dissection & other forms of intimacy 

humans are destructive learners--
we learn early on that nature
is our body to dismantle
like the inside of a pocket-watch--
what did you do with the scalpels?

1.
the worm & her 5 psuedohearts--
pin her open-- this is the 
peep show-- a photograph in 
a lab book of her skinny 
torso wrapped in a thin
film from the formaldehyde

2.
the crickets were
black from seclusion
from the sun-- we hear them
chirping from
the depth of our lockers
out of our collective guilt

3.
we decorate lockers for birthdays--
wrapping paper & pom-poms-- 
why were you born in the
summer?

4.
the other girls made me
dissect the perch-- they forgot
lab shoes & leaned back
against the table & watched while
i peel back the skin
like wind up our skirts

5.
i keep my skin in my gym
lockers & never take it home to
wash it

6.
we had little guidance in 
middle school dissection--
we didn't need help learning how
to cut-- i had used an x-acto
knife before

7.
the perch was a mother &
my hands emerged with
clusters of orange eggs--
concentrations of planetary 
dust in the belly of the specimen--
the other girls shrieked
& my biology teacher beamed--
paraded the body around the room--
the un-expectant mother
& her children trapped in
a stagnant orbit around a classroom

8.
i sit the bathroom stall 
because it's quiet

9.
the star fish with four
legs-- drenched in preservative
crawls into my open
ears when i try to sleep--

10.
i begin to believe 
all sirens are yelling at me--

11.
it was me & the nurse shark--
skin smooth like my
own-- her mouth the kind
of smile only dying people
keep-- she had eyes we could
have fished for
in the creek-- between the
chemicals on my fingers
& the collage of her intestines
& my biology teacher instructing 
us to 
find the kidneys 
find the gills
find the heart 
i felt my body lurched
& i gripped the lab table-- coiled
on the speckled tile
floor--

8.
i lay on the cool tiles because it is
quiet & i have an excuse to not be
human-- 

5.
use the scalpel & peel back
my skin like you would lift
up my skirt--

5.
peel back my skin-- i am now
your perch--
your nurse shark-- you five-hearted
goddess--
what do you know about the bottom
of the locker
where the crickets haunt us?

6.
i had used an X-acto knife before

3.
where we take our carcasses when
we are through?

8.
i close my eyes
in a jar of formaldehyde--
when you're done with me
take pictures--
label my organs with stanza breaks--
remove the metaphors & 
plant the orange eggs to
grow sunflowers
from the backs of
our pocket watches--

water birth

it was your father who pulled you
from creek water-- he was bare foot
& cut his jeans off just
above the knees to make shorts--
he had a body thin enough
to snap under his own foot steps--
a twig-- a dowering rod--

the first time i felt your heart
on mine it was like the bodies 
of the minnows frantic against 
my legs-- the next time
was like gnats kamikaze flight
into our faces--

we pretend we don't remember 
our birth here-- between the severed
necks of the drunken mulberry 
trees & willows who 
lament the sun-- who was
the dragonfly with teeth?
we hid our mother under
the rocks where she can be safe
with the crayfish

here we grew lip-hair moss--
dropped our knees like plums
to bruise on the stones-- 

our father made a fishing rod
from a branch of the pear tree
still waiting to become a 
pie in the backyard-- 
lured you in with potato roll
slipped onto the hook

you bit yourself into the
body of a girl & your life 
(as always) 
was accidental--

we all came out of the creek
behind the school yard--
we all ate wild berries & 
didn't check if they were poison--
we all drank from the mug
of our own two hands--

come back
i want to feel you again--
hesitate with me--
feel your body run away 
up stream-- 

you rest your
head on a fallen leaf--
& the water carries it 
on-- the cradle of Moses--

we began in a river--
writhing-- hook mouth
held high by a father
who was still a sliver
of a boy 

