hat boxes of baby photos; i float away on
a bucket of hearts

you keep my baby photos 
in the green hat box
on the top of the book shelf
in your bedroom.
sometimes i go there alone to
look--
spread them out on your
unmade bed & try to determine
which ones are me & which
ones are my brothers--
the images of myself disturb me--
a fist of dough wrapped
in knit blankets-- 
i don't like to see myself
so unwritten-- the 
folds of my skin 
twisted like the legs
of a balloon animal--
i don't know what my
unformed self thinks 
of me-- 
it judges--
laughs frilly like
tiny socks & bronzed shoes--
sees the freckles
spattered on my face--
the craters scooped out
of my skin--
the match stick marks on
my forearms
when i lit myself like
a birthday cake--
it sees all of that 
& responds with 
a smile big enough to 
devour us both--
you took a series of pictures
of me laid against a painted
red & pink heart background--
i look at the camera like
one would stare into
the mouth of a star--
i float-- suspended
in a bucket of hearts--
all the perhaps
you saw in my body--
what do you see when 
you look at me
small & hungry & soft?
i spit myself out like a peach
pit-- flip over
all the sets of baby eyes
still sprawled out on your bed--
do you take out the pictures
when you sit up late at night?
do you bemuse over
the wad of dough you
once could call a child--
were you excited for me?
could you have known 
the words i would write
onto my skin?
i pack up the hat box &
at night sometimes i
dream i'm holding myself
in a picnic basket--
draped in a red & white
checker board clothe-- i set
myself to float down the river
like moses--
i kiss my own forehead before 
i let the handle go--
tell myself 
no to take directions from
bottle caps-- float
float
float 
on a handful of hearts.

my brother & i in an april snow.

when i was twelve
the earth rejected the idea
of spring-- 
frost strangled the hyacinths
& made them scream--
each bell ringing 
while we tried to sleep
with the phantom of a snow
storm pacing in the 
hall outside our bedrooms--
spring slept on the cement floor
of the basement--
she cried like a wind chime.
outside the snow fell
in a pillow fight
until there was nothing
left to remember other
than a window
& you & i still
had overall snow pants--
mine green & yours blue--
the snow piled up to
my calves--
what do you know about
being full of absences?
we felt our skin evict us &
crawled out the windows
to wash ourselves
in emptiness--
leave a memory of footprints--
i put you 
in the neon orange sled to begin the 
trek to the school yard hill
we would slide down
only the snow got thicker
& thicker
we became the static screen
on the television--
opened our mouths only
to hear the crinkling of airwaves--
the swish of steel wool
rubbed against the belly of
the sink--
you dropped your snow
boots & said that everything
felt prickly--
i said-- no i promised
that we would get home--
we traded hands-- breathed
mist into each other's
red faces--
your hands felt like gloves--
we laid on our backs in the
sled & for the first
time i remember thinking
how easy it could be
to die-- 
i could see our house--
tall & contorted 
against the heavy grey of the sky
what intrigues me most
about this memory is that
i don't remember how we got home--
i can only recall us with out
snow boots
kicked off contemplated how
long it would take for the snow 
reclaim us both--
the next week there would be grass
again-- you would
call me sister & i would
call you brother
& we would not speak
of the time when we both
mixed together to become
nothing but static-- part of
loving someone is understanding 
how full of absences they are--
if it snows again in april
i hope you'll have someone
who loves you enough
to keep you even
when the sky empties 
you out in bucket-fulls.

let's tip over the eiffel tower.

you make me want 
to live precariously--
i love you like a mouth full
of wind & a street
lamp--
moth kiss me goodnight
again-- 
text me when you
get home-- i don't actually
think anything is going to
happen to you between here
& there but
i want to give you an excuse
to say you love me again--
i taught the rain to fall
like fingers on a
keyboard for you--
tonight i think we should
escape from time--
sneak past curfew--
we'll go when the digital clocks
aren't watching neon--
outside you can
railroad track balance with me--
i'll teach you what
it's like to steal corn
& throw the kernels like
unsprouted stars--
we'll follow the rivers through
all the cities we want to make
our own--
the places that exist  
only as ideas--
no one actually lives in new york
or london--
they only walk through
their frames in the paranormal
enterprise of making
the ground seem like home--
we'll end up in paris--
knock over the eiffel tower
just to use it as a close pin--
hang up the clothes wet 
from swimming-- wear
bathrobes like polar bears
& drop quarters in the Seine 
like a wishing well--
i don't tell you but i wish
one of the bakeries was
open so we could use their kitchen
to make enough 
petite fours to float home
on-- 
what do you know
about the water & how it's always
carrying you somewhere--
i don't speak french
but you tell me that in
paris even the bugs at night
tell stories about the
girls who knocked over
the eiffel tower
just because they loved 
each other--
i laugh hard enough 
to become a moth again--
the sun pulls us back
outside my house
only now the street lamps
are useless--
we don't tell the clocks 
we learned how to escape them--
we keep it between us--
set the eiffel tower back
on her feet--
kiss her legs-- tell her
we think she's beautiful
& only beautiful things
fall over so easily
when the moon is too
much like a light bulb
& someone once
more has escape past
the curfew 
of time.

