setting myself a place at the table.

i usually take out another paper plate
from beneath my bed when i see
the sky start to sprout freckles
of stars--
dispose of the moon when i'm done
so no one knows how
much ketchup i leave unused on the plate--
there's french fries cooking somewhere
or my mother is up early burning
together hash brown & scrambled eggs--
the dining table of my mattress
folds itself upside down--
my hair hangs like monkey bars
& i wrap myself in 
the table cloth my mother
sewed with Iris--
they pulled
strands of another rainbow from a
tear of dew when Eos set 
out the forks & the knives in the morning--
Electra stole me pillows from
her husband--
Zeus was always watching--
playing spoons on his knees-
set the table with me 
in the sky naked of clouds--
become naked of sky with me--
unbutton my shirt like
you would undo a comet--
let's eat like the gods who feast
on nothing but the thickness 
of the air
around the crown of a mountain--
freckles reflected in my
skin-- you said to get out
the fine china tonight
so i slid down my bed posts 
& into the basement 
where Hades tells Persephone 
how to fold the wash clothes 
& how to fold the dinner
napkins--
shows her to cover her lap 
when she eats-- 
i take one plate--
gold-rimmed like
the crust of the horizon--
climb back into they sky
to set the table--
the moon wore a skirt
ornate in arabesque--
i piled it high with
crusts peeled off of saturn--
piping hot sweet rolls
from mercury--
another cheese platter
set by Dionysus to help us
sleep as heavy as 
the onset of a cloud--
i hang upside down
at the dining table--
lick the fine-china moon
clean-- tie the dinner napkin
around my neck like a cape
i fall back down 
with you--
& you wake up 
with forks in your hands
& ask if i was setting
the table again 
in my sleep.

my father & i steal back our dinosaur bones.

when i was three i sat on my father's
shoulders to bear witness
to the mighty bone elegy of 
allosaurus--
hunks of boulder lodged
in the fossilized body of 
ankylosaurus-- we
were bone worshipers--
our pilgrimage summoned
us to the Museum of Natural History--
disciples of the skeleton--
acolytes of anatomy--
it was probably a few years later
that our own bones 
started to fade away--
we didn't notice at first--
found it harder & harder 
to walk next to 
each other--
we stopped praying to 
dinosaurs--
tore off an arm bone
to use as a softball bat--
steadied ourselves with the
torsos of the trees--
the necks of the ivy
pulling us up by the puppet strings--
mornings we have to crawl on
all fours to make
it through another field
of antique lamps & 
PEZ dispensers
in august
my father & i meandered on
the arthritic gravel 
of the country road behind
our house--
the one with the foxes
eating watermelon rinds
& we realized we were both
limping--
my father's body crumpled--
his ribs turned into kindling--
snapped like
wishbones or 
violin bows--
he touched my arm
with his callous fingers--
felt right throw it--
no bones--no bones-- no fossils--
we had become a state
of being stolen-- 
a femur-- a fibula-- the arch
of my hips bit off like
the bottom of an ice cream cone--
i melt--we melt 
on the back steps of the
bottling works where
we drink root beer like
cough syrup--
count the number of bones
we've had pillaged & make
a list--
my father wants back 
his ribs--
i'm settling for 
my knees-- i'm nothing
without something to
hinge on--
somehow i get back up on his
shoulders
& we manage not to crumble--
it's dark but the moon
has a belly full of koi--
we break in through the windows
of the museum--
this time there is no reverence
because we want our bones back--
the ones the dinosaurs have taken
from us all these years--
i want the hallow legs
of a pterodactyl-- the crest of
an iguanodon--
my father tears the 
plates off the back 
of the stegosaurus to make armor--
this time
this time
this time we won't break.  