the fortune teller's kind of truth
& attempts to pray ourselves into gods

it's 10pm on a tuesday & 
the red neon
sign above the fortune teller's 
office is angry & OPEN &
hungry for confusion--
i knock as if it's a the door
to a home-- enter in me
sage & windowsill
crystals-- 
obsisian to swallow
your apprehension-- 
this is a dwelling
of fear--this is where  hope
is a type of breath--
humans have mastered so 
many arts but are for the most
part too impatient for
divination-- when i was
younger i believed in God-born
miracle-- i found solace 
in the prayer-answered happenstances 
of snow days & bicycle tires--
a prayer is a prayer is a prayer
is a prayer
is a tiny unresolved manner of
dreaming we invented 
out of our perpetual desire
to make ourselves 
into god-- the fortune teller 
is always your grandmother 
& your lover & your best
friend you didn't meant to 
fall in love with--
she is somehow younger & older
than you want to be--
she calls wrinkles 
of your pillow case out
from your palms-- 
who was the first human to kneel
& design the idea of a prayer--
empty in their throat--
the echo of unresolved
postage-- in sunday  
school i asked if i could pray
for my mother's friend &
if he would be healed of 
lukemia & my teacher was eager
& told i should pray harder
& that god would do his best--
i prayed my thumbs into 
cups & the man died two
months later--
when i pray for people they
die & a year ago when 
my father was in a coma--
i swore to myself to not
pray for anything-- i uprooted
dandelions-- i burned my forearms
but i would not make the mistake
to think myself into a god  &
my father is still alive--
so live harder live harder--
in the rage of the word
i believe firmly only
in language--
she tells me i am a page of wands--
but i knew that--
i always knew that--  
she always finds the lovers in my spread-- 
they dance on the purple
table clothe as elk locking antlers--
she asks why the devil's card
is so  inescapable for me
& i tell her there are parts of
our pasts that no tarot card
can unforetell--
you cannot unread the creases of
my palms dug in dried blood august
-- she traces the lines
of my hands like drought rivers--
& tells me to walk slower
if i should meet the hang man or
a death on  the white horse
we used to trust--
she kisses the backs 
of my hands like the forehead 
of the big red bible
on the podium at church--
i do not worship screaming red 
neon signs preaching 
OPEN but i believe in
the kind of lies a fortune-teller
speaks in-- the kind that become
a truth the instant they
connect with air--
she lives in the foreground
of her decks of tarot cards--
i feel her leaving foot prints 
in the parched earth of my hands--
oh the page of wands is 
a young man,
faithful, a lover,
he is in the act of proclamation--
his tiding are strange--
i pay the fortune teller
a 20$
just to listen to a moment 
of uninhibited- unprayed-for 
truth-- 
the page in reserve 
is here to bring bad news--
a signal of indecision--
but who then--
is not a page of wands?

for 13 year old me afraid of tampons
& my vagina that isn't a god damn flower

if you ignore the blood you
will become a stain-- a trail to
follow like bread crumbs-- 
this is the witch's house
made of gingerbread & thick 
gum drop gargoyles--
the first time i had my period
i hid my underwear behind
the toilet-- next under the hamper--
tried to stop myself up
with toilet paper-- frantic 
& coiled over a toilet
i knew i wasn't dying 
but it was better to think 
that i was-- i was terrified  
of someone telling me
i was becoming 
a woman-- when we had
sex ed in sixth grade
we never watched a birth video
but we watched a grainy
tape from the 90s &
a girl in braided pig
tails said she had become
a woman that day-- & that
her mother had called all
of her aunts because she
was so excited for her--
they bought fresh but
tulips & put them in a vase
on the dining room table in
celebration--
i don't want you to
pretend like my vagina is a flower--
some locus that you could
make bloom-- my vagina 
is a clutched fist
for holding onto the rudder of
my spine--
when i told the sleepover girls
that i use pads 
they told me pads are
gross & that everyone uses
tampons because they're 
SO MUCH EASIER
i bought myself a box 
with a green label & 
white flowers encouraging 
my vagina to open
on the cover of the box--
spent the next two weeks
in a battle hunched &
contorted-- leg
up on the toilet or the ledge of 
the sink in an attempt
to learn how to wear
a tampon-- there was something
about the insertion
that terrified me-- that made
me feel vulnerable & 
the orchid stems grew from my
throat & i finally told
my mother the next month
that i was bleeding--
to my relief she didn't buy tulips--
there were no phone calls
to aunts i don't have--
there were no balloons 
or vagina birthday cake-celebrations
--there was the wisdom
of the cabinet under the sink
& an arm briefly around
my shoulder--
in the bathroom
i threw out the box
of tampons-- i have never
tried to wear one
since-- i refuse to 
be your flower-- your 
pink & white girl to 
cut & dip in the clear
vase so you can see my
unshaven legs taking
root in the glass-- if i had
to be a flower i would
be a dandelion so
you wouldn't mistake me
for something to teach
to open--
you would be scared of me
& i would blow my
white hair in your
face like the dismantled 
lining of a pad--
so i follow the trail of blood
back home
through the forest--
the witch left the oven on &
the house burned with me
inside-- i escaped
with charred hair & 
an empty vase full
of toilet paper-- as for
advice for 13 year old 
me i would tell her
she doesn't have to hide her
underwear & i'm still
scared of tampons & feeling
my torso revert to a stem-- 

