the sinkhole beneath the kitchen table.

there's a sinkhole beneath
the kitchen table.
it swallows
family members like uneaten
green beans--my grandfather
was easy because he was
only a mason jar full of
ashes & the golden
handle of a cane--
this easter is the smallest
holiday my family has ever
witnessed but we 
still don't acknowledge
the hole under the table.
if we did-- that would only
make it more pleased--
the key is to ignore
these things-- pretend
you didn't watch your
grandmother slowly pulled
from the white chair--
she gripped the edge of the table
with her red-manicured
finger-nails clawing
to hold on--
she couldn't put up
much of a fight because the
hole is swift--
it's precise & it
knows when it wants to
engulf something--
it chews the memories left
in our bones--
gnashes femur & fork
& knife--
leaves more empty chairs.
joey fills 
newly vacant seats at the
table with stuffed animals
& plastic dinosaurs
for where our family members
used to sit--
my mother doesn't agree with 
me that because
i think that the china set is
cruel-- smug & too gold
for us-- we've never
been a family for china--
i don't understand why 
we need to set so many 
empty places
at the table only to watch the 
people sucked down
beneath us-- we have
never asked much about where
they go-- it's always been
more about the exit.
sometimes it leaves
their shoes.
my aunt's modest 
red heels still
wait by the front door
as if she's coming back--
each show 
was spat one by one
into the air when
the rest of her body was
consumed--
i keep a white plate 
because things are easier that
way-- twirl a fork--
take bites of thick & 
buttery air between us--
we use the poinsettia 
napkins-- 
unfold them on our
laps like we're at the tavern
again & billy & i
order chicken fingers--
i steal the red cherry from his
sundae--
i look up to see it's only
me & toys 
at every other chair--
i check to see
if my mother is still stirring
a pot
or if my father is holding
a glass of diet coke
& staring out the window
towards the garage--
i shovel a mouthful
of air onto the fork--
drop the china plate 
on the speckled red floor & 
i watch
the sinkhole nibbles
away at the shards--
it's gentler than i thought
it was--
i can't help being hungry.

 

on brief human achievements of flight.

who was it who brought you flowers?
the crocus-- the jonquils
pressed in between your leather
journals on the end-table--
the lamp wears her hat 
askew-- holding onto the rim
like a woman promenading 
along the edge of a glassy lake--
you took your words in tangled
fists of ink--
raw fingernails to 
dig stanzas from the white
of the page-- 
do you still wake up
haunted by the rain
falling on the keys of your
type-writer? did
you funnel men's words
down your throat like
you were taught to?
held them long enough 
in your stomach for
them to become a child--
there are different ways 
in which humans achieve flight--
there was the plane to San Francisco--
the paper folded for flying
that she sent to
you across the apartment--
there was the typed lines
of men kicking knots 
into your intestines--
& there was-- of course-- 
when you turned inside out--
white of a hospital robe
your blood wrote the garment into
a page-- fist to dig &
to uproot a child from
the page of a journal--
her name leaves you notebooks
empty like wilted
crocuses-- lavender & white--
the remind you of 
the skin of children or
of your loved who
flies paper airplanes 
across an apartment to 
someone else--
you're empty enough to
come to new york-- the
air on fifth avenue gets
swallowed by snow
& cigarette ash-- you don't mean
to still love her--
you don't mean to your
poetry in couplets
but your thoughts end in twos
& the window is open--
the pages are alive & breathing--
you hide them under your pillow
so no one care hear the
mouths you're hiding
& the window is open
& the lamp tips her hat
& the window is open & 
you catch a paper airplane
from the sill--
& the window is still open--
there are different ways
in which humans achieve flight--
you build wings from crocus--
folded yourself into an
airplane to fly
three stories down
to the street below--
typed your body
into the pavement 
like a glob of rain.