my grandmother fits in the downstairs closet.

my grandmother's possessions
unraveled around her like her own
forgetful body-- piece
by piece we tucked
her relics in the corners
of our own house-- filled the
closet downstairs with
flimsy cardboard boxes of
her clothing she no longer wore--
tight-fitting orange gloves & 
the scarf printed with 
tabby cats-- stacked layers of
the picture frames
from the end table in her 
dismantled guest room 
--her parlour
chairs with ornate wooden
arms eloped during our
first june yard sale
-- the blue sofa 
still coughing up decades of 
cigarette sleet
waited at the end of
the driveway with the
blue garbage cans.
i know very little about my grandmother.
i don't think i ever had a conversation
with her longer than a few words
-- our love for
each other was obligatory--
measured in leathery lips
on an awkward fat-faced child--
her love did not allow feet on the sofa 
& warned you about
the precarious edges of
her glass coffee tables--
her loved manifested in 
tiny packages of holiday cookies
from Wholefood's bakery up the street
-- bunnies
at easter-- hearts for valentine's
day-- bells around christmas--
our love exchange was ritual--
acceptance of the treat & 
a kiss & my quiet feast from the
backseat of her car as she
would scold my plump fingers
& thighs for wanting to be
eight & thick & 
unafraid to eat the raisin 
eyes from gingerbread bunnies--
she forgot me long before she
died-- 
god broke her  
into two beings--
one stuffed into our closet--
haunting a pile of objects
& the other hovered over a white
bed
in the nursing home- there she
rested lightly as one side 
of a parenthesis--
beanie babies collecting on her dresser--
she knew she was a being
of fragmentation--
now at night sometimes i go 
downstairs in the house i 
don't live in anymore--
i open her closet--put
on her orange gloves
so i can try to imagine what
occasion she
bought them for-- i open
a pack of cigarettes & pretend to
smoke-- arrange
the picture frames
around me in a circle
to summon 
her away from the 
paleness of medical equipment
& burning lights in hospitals--
she rises from
the floor-- removes her boombox
from the back of the closet--
puts a cassette tape of
Amadeus-- sways slow 
from the safety of
the circle-- pulls me
in & we both
wear the orange gloves--
cigarette ash falls
like blizzard--
she's brought me a package
of gingerbread doves--
break break them in half
to share.

love me as red as a lobster.

when you remember loving me
do you remember the time
we ate lobster?
i paced back & forth
in the small Maine kitchen--
the tile floor was full of ants--
you got
out the pot large 
enough to boil the rings
off the planets--
outside the moon drowsily   
sulked in the afternoon sky--
she forgot her wristwatch 
in the bay-- 
pulled the tides
higher & higher--
to try to raise
them tall enough to reach
her bare belly--
the lobsters
strained against purple rubber
bands-- kicked their
legs in a chorus line
from where we kept
them in their
temporary sacks of water--
you put another rubber band
around me to tie-up my
arms-- your mother watched
& told you how good
a boyfriend you were to
hold me so tight--
love knows rubber bands--
pot on the stove--
you baptized me in the water
floating with corn cob
& potato hunk--
introduced me to lobsters 
we blush red maroon--
broken blood vessels 
on our necks-- 
flushing hotter
red red red--
the kind of red of a broken
nose-- mosquito bite
in the corner of a knee--
red head of a freshly
struck match pressed tightly
to a forearm--
i feel my meat turning juicy &
white--
you'll start by teaching
me how to crack
each corner of my body--
bite me with metal--
kiss the shells--
worship the skeleton
adorn me in butter--
this is how you eat 
love red as a woman--
the lobster eyes keep staring--
boiled dark side
of the moon-- she kept
raising ocean
until the water started
to come in through the windows--
you cracked & painted
butter
until there was no more 
meat left to suck
from my clams-- my hollow
antennae once housed  
the sensation of sound--
close the windows--
close the windows--
don't let the moon
see how red you are around me--
save the pot
for when i grow my flesh back
i'd like to know what
i taste like--
dripping in butter--
tight fist of a purple
rubber band.