 
 

is this a story of how time can only move
in one direction?

i pulled us into film reel--
square after square after
square of you kissing me
under a porch light
& saying goodnight-- 
cracked in the throats of
august toads-- 
i roll frames-- projected onto 
my white sheet still stained
with blush & blood--
this is the bedroom where
i used to cut my hips--
where i started
to bleed like the hung head
of a tired tulip 
who carries more than spring--
i've tried remembering you
differently-- tried
writing your name so
that it comes out like
something other than a prayer--
you were the 
the conquest of skin
every girl was taught
to ask for--
water snakes tangled
to hold us naked 
in the creek--
my body never wanted to
fall in love with a boy
or porch light or
a cut my hips to make gills--
burn polka dots into
my forearms to 
print wallpaper--
i don't want to believe 
in time anymore--
the sun is a cookie dunked
into milk-lip horizon again
& again-- ragged in 
the trees
bite off a week in april--
chew december like
stale toroni-- shuck 
september into a wicker basket--
we'll fish for the moon again
& i'll read Frankenstein 
on the floor of your basement--
walk off walk off
walk off into the ocean
entangled in your
entangled in me
entangled in ripe tides threatening
joint suicide--
time feels so much 
like drowning 
when you remind me of how
many times i've tried
to dig tunnels back again
to my body on you bed--
hang upside down from a
graveyard tree
& throw the carnival goldfish 
in to the creek--
teach them to eat their
children
so they don't have to 
remember their small bones
when they too start to 
count the sun--
dunk your head into a sunset
again-- toss rocks
into the sky
to make fireworks-- 
i still
find your hair
in the cords of my necklaces
from when you rested your
head on my chest
& told me you loved me--
no one lies when 
they say they love
you they just don't
know that they love
something else--
the freckles pan-fried
& burnt into my cheeks--
the protrusion of
ribs from
in between my breasts
the way i could kiss
the sun still for him--
we fall in love so easily 
with the progress of
the sun--
unlearn time with me--
kiss me on a back porch--
mail me august sealed
in packing tape--
i'll send you your hairs
one at a time
until time moves in another direction--
i burn watches now--
break off days of a calendar like
graham crackers--
my lover roasts marshmallows 
over the arch of the sun--
sticky fingers & 
chocolate melt like pentecost--
& here i remember you
not like we were
but how we wanted our skin
to be-- a canvas--
a calliope-- a graveyard tree
but somehow
also the red gills of a goldfish--
pulling & pulling
in the dry air-- 

paper mache grandfathers. 

my grandfather died when i was
four.
he remains a box of fruit snacks
perched high above the fridge--
the sun bleached baby pool
behind the house--
a cane leaned up against the wall
next to the umbrellas--
i rebuild him
-- my grandfather
becomes three-dimensional
in the paper mache of 
family stories told & told &
told & dipped in paste
until the words bleed into ideas--
my grandfather is a man sitting
in a our house alone
while the doors & windows opened
closed/opened/closed
clattered in the fury tendrils
of the tornado up the street--
& only my grandfather 
would assume death was coming for 
him-- 
he would not run but permitted
a storm to ruffle shingles
around him--
i make him the kind of man
who was not neither ready
nor afraid of death--
he did not go to church but
he said the our father
with a kind of conviction
that turned the words
into a spell--
at night when his sons had left 
he walked up the side stair case 
alone to our attic--
groaned until he could get on 
his knees 
before a wilting card board
box that housed the
remains of his brother--
three purple hearts
& a folded flag--
the bruised lips of 
African Violet-- he is
still sorry & when he picks
them up he pretends that one
of them is his--
in august sometimes he tells
older son that
he wishes he could 
bury himself in one
of the cisterns they found in
the backyard--
his son laughs painfully
because he wants to hide there 
too--
there is something fleeting
about my grandfather--
he keeps death's business
card in his tattered brown
wallet--
he drinks whiskey from
a bottle in his closet--
alone & discrete--
drunk in the blurry
eyes of a moon--
he doesn't get angry like when
he was younger & 
sometimes he wonders where 
it all went--
i wrap his fists in band aides--
he pours a mug of
water over my head
from the kiddie pool--
we lean against the railing
of the side of a navel carrier
off the coast of Brazil
he tells me i shouldn't be
here--
& i explain that it's my
job to write the stories 
that almost never happened--
he's in love with 
an idea of a woman from
both oceans--
my father & my uncle 
were inevitable
but to him i could be astounding--
hair dripping like a sea monster
i rise from the kiddie pool--
from over the bow of the ship
for him to swaddle me 
in a blue towel--
& for a moment he sees
his brother standing 
on the sand of Okinawa--
sea beast rising
from the alien water--
shutters clamoring--
death is an eye of a storm--
he knows not to trust
a tornado 
to do the job 
of august rain.  