 

 

when you father asks you to go
for a ride in the blue jeep.

when your father asks you to
go for a ride in the blue jeep 
you don't say yes--
you just follow-- 
crawl inside on all fours--
choose how old you want to
pretend to be--
you wear jeans with
the knees ripped clean from
kneeling by the stream
catching tadpoles--
you both live together inside
a terrarium that was once
your bedroom--
you wear your kenpo uniform with
the jacket un-tied
& you keep your hair short &
brown & slick with
august sweat--
he keeps the top down so
you can both become part of
the wind--
engine hums with
the throat of a tambourine--
together you make a radio 
from the cicadas--
you want to join them &
burrow deeper
& deeper into the corn fields--
you listen to him
when he tells you about the 
farm house they tore
down around the corner--
how naked & how menacing
the empty earth has become--
you tell him 
what you remember of
the airport & watching the yellow
biplane taking-off while
you & him ate turkey club sandwiches
at the Airport Diner--
you stole the pickle spears
& could never finish your milkshake
while
he folded the paper napkin rings
into airplanes to
fly across the table--
you notice he took off
the rear-view mirrors--
the road disappears behind you--  
the jeep only drives forward--
it is a forgetful kind of god
without a face or a rudder
to steer with--
your father & you trust the machine--
pray a hymn built from 
the collective melody
written my the falling rain--
you felt the hole in your
spine weeks before
the bottom of the vehicle
started to rust out--
you felt your own body 
metal grin when you 
stumbled forth
from the garage-- seatbelt-less
& unpredictable--
you didn't tell your father
or anyone else--
it's an easier task to 
feel your skeleton rust
& bend alone-- 
you listen when he tells you
the jeep has a hole in 
the frame-- the road behind
you shatters into a mist
until you stop at a 
bent in the road--
you believe him when he says 
he's going to weld the hole
in the frame of the jeep--
you drive
off the road together--
feel the holes in your own
spine growing--
when you father asks you to go for a ride
you follow him until there's 
no more road & the jeep 
digs itself into the tall talks of corn--
you wear a jean jacket--
you hang your hand out the window 
& try to catch yellow
bi-planes in your fist.

 

billy flash & other names i call my father

as far as i know i own
my father's only remaining band
t-shirt-- 
i stole it before i left for
college from the attic--
the cardboard box was 
nestled between a folded
stack of Genuardi's supermarket 
aprons & my grandfather's
ashes we never bothered 
to bury--
my family are people
who don't unpack themselves 
much-- we pile the spaces under our
bed-- toss old shoes 
to the back of the closet.
when i visit home i always
pick up my first pair of 
Chuck Taylors & put them up
against my shoes to see
how small my feet used to be--
completing the ritual i 
put them back-- cover
with the curtain of a prom
dress & my white confirmation
robe--
i wear my father's band t-shirt
with purpose-- it's a kind
of portal--
in the photograph printed 
on the front 
my father crouches down--
hands on his knees--
his hair is thick & curly--
he's a cartoon in black and 
white outlines--
my uncle wears sunglasses
gazing off into the distance--
cool, calm, & sleek--
they're probably maybe age now
& i can't imagine what
my young father might have
been thinking when
the photograph was
taken-- so what i do is
i lay the shift on the floor--
take two steps down into it
look at my own body turned into
a black & white outline--
i read their band name 
BILLY FLASH & THE RAINCOATS
inscribed relentlessly
above our heads--
a sort of halo or a homily
to a past boy
in Chuck Taylors &
Rickenbacker slung over
his shoulder--
we don't say anything to each other--
i let him pose while
i walk off
into the far corners of
the t-shirt-- i walk out
through the arm
hole & emerge back into my bed room
still a black & white outline
of a daughter--
i pose for myself in the mirror--
peel the band name from the
t-shirt to inscribe it above
my head like a proverb--
i lace up black Chuck Taylors--
i write my poetry 
on the inside of the sleeves. 

