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--
Uncategorized
05/10
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.
05/09
the ritual of a goldfish funeral & brief moments engaging in flight i want to get goldfish bowl lost with you again -- look at your face through the thick warp of glass & witness the small moments in in which you achieved flight-- you dive off the arm of the sofa into the pile of couch cushions sprawled on the living room floor-- we live with the curtains drawn & the brown fan clicking-- we play a Beatles cd in my boom-box-- the one with a green apple fresh enough to eat off the cover of the album-- our fish died again & we play to ignore the corpse for hours-- our family is not one for fish funerals-- there is no reverence in a toilet & besides our father is our coroner so it's best not to dwell too long on the limp body-- still you & i cannot help but wander back to your room to stare-- there is something so sorry about stillness-- in the patient dance of a un-animated fin-- oscillating in the tank from the hum of the filter-- the fish's eyes peer open & without purpose-- our pet remains looking across the tank wall to the fleshy faces of you & me-- i want to scoop it out with the green net so that it will stop looking at us & you tell me over & over that that's dad's job-- i removed the lid from the tank & the filter sputters-- i ladle the motionless body of the fish whose name changed every morning with the whim of it's young parents-- a brother & a sister & the god who lives in warped goldfish bowl glass-- we walk into the bathroom & the walls sing the kind of chorus only the children still hear-- it's the elegies of the collective of goldfish who sing their brother into the pipes-- around us float all his incantations-- fans of fin & silk scarf tails-- you don't believe me when i tell you the mirrors are water-- we dip in our green nets & find feathery skeletons & frog legs folded like cloths pins-- the door locks & becomes the wall of a fish bowl-- our faces bent & bug-eyed we look through to see pink fingers on the glass-- flakes of fish food fall like something between snow & leaves in december-- we eat them with gaping lips off the tile floor-- we run a bath-- force our heads under the surface in the tub to breathe while the room slowly fills to the ceiling-- but you remind me that we are creatures of flight-- turn the door knob-- pouring water all over the carpet-- we escape the bathroom & you follow me down the stairs-- we return to our practice of flight & don't say a word about the eyes of dead fish or the way we both watched each other become aquatic even if only in the brevity of a mirror--
05/08
the ultimate fullness of nothing & our mother's fear of us becoming moths i walked down main street yesterday-- felt the wind absolve my body of bones & i became a paper airplane & a pinwheel out the window of my father's blue jeep-- i know little about religion but i worship the god of jasmine flower necks & fake gardenias on grave stones-- & when i resolved to become nothing i found my way to the back porch of my parents house in the body of a caterpillar-- tossed my skeleton to a wind chime to use for a song-- crumpled the notebook paper lines of my rib cage-- everyone is praying i'm not a moth & i can feel it when they look through me-- i wrap myself in the type of bed sheet you can only get by walking up to the clouds & asking for love-- god is hidden & sometimes he's in your postcards-- the ones of stonehenge & seeing as i have been forgiven for my body i can be there now too in the mutual tourist photograph that once attempted to capture the knuckles of other humans who have long ago become another piece of the air-- i am the disappointment of a moth-- power-winged & hungry for light while i stand on main street like a stone in a stream of monarchs & swallow-tails-- how did everyone get so vibrant & i end up so muted-- i was incarnated a body that is best for listening-- & breaking-- crumpled like notebook paper on the lamp post behind our house-- a paper airplane from our my brother's bed room window-- she had hoped she could use water color or acrylic-- my mother say from the kitchen table & painted this moth-child & called me butterfly-- called me as tempting as jewelry in the window of the the thrift store-- so hopelessly extravagant & dead-- so i collect mosquito bites in the park pavilion-- peel open a notebook & write about a boy again-- not because i want to but because i'm write his apologies for him & seeing as i gave up inhabiting the sidewalk in a body-- i have no way of asking for one-- i write my own apologies & lay on the picnic benches so drenched in night my skin is nothing by night cloud & the high cheek bones of the moon-- i don't mean to always fall back into the images of the stars but there is an ultimate fullness in being nothing & ultimate lightness-- i get to be nothing but a fragment of wind & everything that pulls leaves from the magnolia tree out my bedroom window-- i get to be a handful of periods at the end of apologies & our reunion in a postcard photograph-- next time you love a girl make sure she's not a moth-- we're dull & there's not enough nail polish for our mothers to paint us into anything but air--