*I used some quotes from reports
of stonewall so if you don't like
gay-slurs of any kind i do use them & wanted
readers to be aware of that*

let's meet in the summer of 1969

when neither of us were ideas 
yet & we get to decide who
are family is--
when the june rattled in 
bricks & when they first planted
the pear tree
in the backyard of 
the house on regimental road--
this is before 
there were neighbors 
when all the wrinkles evacuated
our grandmother's faces & they 
were astounding & young--
still believed themselves 
eternal--
they sit in separate photographs
letting their skin
eat sun-- there's the one
on the endtable of her
with her sisters in mexico with bare
legs & thick sunglasses to
help her gaze into
a solar eclipse not coming
till september--
her sister flo has on a
yellow polka-dot dress
that reminds you of a picnic blanket
or a table clothe--
they eat tuna salad sandwiches & drink
cola & everything is
calm because cancer is quiet--
i want to meet in the summer of
1969 not to sit
in our grandmother's photographs
again but to know if we
would have stood outside
stonewall & watched
from a crowd--
there is the blood we keep in
photographs of & there is
a history we want to call our
mother-- contort the inn
windows like the crumpling
of paper to throw into a
waste basket--
When did you ever 
see a fag fight back?
we break the glass
of the picture frames-- skin
peach-blush, tender, & red
from sunburn--
summer was hot & our fathers
played with metal toy
cars on the living room
floor while everyone resolved
to be restless & hit back--
this is when our handcuffs become
too tight & where we decide 
to watch our father 
drink orange juice at the
dining room table of 
his aunt's house-- there is always
toast & eggs & milk &
sometimes a slab of ham--
we sit on a bench in
christoper park & 
everyone talks quiet & eager
& our grandmother is there
mixing a manhattan at
the bar-- in a night robe
she picks up our
father's metal cars--
sits in the plaid
arm-chair & turns on the television
to watch a screen striped with
color-- a flag
that has always signaled 
night &
the picture frames are 
broken so we can craw through
a newspaper--
paint ourselves to masquerade
as the fags we wanted to be--
the word is out
the word is out
& come september so
will be the sun

medea & our second mothers
in the sun room

1.
we all have at least two
mother's-- i of course
know my second mother best--
the one
who takes off
her shoes in the crock pot &
pulls spools of our worries
to make me a green wool poncho

2
& then of course i know medea

3.
the key is loving them both 

4.
jason-- for what is a father
without dead children?