 

the easter bunny 
& other lies that can't hurt us.

while sitting in my 
father's blue jeep
when i was seven
my father & i agreed that
the idea of a giant bunny
breaking into your house
on easter eve was absurd--
we resolved it was nothing
like santa claus.
santa had sound evidence
of transportation &
neither of us could refute 
the crumbs on the plate
of oreos left out for him 
each year--
we ate jelly beans mouth fulls
from an open bag--

i never believed in the easter bunny
but he taught me how there are some
lies that are sacred.
there are some lies 
that were always inevitable-- 
some lies that are necessary for
falling in love & you have to  
really love someone to lie
to them like a fist of
robins eggs.

we have nested here in the
green plastic
grass-- pulled on
our sugar-blazers like
the marshmallow chicks--
my father call me 
his little girl.
i sit patient in a 
woven basket for him--
pretend i still eat candy
with a fork 
pretend i still believe
in easter bunnies-- bending
up right & walking
in our unlocked front door--
my parents wave to him
& tell him where to leave 
the baskets for us--

i decided not to believe
anymore so that maybe
everything i eat would stop
tasting like jelly beans--
i don't want to sit in
easter baskets.
i don't want to keep
waking up in the body 
of a girl--
each time i pull out
my hair in tangles
of plastic grass i am reminded 
of how beautifully deadly
our lies are--

i refute him from the back porch--
not loud or audacious--
i whisper it like
the gossip of the wind chimes--
i say
there was never an easter bunny--
the easter bunny
is nothing but another
name my father gave himself
so that we would love him
in more ways than one--
& so the sky cracks
to sprout tulips 
& the ground rains upwards--
the thunder growling from the
the soil won't let me sleep--

i have to fill plastic eggs with
handfuls of speckled jelly
beans-- blues & greens &
a certain type purple
that reminds me of bruised 
skin-- my body in a trance
i peel off the wallpaper
to harbor the vessels--
rip up the tiles of the
kitchen floor like scabs 
to conceal more eggs--
this house is a skeleton
of everything we left unspoken--

this is how easter bunnies
are born-- refusing themselves
& simultaneous proving our
own existence-- 
i refuted my own existence
on the back porch--
sneak in front doors--
crawl out of plastic eggs--

i can pretend to be your
little girl &
bite the heads off
of the chocolate rabbits
sleeping
alone in the woven basket--

 

 

teach your children to walk in graveyards &
hopscotch to heaven

1.
i took a handful of fresh
soil & my father told
me to put it back--
the patch of dirt
 was warm & soft from 
the sun with the texture of
oatmeal--
when i was four my father
& i walked through cemeteries 
as much as playgrounds--

2.
i got to know the residents

3.
there was the boy 
who swallowed his father's watch
& with an ear up against the
head stone i counted the click
of the second hand

4.
the man who one hand buried
his missing limb
on the other side of the 
property 
between the mausoleums--
i leave his arm flowers--

5.
we undress the crayons
& make rubbings of the names on
the tombstones-- especially 
the gnarled-face ones
where the rain has eaten
all the words away
& left only the 
mumbling of the ghosts
sitting on the 
marble bench trying to
recall each other's names

6.
i over hear them 
George? NO
Anthony? NO
Was my father named 
Augustus or 
did I read that somewhere?
they look at me when they
realize i can hear them--
walk away confused & 
disquieted to see
a child able to listen to
the dead--

7.
i their plant plastic 
daffodils & tulips
in the ground so that they 
might find their roots--
be spurred on to 
become real by the 
community of death around them--

8.
they wilt

9.
i dare the stone angels
to fly-- they weep-- kneeling
above the entrance to the 
stone cottages--
they weep & plead to be left
alone--

10.
why did god give us
angels stone-wings?

11.
i walk inside-- wipe my feet
at the door to join the
family all playing
black jack on the mausoleum 
floor-- 
i don't ask to play
but i like to watch 

12.
when i say goodbye
the angels ask where
i come & go from--
i tell them 
nowhere
when they ask who
i talk to--
i say 
no one
& my father calls again
& they tilt their heads
to ask if
i heard the faint
voice
of the wind--
stuff the crayon rubbings
in my sweater--
dart between the
head stones-- like 
hopscotch squares.