05/07
all sidewalks lead to andromeda. if you go out for a walk alone at night you are bound to walk out of this galaxy-- we all have that impulse especially in june or august when the sky is heavy with handful after handful of stars scooped from the glass candy jars god keeps on his end table next to a tall glass of water-- he turns the pages of a compilation of poetry written by humans & sometimes gets up to replace the lights that went supernova while he was reading-- on occasion he look up to see you who left orbit-- you who used the sidewalk too religiously & ended up on the farthest arms of the milky way-- breaking gravitation pull with your canvas shoes-- if you keep walking & remember all the nights you spent trying to mine the sky for constellations-- plucked the big dipper from between the celestial circus to stir your mug of tea-- Capricorn took you on his back so you could rest your feet from walking-- you have a tendency to forget time once you pass the threshold beyond our galaxy-- they told you andromeda was a memory-- a spiral woven into the foreground but all sidewalks end at the door step to another galaxy-- you wipe your feet at the door-- this is as far as you constellations will follow-- here the stars are different-- they make new animals & kitchen utensils to teach humans how to eat the sky-- step inside mosaic wall of someone else's suns-- pick up the planets like marbles to take home with you on the walk back-- before you leave you walk the parameter-- see in the distance another galaxy take a cartwheel & one galaxy merge with another in the greatest motion of love since the earth submerged into in oceans-- green & static blue in the spiraled arms of each other-- there's no greater force of gravity than the perpetual motion of the love of celestial bodies keeping each other in spiral & magellanic burst-- ursa major walks you home like a good mother & before you know it there's cicadas humming again & the sidewalk is thick with august & your shoes are wet from walking deep in light & star & before you come home you take from god's glass jar on his end nightstand-- he's too busy reading a poem you wrote to notice-- and out your window another star goes supernova & no body mourns-- but you laugh for her & hurl another in her place-- your pockets are still full of planets-- all sidewalks still lead to andromeda.
05/06
supernova and other manifestations of my depression. 1. i think of reaching up into the sky & squeezing the stars like blue berries popped in between my fingers-- 2. when my brother & i were little we would go blueberry picking & i would sit behind the rows of bushes to eat the 3. stars-- bruised between my fingers-- i learned to keep them in my pockets for when i forgot the names of the constellations-- Orion Orion for whom i wear worry like a belt-- 4. laid them out like marbles in the soil so that when it got dark & the sky threw a slip of cloud over her torso i could still remember where Castor & Pollux stand to raise a mirror of me-- call me gemini-- 5. we were all bound to expansion-- there is no such thing as the life of a star-- 6. nova meaning "new" meaning tulip necks & nooses & the hooks to drape dish towels-- 6. nova meaning "new" meaning telescope i shoot myself with onto the surface of mercury for everything to burn like the head of a match-- 6. nova meaning "new" meaning watching Kepler fall from existence is a burst of all a star once contained 1604 & the sky bombarded itself with the entrails of another star-- 7. the stellar evolution of death-- the last stage-- the fireworks-- 8. i watched fireworks from my father's lap at the carnival while i ate peach rings & if only briefly i forgot both about mortality & about the stars-- 9. supernova: the art of dying fabulously 10. the final catastrophic destruction of everything that was once a star swallow in explosion-- 11. i fantasize about my body in supernova-- not in bones but in the collected silhouette of a constellation made out of a handful of blue berries-- 12. the supernova may disperse all that was once remaining of the star-- 13. i fall apart at 30,000 kilometers per second so i can-- if only briefly-- outrun light-- 14. all i once was can be explained in gravitational waves-- i make the other stars question morality & the impermanence of a constellation-- 1. this is likely caused by gravitational collapse inward on the star's core-- 1. folded inward like a cave of sand dug with blue plastic shovel at the beach-- dug & dug until i found where the white crabs were hiding the un-named planets-- 1. & the shockwave is known to cause the formation of new stars 1. nova meaning "new" meaning wake up again-- 1. nova meaning "new" meaning unlearning the desire to die-- 1. nova meaning "new" meaning re-configuring your body into a new constellation & accepting the inevitability of gradual degeneration & one final fantastic supernova