the ants will find me again &
what flesh will i have to hide beneath?

there is no where to hide 
from a creature that can smell
the sugars of your blood
they sense the sores on the insides of
your thighs from where your legs
rub against each other--
they know we're always a seam
away from unfurling--
the air turns heavy as chicken 
broth-- pink flesh boiled from
bone-- i wanted to build
myself a body worthy of
wishing on-- snap
me in two-- me & you--
you see what the ants
hate most is disguises--
they hate how much skin we 
wear to cover
up the syrup we
call blood-- they like
to help me undress--
start button by button--
the gnarled teeth zipper
of my jeans--
then comes the lingerie--
nibble--frill--
with their mandibles--
they gossip that i dress myself like
a petit four--
fondant faced & full of 
sugar-- the ants want you
to know what i look like
beneath it all
& i want to find something
to crawl inside so
you can't see me so bare--
they always find me again--
they want me naked--
i could wear seal skin or 
leather or
leaves of cabbage but
the ants can always taste
a lie-- & no i wasn't
trying to fabricate
this body just so you would
love me--
i just wanted to look
like someone worthy of
unraveling--
touch my blood-- it's warm--
i'm not held together with skin--
i'm held together by the same
force that makes all the water
flow down--
the ants come in through
the cracks in the windowsill this
time-- close your eyes
love-- it won't be pretty
to watch--
the air is broth--
i'll leaving you
with the wooden spoon--
if they take me apart
there needs to be
someone who knows how to
stir the air--
ward off the ants by placing 
sugar cubes by the door--
keep my wish bones 
in your pocket until
they turn white. 

my brother & i 
in fish tank rewind.

swim back wards with me like
a nautilus down main street
in Kutztown at night
when the summer bumps 
into you-- the Turkey Hill
gas station was a chapel 
& my brother & i prayed
our lips raspberry slushie blue--
this was the summer my uncle
bought us a giant 
television to cram into
the unfinished living room--
a new portal--
we didn't have cable yet but
we had a few select DVDs
but my younger brother enjoyed
one in particular--
it came with the 
television-- a fish tank 
demo tape--
till this day i can't tell
you why we watched it but
my uncle would feed
the disk into the DVD player 
& my brother &
i would fall inside--
swallow bubbles-- feel
our faces turning fish scale--
he was always orange & white
as a clown fish & i 
was yellow & pensive--
grew whiskers like the crabs--
& finally the last montage would 
rolls around & we 
would swim backwards
& backwards 
& backwards into each other
in the bodies of the nautilus--
push ourselves into
the television-- build tentacles
out
of wires-- stuff
our limbs in the outlets--
dance lonely in the eternal 
motion of falling into a previous self--
my father tells us one July day 
while we're laying on
our stomachs in front
of the synthetic fish tank
that it's nice outside--
that the sun is out 
& it's not too hot--
he stands at the window.
we can't hear 
him over the churning of the fish
tank & even when we do
end up outside we
feel our fish skin dying--
losing the rich blues
& yellows-- absorbed into the sun--
notice 
our bodies gasping, gasping, gasping
for breath--
later in my bed room
i turn on the air conditioner
& lay on my back 
in the middle of the floor--
i imagine myself falling--
dropped into the fish tank
of my bedroom--
plastic aquarium
plants raising their arms 
around me
& my brother is there
like me-- trapped in the perpetual 
nostalgia-ridden
body of a nautilus--
i'm still waiting behind
the television screen--
drifting in the same
pattern-- 
rewind us--rewind us
only to play it back again
we dance the same--
my brother & i still
live in fish tank rewind
some days--
share
a look across a 
living room
hold each other by
the tentacles--
reunite 
from the floors of our bedrooms--
float to the surface.  

i think of you when i sprinkle salt
on fresh tomatoes.