 

an apology to the 
bats we evicted from our attic.

i want to make an empty apology
to the bats we evicted from
the attic of our house in kutztown--
the house with the painted
porch teeth & the green
mailbox knocked askew 
so many years ago by a snow-plow
passing by--
i hope one of you is still listening.
there's nothing i'm going
to say that you don't already know
so i'm
i'm writing this in chalk on
the drive way--
i'm thinking of what it
would be like to sleep
in the garage full of
deflated bike tires & lop-sided
sun-bleached hola hoops--
we can't fit cars in it anymore-- 
i like to hope some of you still
haunt the property--
black wings beating veins
on the cheek bones of the moon--
i find your shadows hanging upside
down when i left up my 
arms-- a whole row of bat bodies
all dangle listlessly
until i blink & i'm left only
with the sensation of their
toes latched onto the soft
under-skin
of my arms-- on occasion
i even grow my own wings--
my body contorts-- crumpled
into an apostrophe--
i would rather be haunted 
then feel the kind of guilt
you've left me with--
the kind of guilt that only
comes from forgetting--
removed you all to make space for
sinking cardboard boxes, purple
hearts & gold pocket watches 
ticking backwards
& backwards
my family has a tradition 
of collecting-- i could have
you over to visit & show you
the shelves of stamps next
to boxes of my mother's unopened
glass dolls--
i hope you didn't forget anything
when you left--
my father describes opening the 
windows & waving his arms wildly 
until 
black-fur bodies poured 
out the mouth
of the attic window-- wing & teeth
& clawed fingers--
if you were to return one
day i would only as that
you write back to me--
no one gets enough letters--
i would have sent you one
if i had known where to 
postmark a message to a colony of
bats--
put the flag up on the green
wobbly mailbox--
we can sit on the floor of the 
attic--
open box after 
box-- open
the windows & light up
the floor
up with the gleam
of the moon.

the disassembly of my body by the flies
& an apology to the moon.

i walk out on the wharf
alone tonight-- dangle my feet out
over the water with the faces of the
mermaids floating just below
the surface-- their eyes
glossy, luminescent, & cat-like--
i want to let them pull me 
down where it's quiet
but i'm here to be disassembled--
i want to give something to
the body of the land who
has given me so much--
it's not really a wharf--
it's the gravel road behind my 
house in Kutztown where
the field turns soybeans & corn
& wheat & dirt 
& watermelon carcass devoured
by the foxes--
it's not really a gravel 
road it's arched back of
the graveyard hill-- the one
with the dying tree who everyone
knows keeps the moon hung in
the sky--
this is where i read my
apology--
i'll start off with the moon--
for all the times i didn't
stop to notice you were
fading & 
was too shy to 
open my mouth wide with
you when you were brave enough 
to imitate the sun--
for all the times i was too
busy untangling 
constellations-- for the times
i ate you down to 
the rind & spit your seeds
on the gravel road--
i'm looking to be taken 
apart here-- because i want
to stop--
i want to rest with
the pieces of myself spread so 
thin that only the 
moon will recognize me--
that's why i made a boardwalk 
from the steps out my back door--
we all go back to the ocean at some point--
in stone harbor one morning
i was attacked a by a thick swarm of
gnats-- writhing bodies 
kamikazed at my skin--
i ran because i wasn't ready--
i was too scared of what it
would be like to let
the flies redistribute my body
but now i trust them--
i'll set and wait for them to come
with the sun--
i'm hoping they will take off
me arms to incorporate them
into the limbs of the dead tree
on the hill-- take my freckles
& turn them inside out to make new
stars--
open my mouth wide, wide, wide
as the moon--
oh i'm sorry i haven't been
watching you--
i know you follow me--
push clouds aside-- peer
in through the car window
in the back seat of my mother's blue station
wagon--
take some of my hair & 
use it as a streak
of cloud so i can climb tall enough
to kiss her face--
thank her for all the times
when she took shifts 
staying up bright & full
through dark to keep me company--
i hear the flies buzzing a distance off--
mouths suckling the empty air
in desperation--
it's their job to scatter us--
teach us what it's like
to feel ourselves
in so many different parts-- 

on writing loneliness so much
it becomes a body.

