskeleton-- i am my own suit case-- i carry these femurs & my pelvis warped like a gramophone bell-- this is where i go to sing to the bus station-- i'm packing diet soda & these shoulders made from plastic measuring cups-- this has been the process of unlearning my own body-- i grew extra legs-- antennae & now every sound has a color-- you are so yellow-- as anyone ever told you that? we all have stepped on beetles accidentally on purpose-- i snap like a popcorn kernel under the heels of my own shoes-- i have spent so long on the outskirts of a body that i don't know what it feels like to live within one-- break off my extra set of legs & use them as match sticks to light the last candle on my own birthday cake-- how nice it was of you to join me-- to want to be my body again-- the prodigal stomach-- i'm hiding underneath an abdomen-- i'm eating through the wire of a pay phone-- you hold me by the suite case handle-- call me from the pay phone when you get there-- i'll be here-- picking up the bottle caps from the drive way & dislocating my shoulders to measure the cheerios into my mouth before they turn back into lady bugs-- i don't want to be an exoskeleton of a human anymore-- i want to be red blood & warm blood & bone-- i want to be more than a belly of spoons-- more than a pay phone call-- i'll unpack the suitcase on the bed-- & i'll tell you to at least stay the night--
06/10
on summer ghosts-- before our youngest brother was born my brother billy & i had summers that still exist on a different plane-- a realm of microwaved marshmallow experiments & green hallway doors that open all by themselves-- it was us who haunted this house-- we heard our father start his blue jeep in the driveway before we were out of bed & my mother dove into a hot mug off coffee & creamer-- this was back when billy & i thought coffee was gross & we drank pomegranate juice with our still frozen toaster waffles-- left unchecked by adults the house would morph-- a face in a dark bathroom mirror-- bloody mary bloody mary sofas stretched & the doorways turned into teeth-- chewed us into the living room again-- a murky television screen was left turned on so that it could hear it in every room-- we drifted without feet-- without walls-- in the attic we built caskets while our grandfather's ashes watched from the corner-- i knew i shouldn't make us watch those ghost investigation television shows but i needed advice on how best one could best become a poltergeist-- billy would whine on commercial breaks & suggest something like nick junior but i stared on-- fixed on the screen-- this because of my desire to haunt my own body-- & from the screen emerged all the summer ghosts who would visit to inhabit my bones for years after-- the opening of the closet door-- the moan of the floor boards of the attic-- the gentle evaporation of our skin into mist-- on a foggy morning we could easily slip out through the screen in the window & never ever be heard of again-- in summer i still feel my body getting haunted again-- my skin turns into cellophane-- rice paper girl too empty to hold herself inside windows-- but this was only the beginning-- this was only our introduction to haunting-- this was when we were in control because what children don't know is that a haunting once in motion can only grow-- between my brother & i our house on noble street has two faces-- the one with the evergreen & maroon porch-- the one with frozen waffles & coffee stains & then there's the one with the face in the dark bathroom mirror-- the one at the foot of the bed-- a smudge of a body telling you to wake up--
06/09
i want to be treated like a library when you decide to love me-- walk into my shelves-- i take out the due date stamper & press it on the back of your hand-- this is how long i'm letting you look at what pieces of me you want to check out-- do you like to look inside atlases or are you searching for a book of old poems whose pages smell like january leaves peeled page by page off the sidewalk-- i like atlases because they teach you to walk anywhere & that sometimes Antarctica can be pink & i imagine me & you suspended in pink snow-- eating hunks of cotton-candy earth-- & sometimes the best poems forget their authors & sometimes an atlas is a poem & sometimes you read to me from the coast-- the names of mountains-- cities & rivers we could go to if we would leave the library-- take me from the stack of call numbers-- 302 RAL-- 302 SAU-- 302--SAX-- the book spines left on my knuckles-- this is what it feels like to have to walk aisles of book shelves for a first page-- your first kiss with me will be a printed word & what the library teaches us is that there are stories on the fourth floor-- how much do you want to read & how long are you willing to forage of an answer? this body of mine has had pages torn out to be eaten-- cracked book backs-- dog eared pages & jackets chewed by dogs-- marginalia mouths of these gods-- what have you used for a book mark lately? we find napkins & hair ties & notes passed in trigonometry class where people decided to stop reading the backs of my forearms-- dog-ear by pelvis-- photocopy the index printed across my lower back-- what is your favorite book you'll ask me because you might not know any better-- so i'll tell you i keep a library of a body so i never ever ever have to pick just one-- do you want to read with me? i'm stamping the due date on the back of your hand-- let's walk up to the fourth floor of my body & pick out something new-- a book with a musty jacket & a title neither of us can read--
06/08
on the spaces we've left for pay phones
i'm going to call you from
the pay phone--
one between the dollar store
& the movie gallery--
the one with the thick
metal umbilical cord connecting
it to the ear drums
of god--
the one
who ate my quarters when
i was 9 but always refused to swallow my
voice-- i want you to hear
me through the pay phone--
i want you to wait for me to call--
make yourself smaller if you
want to hear someone--
we've left spaces for the
pay phones in our life--
at my high school there are
empty nooks scooped out of the
walls where the pay phones
used to wait to accept
prayers & elegies & car rides
home
while the sun was going to
bed early in december--
chewed quarters-- widened their
throats--
& when god grew restless
waiting on a swivel
chair at the local dinner
he would walk to the front
door-- pick up the pay phone
& listen to every phone call
that we ever made--
all at once-- he heard every
iteration of the words
i
love
you
that i have ever taught myself
to make-- each syllable
whirled in the metal rat
tail of the receiver--
this is our tether
to each other's most intimate
conversations--
learn how to hold
each other in a silence--
there's so so few
words
we have to say so many different
things--
there are night when i
forget that only god listens
to pay phones now & these spaces
we have left only to
remind ourselves of all the
ways we have said goodbye--
i walk down to the pay phone
past
the library-- the one next to the
dollar store & the black window
carcass that once was
a movie gallery--
my reflection is ghostly
in the front window & the carpet
inside still has the pattern
of stars printed
in row where there once were aisles
of dvds to rent--
there is only a metal rectangle
where the pay phone was
but i pretend to insert a quarter--
press the phone to my ear
& there i am-- the 9 year old
girl calling for a ride home--
there i am the lover of
late night dial tones & strumming
the telephone wires who knit
a hair net for the sky--
there i am waiting for
you to call me back
& find a new way to tell me that
you love me-- only for it
to disappear-- only to live
on in a swarm of our words
lurking in the spaces we've left
for pay phones--
check your pockets full of
quarters--
you never know when you might
find a place to stop
& listen to all the things
we ever said to each other--
all the
i
love
yous
& goodbyes-- we leave
forever waiting on the
other side of a pay phone--
pick when i call
i'll we waiting for a ride home--
Robin Gow 