light up my body like an EXIT sign--

i raise my hand when they
tell you locate the exits in the theater--
neon, red, & shouting--
my skin is made a siren--
people ask me how i came to 
this & i tell them
that some of us are born
entering a room 
& others are born leaving it-- 
i'm also in the process of departing--
you can walk out through me--
bend the door knobs of my shoulders
& push
me open-- there is always a stair case
to fall down if you're not
careful or if you're looking for the
sensation of flight--
no i don't know where i'm leaving
for-- the destination was never
the point of the exit--
hold my hand &
lock the door behind you--
hail the permanency
of the click of the back door
of my spine--
transverse the skin stretched
across each rib--
i try to wash the neon out of 
my freckles--
i glow when it's dark &
everyone finds me with their
suicide letters written in crayon
on napkins--
i know they're only looking for
a way out &
i happen to glow above
a door frame--
invite me inside-- i'm the inversion
of a vampire &
i'm asking you if you want to leave--
i eat nightlights with
my fingers and sometimes
a plastic fork--
there's no where left 
to go in a room this
dark other than outside--
if you that's where i'm leading you--
don't be scared--
it's better to walk out together--
this is the arch--
i can be your two by two--
no we don't have to 
be the same species-- i've
opened my lips
to swallow lovers & diplomats &
women who collection
too many ceramic statues--
we all have space for another 
back door--
we all wanted a way out
& then you got me--
bright red light to brand 
my name in the cool
flesh of the wall--
i prefer that you think of
me as a process of departing--
vacating-- turning
a door knob like the winding up
of a pocket watch--
instead of the fixed blare of
lights they chose to 
demarcate my body--
to separate me from the rest of
you who call me EXIT--
i raise my hand in the dark of
the theater.

i'll do my dishes by the dim light above the kitchen sink.

are you still broken enough
to be a poet? 
i look out the window above the
sink & the lamp posts
line a runway-- 
an aisle-- 
i want to walk out
the back door--
fall off the stoop
of the porch & 
wake up with my back 
against the concrete--
count the stars like
vertebrate-- 
crunching caramel 
popcorn knuckles--
my fingers
turn into prunes in the water
to remind me of how
washing ourselves
clean is the thing that 
ages us most--
everyone likes a poem about
a dying girl-- likes
to watch fires spread 
from wrists to hair--
there is a certain spectacle 
only made when i cut myself
clean into stanzas--
here everything is a metaphor--
my mental illnesses collage
gooey warm brownie
in the tray-- take
a bite & swallow with 1% milk--
starvation was only meant for 
the writer--
i think about
killing myself
& it's not as neat as a poem--
it's washing dishes hot
in the sink--
stacking my measuring cups
inside each other like Matryoshka dolls--
lighting matches on my forearms--
bending the spine of the stars 
into an archway to walk
under when the sky
cracks into thunder--
some nights i can only write
with a fork & a spoon
washed in the scorching
water from the sink--
sometimes i turn the faucet hotter
until the steam pours from the 
spigot-- melt the skin 
from my finger bones--
sometimes you sit on the couch
with a three-pronged fork
& a paper plate &
you tell me i am a poet--
a great poem--
use the fork to line-break--
enjamb my starvation into a symbol 
for something other 
dying-- sometimes 
it's not a metaphor--
sometimes it's just 
where i chose to plant 
a period-- a comma--
a hyphen-- save a corner
piece for me if you're coming
over to eat tonight--
we'll watch the lamp
light become a runway out the window--
& i'll do the dishes--
wash the paper plates
while you eat--
have another piece--
there's enough vertebrate
to bend into the moon--
sit with me--
i'll watch you eat--
fork in hand--
rhyme your lips to
the hush of the faucet--

i am a girl with a wobbly glass door knob.