05/05
our life on the backs of state quarters when my brother billy was 7 & i was 10 we spent a time living on the backs of state quarters-- my brother was the collector-- a binder set to find all fifty states & his only set back was a sister who liked to swipe a few here & there when her frog-shaped wallet ran out of enough quarters to buy cheese fries at the park's snack shack-- everything changed when one bored afternoon billy reached into the quarter from georgia & removed the silver peach-- stared at it & shared bite after bite till we reached the metal pit-- billy put it in his pocket & we scurried to the attic where no adults would see our discovery-- pulled the oak tree out of connecticut & leaned up against it's solid torso-- should we go inside? he asked, holding up oregon-- the coin held the pristine pressed image of a ridge of evergreens over-looking crater lake-- so, as the rain raced down the windows & thunder cracked like eggs on the corner of our mother's metal baking bowl i lead the escape onto the backs of the quarters-- once we walked the parameter of the lake in oregon we took a walk to the metallic glory of the grand canyon in arizona & snuck behind the gigantic american bison in kansas-- we listened to the common loon call from minnesota & sliced off pieces of cheese from the wheel perched in wisconsin-- as the day began to close & we watched the forth space shuttle launch over our heads from florida billy asked me if we could spend eternity on the back of the quarters-- pretend together that our would was quiet & shiny & clean & full of oak trees to sit underneath-- i said that when it was nice our the next day we would find a real oak tree to sit beneath-- it wouldn't be a silver as the pemaquid lighthouse in maine or the magnolias we laid on in mississippi-- but it will be sturdy-- & we will flip a coin heads or tails to see who will get up & walk to the snack shack to get cheese fries-- i use the notched rim to hoist myself from the top branches of vermont's two maples-- reach a hand to billy & pull him out onto the attic floor-- the quarter lay scattered as our journey-- billy stuck his hand back into georgia to return the pit of the peach.
05/04
what kind of flower would you be? --i ask because there's been enough poems written about both flowers & love so i figure i should put the two together & in the hopes of subverting your expectations but instead i realize that you could never ever ever be just one type of flower & to call you a flower i would have to buy you a brownish ceramic pot & nice warm soil to keep you on the porch-- i wouldn't want to compare you to a flower unless i could be one too-- if i called you an African Violet i would be right that you're patient & better at listening than an orchid-- you'd remind me of home because my mother used to keep an African Violet right next to the sink-- she would water it when she did the dishes-- but i would be wrong because your voice is nothing like a violet-- violets are too quiet & they don't ask questions about sinks-- they wait for you to come back to them-- in a perpetual bruise-- healing themselves like thumb prints-- i had wanted to call you a hydrangea because you have a type of volume only measured in blues & purples-- like the bushes outside my grandmother's old apartment-- the one with the duck fountain & the holly bushes beside you-- the problem is that hydrangeas die each year and crumple up like kettle-cooked potato-chips & i can't imagine you letting anyone take the color out of your petals--you're not a perennial type of person-- you don't believe in an absence of color-- you tell me you think of yourself like a tea rose-- & i think i can agree but only if i can be a tea rose too-- i don't want to compare you to a flower unless i get to be one with you-- i've got potting soil & i'll admit most days i feel much more like a dandelion than a tea rose but i think i could live up to the standard-- we'd shake dew from our faces in the morning & i would tell you stories about drawings i had made from constellations-- we'd drink rain & pretend we were the ones controlling the wind chimes hanging over head--
05/03