5.
for what is a father 
without a kitchen counter
& a cycle of a laundry machine
& hanging my dresses up
to dry in the sun room
where the walls inherent 
the sky at night--

6.
there are certain deaths 
that are merciful & others
we take for vengeance--
our mother-- the sorceress
was the only one who could
understand a bloody hand
& a mouth full of gold

7.
you must learn not to
blame either of them

8.
my mothers love me
like nail polish stains on
the kitchen table--
like the nights she uncoiled
me from a snail-shell
on the windowsill

9.
my mother & i are crab cakes
with a sliver of lemon--
we are the opposite sides
of an everything bagel--
open as a ear to swallow
other people's stories--
we are ravenous listeners--

10.
our mother, medea, ate
our words with a knife 
& called it love-- etched
a memory of the ocean
into the choppy waters of
our spinal columns--

11.
my brother-- my brother
oh how does it feel to become
a metaphor--

12.
my second mother & medea 
meet in the sun room
where all serious conversations
happen-- our
clothing is damp & dangling
around them--
this is the moment so
quiet that the lights 
seem to make a sound--

13.
when i was little 
i used to look into my mother's closet
when she wasn't home--
i would try on her clothing
& watch it swallow me in fabric--
she had a full-length mirror--
the back full of makeup 
i didn't know how to use
& there was one red lipstick
i sometimes used
to draw hearts on the backs
of my hands--
i would take our her underwear 
& wonder why bras needed bows
if you were the only one
who knew they were there--
i sometimes stole her socks
in an attempt to approximate
a women on my feet

4.
jason-- for my father's 
row of tattered band t-shirts
& favorite pair of painter's
pants

2.
for the son who was spared
was not me or you--
we are the universal fatality
of the children
who get lost too far in 
our mother's closets

7.
the trick is learning to forgive
her & not blame your other
mother for watching--

6.
Corinth isn't the kind
of city that you leave
with your body--

1.
medea was the mother who
dared the unthinkable--
to kill her children out 
of something deeper than revenge--
we like to think love is only
soft but our mother's love
can be a passenger seat
& a second vial 
of blood

1.
i am alive because my mother 
used me to fill a passenger 
seat

1.
i am alive because of a corn field

1.
i am dead because there
is no real emotion for revenge

1.
i am dead because jason
isn't a father-- because 
a father hangs your dresses
in the sun room

1.
i am dead because
i'm not longer the body of
a passenger seat

1.
i am alive because
there is a crock pot
waiting for me when 
i get home-- & it's
full of shoes--

1.
there is no more gold
to eat-- 

find someone to treat you like an experience

is what a poem told me & i try to listen
to poems but
i don't want to be loved like
a platter of stars or my head
cracked open like a geode on the
side of a metal bowl--
i have tried that & 
there's nothing comforting
about being made into an idol--
i want to be loved
like the slumped couch i
drop my book-bag on when
i get home-- like the little
knob that turns on my desk lamp--
the saturn rings of water
left on the end tables because
my family doesn't believe in coasters
& i wanted to loved
like the familiar wobble of
the uneven kitchen table--
i'll be the yellow-paged paperback
we use to steady the table for dinner--
i suppose there are parts
of me that could be explained
as an experience--
there was the time you 
kissed me while i dangled
upsidedown from the oak tree
or the time in the back seat of
your silver car--
we stopped in the pharmacy parking
lot where we turned off the 
radio so we could hear each
other breathe-- that's when
i told you i've been keeping 
my bones locked up in the
moon so i don't lose them again--
you were the kind of boy
who tried all the keys
while i was asleep--
a desperate & frantic clamor
to toss my skeleton & read
a fortune there in my bones--
used my femur as a trow in the dirt--
my freckle seeds born of
a dried apricot sun--
you planted them & told me
to grow into an experience
waited for a firework or a burning
bush & found nothing
of me other than a girl
who burned her hair on
the passing of comets--
my own mouth has become
a detached dream-- you fed me
the pink icing flower
from the corners of the cake
with a plastic fork & i told
you to stop but you wanted me
sweeter--
this bitter plum skin
grew around you until
you had to claw your way out--
twisted and writhing pit--
you fell out of your silver car
& loaded the rest of my skin
in the moon with my mismatched bones--
i keep the key under my tongue
but my mouth was still only an 
experience to you-- a place
from which to summon a lamp light
or a moan--
don't fall in love like
an experience--
fall in love with each other
like how you brush shoulder with
the wrong people in the
canned vegetable aisle 
that neither of you want to be in--
fall in love like the
patience of orange skin
& the smell of citrus lingering
on your fingers--
fall in love far enough to crack
your head like a geode--
they won't ask why you 
still keep your bones in the moon--
they don't want a key from
your mouth when they kiss you--
only the quiet admiration
of an uneven kitchen table
or a sofa warping into
a crescent moon--