turn me again-- 
i've come loose from the whim
of too many wrists-- i am the 
girl with the wobbly glass door knob--
come on in come on in 
come on inside-- i twist
easy for boys like you 
& i can tell you're afraid 
of opening something
so fragile-- 
this is the kind of love 
without a key hole to 
lock us up in--
i buried my keys long ago beneath 
the hydrangea bush--
the front door
is made of rice paper
so my hair stands up 
when you breath--
across the room you are nothing
but a only breath in my frames--
i rattle in the archways of my ribes--
you are scared of how much
i know about you just
from an encounter with your sweaty--
candy-dish hands trying
desperately to turn a door knob--
you hold girls like nonpareils--
melt me-- break me like this Eucharist
body-- you made me a god
to turn & turn & turn--
pirouette princess-- that's
how boys like to open up
a door to a house they
only need to walk in to 
own-- this is the conquest
of the space my body has
been permitted to occupy--
you make me 
into the entrance way of a museum
full of paintings only you can touch--
oh boy 
you can open the front door 
but i can peel you apart slow
in lobes of clementine-- 
& you haven't even been
able to walk inside
-- this is what we what
have door mats for--
wipe your hands & your feet--
the coat room has a chandelier
hung by a string of fake pearls--
the ceiling is sometimes 
a mirage of stained glass--
boys don't know much about 
houses-- mine has more
rooms than doorknobs--
more windows than wind chimes--
what are you doing here?
this is post-colonial--
i'm still unlearning the
mud from your shoes
in the corner of the living room--
turn off the television--
i didn't tell you 
there was anything worth watching
this flicker inside the den 
of my chest was only a citronella
candle to keep the mosquitoes
out on the porch--
next time you decide
to visit bring orchids or
a key to your house--
no i won't be visiting--
but i do want to teach you what
it's like to wiggle loose
& lose door knobs-- open open open 
without decision--
my door hinges break into flight--
blink themselves into butterfly
& gypsy moth--

one at a time.

my grandmother was a crystal dish
full of a gourmet jelly beans &
a tape player sobbing
opera--
she was the fist of an ash tray--
curled her hair like the blooms
of smoke coughed
from her mouth as she sat
in her blue arm chair--
the living room ate 
light from the porch with
a big soup ladle-- 
ONE AT A TIME
she'd snap when i reached
for her crystal dishes
of candies--
i was the kind of child
who chewed each day
in mouthfuls of
skittles & mismatched 
jelly beans--
i gnawed on the curtains--
broke off pieces of
the floor boards like tortilla chips--
NO
ONE AT A TIME
she'd repeat-- 
and i'd poured a 
few candies back into 
the dish from my hand--
again & again
until there was one 
black licorice jelly bean
remaining--
a seed to spark another
aloe plant like
the one she kept 
growing above her sink--
there is no patience in
a singular black jelly beans--
i learned
the kind of hunger you 
bury deep into the palms of
your hands-- 
the kind that grows brambles 
in your hair when you sleep--
my grandmother was the
worn handle of a wooden 
spoon-- a slap of garlic--
the spaces between loose teeth
when you try to chew more
jelly beans while
she's not looking--
sneak another & another
one by one by one by one
until the bowl is empty--
remember the seeds when you
feel like there's no piece of
you still pushing roots
into the carpet-- wash 
off the smell of cigarette ash
in the shower--
when we left from a visit my
grandmother climb immediately 
back into the photographs 
dangled on the walls--
hopped one by one by one
into black & white frames-- 
seated beside her mother
& her sister dressed
in ruffle bow & silk-- suitcases 
still packed from andali--
my grandmother was more than
an accordion coil of
smog or the gnarled limb
of an aloe plant--
my grandmother taught me a
kind of shame that echoes 
to me in the oracle of an empty bowl--
WELL YOU'RE GETTING FAT
she'd said when a ginger bread
cookie perched moments before
my lips--
i learn hesitation-- apprehension--
to break me bread 
ONE PIECE AT A TIME
until she stood-- shuffled 
into the kitchen 
to put a pot of warm milk on the
stove before bed--
with her back turned
i stuffed the entire
cookie man into my mouth--
chewed frantic like the coughing
bruise of an African Violet--
swallowed-- crumbs
on the glass end table--
crystal dish empty--
i wipe my mouth 
with my night gown sleeve--
& for the first time--
the food feels
hallow
& i feel FAT crawling
all over my skin 
dressed in spider legs 
& ash. 