i don't want to fall in love
again-- 
i don't want bruised lungs 
or to pretend i'm not 
a dying-girl so you can love me--
but i want to remember how
i did love you--
& to love someone is irrevocable--
crawl back up the steps
to a tree house full of chess pieces--
does this make me your knight
or your pawn?--
eat sour apricots from your garden
barefoot & soil knees--
ignite another firework 
to try to crack the surface of
the night sky--
we hunted so desperately 
for stars-- laid our bodies
out on a rooftop & prayed for
assumption--
what if love was as easy as
sleeping next to each
other in a bunk bed?
i couldn't write enough 
love poems to undo
the knots in our own spines-- 
there wasn't enough 
duck tape to keep
putting myself back together every
time you took too much of
me-- 
i turned myself into a 
package of fruit snacks--
an egg sandwich with mayonnaise 
the way you liked it--
what do you eat for breakfast now?
do you still put cream cheese on
your waffles?
do you pull her hair when 
she kisses you?
do you remember passing
fruit loops to each
other sitting on
a rock by the ocean--
where the sea gulls
laughed about how 
for humans part of loving is
a performance--
a candle lit dinner 
from the bed sheets--
a competition to see
how many new ways you can present
your body to someone else--
it's hard to love yourself
when every part of you
exists so much for
another person--
i'm a human not a video tape--
pull out my innards
like the flicker
of a still-photographs
you arranged to make
a girlfriend--
i knew you long enough to 
remember how the
crease of your back looks
in the dark of a bedroom--
the silhouette of your
face back lit by
lamp light--
we haunt a park pavilion--
kiss me tree torso & monkey
bar--
i remember you as our legs
entangled in a back seat--
a locked basement door--
& when i stand slicing
ripe yellow & orange 
tomatoes from my counter
i sprinkle them with
salt like you used to &
something about
them tastes so much like
us.

chocolate ganache 
& other ways to make a planet.

god owns the house 
at the end of the street
your always drove down
but never stopped at.
he leaves his windows open 
in april even when the morning
is cold. he wipes the dew from
the windowsill & turns on
his oven early in the
morning before we're all awake.
god's days have
five extra hours.
he spends the time before
morning getting ready for us
to wake up-- layers 
the horizon in the folds
of filo dough--
brushes the croissants 
with lye & watches
them blush in the oven--
in his spare time--
when there are bagels in
the oven or maybe
a blue berry crumb cake 
slowly rising on the counter--
he takes to his favorite hobby.
our god is a chocolatier--
rolling planets out of
the giant
bowl of ganache sitting
in his lap--
pours the terrestrial surface in 
a drapery of white
chocolate--
paints on the oceans with
a cue-tip of rich cacao--
when he is finished he lets
them dry in the freezer--
a line of planets waiting
to find a place 
next to a hand full of stars.
the earth wakes up again.
the oven chimes--
pouring the smell 
of banana nut muffins 
into the streets--
you open your window & wonder 
again who is baking--
wipe the dew from your windowsill--
smell the flake of strudel 
mixing with the melting
of white icing on the 
face of a danish--
there is something
unnaturally sweet
about the smell of the 
first instance of
morning-- you swear your
hear a humming
but you assume it is only
the low swaying of a tree branch--
the creek of a telephone poll.
up the way god pulls the planets
out of the freezer--
delicately between his two 
fingers he pick out his favorites
and rolls them like
dice into the night sky--
bites down 
on the surface of one of the
truffles--
chocolate melting on his
warm fingers-- he
chews a world as fast
as he rolled it into being--
wipes his hand
on the arm of his red sofa--
flicks on the television--
he has a channel for each of
us & a remote 
so infinite a human 
cannot conceive it-- watches
you & your windowsill
& nibbles on the edge of a danish.

metamorphosis of my word
in your mouth.

by the time you eat my words
they will be caramelized--
sugar bleeding sores--
the ants will
haven taken their mandibles 
to them 
& they will not
taste the way i made them
to taste-- 
this is what happens 
when you you fill your tomb
with a figs & apples &
honey rolls for the afterlife--
i want to watch you slice
lines in half on the bamboo cutting board
--pass segemented caesura  
among yourselves before
the cracked knuckles
of a fire--
snap stanza over knee--
boil until the line paper 
goes limp as well--
salt to taste

my mother asks me 
why i bother writing 
if no one will know what
i meant--
& i don't try to explain it
to her-- it's something
between me & god--
my poetry is the only
religion that's every loved me--
& when my body begins
to unravel from
the seams of my freckles
i find there is
enough hold in punctuation 
to keep this body a poem--
to keep this pillow
a prayer book-- these
scars were only new words
trying to claw their
way our my skin--

i'm not here to feed you--
i'm here to teach you how
to feed yourself-- these words 
are not a prescription
or a cure-- 
i write poetry in your mouth--
& you have written somehow in 
mine--
this isn't a spoon--
the page is where you 
talk to me after they seal 
the coffin--
i'll get to learn new languages--
sit with you on your back porch 
while you worry about a screen door
letting in the flies--

when we bake each other
chocolate chip cookies
we don't tell 
each other what to taste in them--
& when i leave you poems
i want only for you to wrap your
body in word before you 
sleep & know there is part of
me there too-- between
each simultaneous syllable 
we speak from other sides 
of time--
i hear your voice--
i hear a word i once laid next to another--
i hear us.

& oh love
it is your throat
not mine that made me
a poem.