what to remember when eating our siblings &
the intimate perfection of strangers

when i was 7 
my father & i gathered tadpole eggs
like bunches of grapes &
watched the creatures
grow legs from commas-- turn into 
apostrophes and em dashes
in the tank-- they 
finished our sentences-- spoke
in the unparallel language
of silence-- they talked like
my brother who lets weeks
drown in his throat & 
cuts words from his own tongue
like thin slices of fine cheese--
smoked Gouda & brie--
so as the tadpoles grew they 
shared death together--
the commas falling like black
tear drops to the bottom of the tank
to disappear into the glossy terrain
of aquarium rocks--
the burial ground of a 
kaleidoscope eye-piece-- only two
grew large enough to no longer
be classified as punctuation--
these brothers swam
in a race against each other's tails--
my own brother has
been living in a race against windows--
i like to think that i know 
him & the moon that sleeps in 
the rims of his glasses 
but there is nothing more intimate
than knowing you have become strangers
& as long as you stand back
enough everyone keeps
a piece of perfection--
i imagine him always as a
small boy laying on the 
speckled carpet of the living room
to watch television while
the air conditioner turned us
into plants-- the boy who
looked at me from the other side of the
fish tank-- the boy
with a handful of fish pellets
eager to drop them like
a fist of commas--
i know me brother only distantly & 
i feel sorry that i don't write
letters to him--
that i don't tell him what he used
to look like on a white plastic
chair on the porch in the summer--
us both in our underwear because
we were too young for people
to be afraid of our bodies--
back in the tank the tadpoles
circled faster & faster
as if trying to make a language
between each other--
as if trying to expand the walls
that contained them--
so one day i came home 
from school to find there was
only one-- he was slow & mouth
gaping full of legs-- an 
almost-frog with the features of
his face stretching into place & 
in his mouth his still- shaping brother--
he swallowed & swallowed--
bent into a parenthesis--
but could not complete himself--
floated to the bottom
of the tank
to lay on his stomach on the
carpet-- listen to the filter
turn him into a stranger--
i watched the tadpole sink
to the bottom of the tank & when
my brother asked what had happen
to the other one
i told him that 
they must have grown apart--
i've written every poem in some
way addressed to my brother--
sometimes he gets to be 
the 'you' i'm talking to
but i like to keep it a question--
sometimes i'm talking to
the tadpole dying on the bottom
of his fish tank--
sometimes i'm angry at him
for eating his brother--
sometimes i'm sympathetic &
i listen to him cry about
the intimacy of loneliness--
i never ever ever 
meant to become him--
a comma-- an em dash
& eternal circling
until one of us 
drown in the other--