for girls who will sit on the second floor bathroom window ledge at kutztown high school. i used to sit on the window ledge in the bathroom between classes, in classes, & when study hall got to feel too tight-- we lived in a make-shift ant farm-- busy twitch of antennas & each of our six legs folded into ourselves-- there was a pervasive desire to run though none of us knew where yet-- i had spaces like the library & the art room to exist between but the window ledge was the only place i think i truly felt like i was comfortable-- a strip of territory i choose to still call home-- i opened the window & dangled my foot over the courtyard where i watched grey and blue uniforms go through the hourly performance of gym class-- i want to undress them & show them how tender & freckled & scabbed everyone's skin is beneath it all-- it was freeing to know i had the option to jump-- i imagined myself in sudden free fall-- tumbling past the windows of the trigonometry class-- the teacher might have the students measure angles & consult the Pythagoreans to determine how far i fell-- another day in the thick heat of April-- i would enter to find the window wearing a veil of fog-- i would want to write something profound & inspirational but always find myself drawing hearts instead-- it was the only shape my hands knew that they wanted-- heart after heart after heart in a sort of Morris code sent to the elementary school students who sometimes noticed my silhouette & single swaying Chuck Taylor from their view at the adjacent playground-- i took pictures of myself with my cell phone & sometimes i didn't even share them-- sometimes i kept them to myself as a silent elegy to a body of a girl who spoke love into Morris code-- broke her body like a host of bread among boys who never believed she would jump-- from the ledge i could see the place where i had my first kiss next to the blue bench between the slide & the monkey bars where a red-headed boy & i had held worm funerals after it rained & got married there it was the first grade so i still think it counts-- on the other side of the school yard the trail krept up the spine of saucany creak where another boy used my body as his monkey bars-- undressed me & told me i liked it-- you learn a lot about yourself when someone tells you what they want you to be & you perform it-- i listened because i thought maybe love was supposed to make girls feel small & want to crawl out second story windows-- i never told anyone back then i was raped next to the playground or that i liked to sit & survey the spot from the bathroom window between classes-- i didn't even call it rape-- if anything i called it a gap-- an open mouth where the words dropped out into the court yard-- some days i put on a gym uniform & became an ant-- crawled in & out of each room as a mechanism-- other days i wrote poetry on sticky notes from the bathroom window-- tossed them out the window for no one & everyone to find--
05/02
girls who cheat through labyrinths & pray to baby's tombstones-- i was the girl who cheated in the stone labyrinth maze & the one who told our girl scout troop that some of the tombstones were for babies-- the ones with the cherub faces worn by the rain-- 6 months, 2 months, 8 days-- we were premature with our fascination with death because we played in the graveyard behind the old lutheran church-- sat on tombstones-- walked barefoot on the freshly dug soil above a new grave-- the brick church with the glass window eyes overlooked the town like a grandparent: slumped & disapproving of us but still always falling asleep in their rocking chair -- the "cemetery hill" it was known as by everyone from the children whose parents sent them to camp in the park to the kids who thought of the public pool as their godparent-- we took turns walking the stone labrinyth just inside the cemetry gate while we sang our songs over & over make new friends & keep the old one is silver & the other's gold-- i never had the patience to walk the whole thing & instead i hoped in between the divisions-- reached out my hands to other girls who ran away from me-- a circle is round it has no end that's how long i want to be your friend they had started a rumor that freckles could be contagious & they didn't want any of mine-- i knew it wasn't just freckles-- girls are masters at finding ways to make each other ashamed-- i stepped over each make-believe wall of the gravel maze until i reached the center & proclaimed i had made it-- to which they told me that it didn't count unless you followed the rules-- walked in the lines-- i told them they would get haunted by baby tombstones-- bewitched by the rain-raw gaping-mouth angels-- trying to fly with stone wings-- the other girls ran further up the hill towards the mausoleum & so i sat & let the stones chew the backs of my thighs-- i decided that i would pray for the tombstone babies & for the labyrinth to grow walls to keep me inside & this time for the circle to find an ending-- or if not for us to walk through walls to find it-- a circle's round it has no end.