i don't want to alarm you
but i wanted you to know before
you decide to love me that
i was the girl you heard about--
--the one who talks to the corners
of rooms-- 
walks into the wall paper
to discover a forest
full of stiff trees
-- the one who 
holds their hand out 
car windows & catches
shards of fruit snack wrappers 
tossed from the front
seat a blue station wagon 
-- the girl 
who pulls up the onion
grass by the neck
--the left fielder tearing the
grass up with a metal cleat--

the kind of girl who 
needs to
dig a tunnel under the house
with baby spoons
in search of the cisterns
to hide in--
that's where my grandfather
is sleeping-- my father
looks for them too but
he never digs--
he knows if he found one
he would never come back--
i'm good at coming back
that's why i use baby spoons--

i have always been lonely
& it's the kind of thing
i look forward too--
a rush like standing 
on a wooden plank above
a pool of stars-- i have 
written so much about loneliness
she became her own body--
i don't want to control her anymore--
there she sits
riding shot-gun-- rolls down
the windows & only eats the blue 
fruit snacks--
i tell her that's not fair 
but she only legs dangles 
her feet in the rushing 
air-- leg hairs bristling
in the wind--
she wears an over-sized 
grey-hoodie like a dress 
all the way down to her knees--
it reminds me of the one
you used to wear when
we watched fireworks--

sometimes she just sleeps
& i have to remind her
to get up again & follow me--
she's nothing like
a shadow-- i already had one
of those--
you have to watch her more--
shadows are so much more
obedient but loneliness
rests up against 
your shoulder & kisses your neck--
i can understand why it would 
be frustrating to love the both
of us but i hope
you can understand that
i need her sometimes--

when we go to the movies
she takes up the seat to the left
but i have two sides & 
i promise i'll be listening to you

on days when i drive off
just the two of us she'll play
with the radio & she always knows
what song to find to make me cry--
i park & recline the driver's seat
like a dentist's chair--
she crawls over on top
of me & tangles her body 
in mine so tight that we
become one-- i cry about
nothing & everything
& the things i'll never
find at the bottom of the cistern--

i open the door with her arms
still wrapped around my neck 
like a silk scarf--
she laughs in the shrug of
the trees-- kisses
my neck softly
again & again.

When the moon falls into the steering wheel.

 

I like falling into a steering wheel and remembering everything

I ever did with you under a moon—licked the plate clean

At the table and tossed it into

The hesitant sky— even

The stars didn’t believe me—

measured out of chicken breast cubes—

You held me until I ate again— but

My body has a way of escaping—

I’m a person who lives

Entirely outside of my own skin—I live on

The sound of a perhaps screamed in the wind chimes—

This is what it is like to love someone made of approximations

of love—I write poems about the birthday cakes I won’t

eat again—always saving the corner piece

with the fate red rose—

you taste like a tablespoon of icing

consumed from a wooden bench at

the park between the swings

and the old roller skating rink they

tore down and poured cement over as burial–

I relive my cut my wrists in circumnavigation—

retrace my steps

Somehow back to you—

Do you remember what girl I was coiled

In a yellow bus seat—

Head thudding—arms becoming snakes

To eat each other—

I write poems because I know very little about myself

Anymore—I like to remember us

Because I felt steady—I felt

Like my life had a back porch to sit on—

A father who craved watermelon in the sink—

We’re all dying in our own ways

And I’m afraid what it will do to

Me to love you enough to share the process—

I hope when people read my poems

For a moment they understand who I

Haven been becoming all the

Way over here—

I love the city because it’s populated

With so many people I get to

Be all of them—I don’t have to choose—

I dye my hair unapologetically

Black so the stars mistake me for

A piece of the sky—

Eat potato rolls smushed with

Banana and peanut butter

Because I’ve been pretending for

So many years that I don’t want to eat that—

You know if you saw me eating

You wouldn’t love me anymore—

I measure my own love

In a porclein bowl

Where it’s safe—but oh love

You’re safe with me—I know

How to teach someone to love me

I practice in the mirror—growl brushing

Teeth—I have been a wife—

I have been a corset—I have been

A prayer in the mouth of enough

Boys to know that if you want to

Love me we can play for awhile

And you can be entirely intrigued by me—

I’ll get naked and you can

Watch how my ribs spread like

A fist of spoons—

I park. I remember how heavy

It is to have bones made of

Plastic straws and

Cookie crumbs off the moon.