the peaches were heavy enough
to crush the kitchen table--

do you remember the year
we couldn't stop picking peaches--
our cheeks grew fuzzy &
our skin blushed orange &
yellow & we laid our
bodies on the kitchen table--
the entire surface was covered
& we took pictures 
like poachers & elephant tusks--
the table's legs snapped
beneath 
us & we fell into the kitchen floor--
red-speckled & harboring 
the skeletons
of arsenic mice-- the glue traps
pulled the peach fuzz
from our faces-- 
i split peaches in half with you--
we were the bond fire babies
who wrapped our feet
in tin-foil for the
forth of july-- you
waited
to peel off the skin
so you could hold me from 
the pit-- 
i have known many boys
who like peaches--
especially you who
plucked me
sour from
the tree in your garden--
premature flesh 
like an apple-- crunch--
don't wait for me to ripen
or i'll bring 
down the whole kitchen table
again-- you kept
my peach pits in your pockets
so when i left you could
grown my again
in the backyard under the
rotted out elm trees where the soil 
is full of grubs & worms--
love a girl in halves
like they taught you--
a pocket knife in hand--
we sliced them up-- the table
of peaches & my father couldn't 
stop picking by the basket-full
-- bag after
bag in the freezer--
we'll make pie-- we'll make
muffins-- we'll make jam--
we'll make peach butter
my mother chanted
with each slice of
ripe fruit-- the nectar running
between our fingers--
& the table broke in half
so we sat on the floor
& sliced from down there--
there was no where left to
store them but they just kept coming--
at your glass dining room
table i eat peaches by
the fistful & i swallow
the pits in the hopes
of growing myself
a tree from the center of
my stomach-- feel the branches
break through my
veins-- let roots attached me
to the earth by the bottoms
of my feet-- 
i grow my own peaches now--
you still collect my pits
as if you could reanimate
the type of unripened
peach-skin-faced love
we picked each other for--
next time don't mistake me 
for a kitchen table
made of glass-- i'm not
here to hold everything you
want-- i'm turning
my body golden brown-- freezing
myself in ziplock bags
& boiling in the pot
on the stove--
our mothers know how to make jam--
you can keep the pits--
my mother & i rebuilt the
table & we never picked peaches
like that again--
we learned our lesson about
the thrill of
abundance & these bodies
so easily bruised-- by a fall
oh boys who tried to re-grow
me-- i am blushy-- i am orange-skin
i am a mouth full of sun
& the snapped legs of the kitchen
table-- eat me on the floor--

this is where we give back our finger prints.

it is a little known 
fact that the grim reaper's primary
task is to collect our finger prints
to be re-cycled onto new bodies--
he wipes them off
with the ratty-blue dish towel
from the downstairs bathroom--
the one you dry the cutting
boards with when
your father in done cutting watermelon
in july--
death holds the labyrinth lines
that once made up your body
& saves them on the
surface of an ink stamper
tucked into his black robe--
he apologizes for
taking them as if you had 
another option--
he kisses your forehead
as you lay on the sofa--
runs a bone hand over your
cheeks to steal back the freckles--
they jingle in his
satchel like dislodged
sleigh bells &
your face feels lighter than it ever
did-- he pulls the wrinkles
from your knuckles &
knots them the cord
drawn around his waist--
he had begun the steady process
of dismantling a body--
the work is slow until
you find weeks drowning
in your skin-- I
eat time 
twirled on a fork--
angel-hair & spaghetti--
i'm keeping myself together
in secret--
this city of a body
is still a place to get lost
in & as long
as we remember our fingers--
we can turn these bodies
back into subway stations--
we stop in Staten Island
& you comment about the graffiti
& how there's nothing 
left of art & 
a bent trumpet
echoes in the deep trenches of
my thumbs--
you said music is quiet--
i always fall in love 
by accident again-- it's always
at this stop--
& i always disagree with you
& fall out of love 
& assume you never tried
to
hold onto a thumb print--
i disappear
with the sway of the train
the water from the channels &
river ways rushes around me--
there is no body like new york--
her finger print eternal &
brilliant & kept in the robe
pocket of the grim reaper 
who secretly believes in anything but
death-- 
i've kept my finger prints
saved stamped in ink
on the back cover of my
notebook-- i show them off
to boys who think too much
about dying to prove
there's a way of
holding things still--
i hold my whole
body by the noose of a grip
hanging from the ceiling of
the train--
i turn to you who sits next
to me & tell you
i would give up
my finger prints
if they would use them 
as the blue prints for
another city like new york--
& you tell
me as the doors open
& the machine breathes
that
they already have--
that you know
you've taken a
walk in central park
& been reminded
of nothing other
than the pathways i
keep trodden in
my hands-- 
oh death will have nothing
to do with my finger prints--
i retrace the patterns 
so i won't forget--
you said you always
wanted someone
to get lost
in.