where do you bury your bed time stories?

the bunk bed was the confessional.
my brother and i slept on the pews--
looked up at the sky cut
out of stained glass-- picked up
the pieces of the clouds
in red & orange fragments--
a new collage to set the sun--
my uncle told us the same bed time 
story through out whole childhood
but somehow it was still always
alive--
the story of the silver airplane
whose engine punched 
holes in time--
a glimmer sent the craft
past the wings of pterodactyls--
soar above the sinking
carcass of a city of stars
floating as freckles 
on the bruised 
cheek bones of the
titanic--
the crew played out of tune
for us from the slant of the deck--
violin string & trombone bell
frozen in the sea--
before the story was over
my brother was already asleep--
face wedged firmly in
the pillow
on the bottom bunk
but my uncle continued as i gripped
silver bars of the bed--
the plane always managed to find
itself home--
circling circling
back to a runway where the man's family
was waiting
& the men would always resolve to
hide the device away forever--
take shovels & give the memory a burial--
so i hung on to my own body 
so as to not wake up in a dream
as my uncle voice faded into the hum 
of a fan & the flicker of a nightlight--
in the morning i walk
out into the back yard--
bare foot & holding a soup spoon 
i am twenty & ready to unearth
the air plane
so as to dunk myself
into the ocean from a slanted deck--
i want pterodactyl bites--
i want the glimmer
of time travel to ignite me 
out of the soil--
i dug with the spoon
until i broke
through the roof of church
to fall through the veil
of stained glass
i had used to build the sky--
they were singing 
from the pews again--
a gloating 
Ave ave ave Maria--
& my uncle was there but
he didn't remember it was morning--
we broke time with our 
nightmares
with our bunk beds--
held onto our own eyelids
to keep from drowning in dirt--
i'll lace up my black canvas shoes
& start at the far end of the runway--
leap 
leap 
leap
we'll set the pieces of the
sky in place--
bury our bedtime stories
under the lake. 

in search of the loch ness monster
in my backyard.

i didn't set out to
capture anything other 
than my innate 
a desire for conspiracy--
i was a black & white photograph
for the coffee tables of believers--
bent my neck like a coat hanger
to hold up my blue knitted sweater--
the one i wore in october
when i used the fog as pen ink--
wrote mysteries in the mist
on the bathroom
mirror--
i am still a quiet
& fervent believer
in the loch ness monsters
of our own back yards--
i sit on the back porch--
guard post of 
the white plastic lawn chair--
survey in my father's binoculars
out past the 
chewed up pile of mulch--
watch the soil cough up
rusted keys & door knobs--
the foundation of our houses
was built on the 
thumb print of a lake--
she crawls there at night--
belly over grass-- wails
painful like the slice
of a knife through the 
torso of strawberries--
she's smooth--
looks for water--
lies on her back in the puddles
after an august lighting
tantrum-- 
i find her silhouette
at dusk near the creek
where she is hungry enough
to chew the bodies of crayfish--
we are all hungry like
a loch ness monster--
there was never enough
of a real creature to find
but she's hungry like
a notion--
wide-mouthed as a dream--
she's wondering what it would
be like if all the bird feeders
fell &
the children went out in search
for hummingbirds--
she's wondering how far she is from
scotland & if it ever mattered--
i take pictures of her foot prints--
her ice-hook neck poked out
in between the maple trees--
the fallen leaves come and stick 
to her body--
she becomes a collage--
everyone mistakes her for a flower
girl but i take more
pictures in the hopes of someday
finding a way to explain her
to someone other
than myself perched
on a white plastic lawn chair--
i ask my brother now that we're older
if he ever heard her crying
when the moon made itself
an empty plate in the sky--
i asked him if he ever looked
out at the backyard
to notice the creatures who
made their way here
because they knew there was someone
who was finally looking for them
like we all want to be searched for--
no we don't want to be contained--
we want to be swallowed
in photograph--
written in the mist of a bathroom
mirror--
my brother said
he heard the slide of a knife
through the torso of a 
strawberry & the clamor 
of rusted keys
or was it the low
empty moan of the loch ness
monster eating bird seed
spilled underneath 
the maple trees