shadow waltz of the evergreens;
cut me off at my ankles & i'll leave
fingerprints on the windows--

in 2nd grade i came home
from school to find the two evergreen
trees in front of our house
had become stumps-- bases still
wet from where they cut off
by their ankles-- 
& i cried--
no one had warned me yet
that dying cuts you off by
your ankles-- leaves shadows 
on the hull of the house--
i still saw their silhouettes where
they once swayed out my window--
reach out to grasp branches--
in a dream i tied a hammock between
them-- asked them to sing a
song about where they had come from--
they hummed like fat-thighed
grasshoppers & the tight
lips of the preying mantis--
from my windowsill i watched
their stumps become fossils--
gnarled faces in the yard--
when i stood on top i felt
as if i were on the cusp of a portal--
i asked to be cut off
by the ankles-- shadow-waltz
in the round belly of the moon--
cried out to let me see their corpses--
the trees live on to leave
their finger prints on my windows--
i write them love poems 
carved into shingles and tossed off
the roof at their scabby feet--
on occasion they take on
the form of the the lady bugs
slowly devouring the walls of our
house-- chew slowly on
the windowsill like a love letter--
it is a love letter--
it's where i told them i wanted
to die like them--
have my corpse hauled off
like christmas tree--
let's all die without our
feet so no one can trick us into 
running--
would the trees have ran if
we would have given them 
the chance?
would they have known to?
i would have walked out to them
in the crinkled dew &
told them to fly away-- swing
shadow mouth on the hips of
another farm house--
take their bruises from 
our cheek bones--
the trees smack my shoulders 
into plums for not saving
them--
i'm sorry
i'm sorry 
i'm sorry
i say standing
on the tree stump--
i count the rings like
hula hoops around my waist
traced in the driveway--
when i sleep at night i leave
the window open
a crack--
in case the trees are cold
and looking for a pillow
to rest beneath--
what did you do with their
bodies?
take me take me take me
with them--

my father built the rainforest in my bedroom.

we pull the sound of the rain out
from under my bed before i sleep-- each
droplet a solid bead in my hand--
sometimes i wear them as a necklace
to show off to the dart frogs--
prove someone else can be poisonous--
other nights i string the rain 
together to built the wind chimes--
the toucans learn to imitate the
ringing of the water--
this is how we grew walking palms
to form the bare legs of 
my bunk bed-- my father
open a picture book like a bible
to charm the moss across
my body-- lichen quilted--
my skin learns to reject itself--  
i am soft and fresh--
a newborn fruit bat-- rib cage
tight as a fist-- we learn to
drink blood in our dreams--
the smell pulls us down from
the canopy to bite the necks
of the other family members--
my mother slept in the hollowed
out leg bones of a pine tree--
my brother in the shadow of a
sequoya--
when my father painted the walls of
my bedroom he pulled orchids
from the walls with a brush--
butterflies wriggled free from the creases
and toads rose from the pelt
of the carpet--
we heard the low growl of the tiger
from the closet floor
hiding in the underbrush of 
my old dresses--
when we opened the windows
the air only got thicker and
thicker and thicker
until the ceiling contorted into
another thunder storm--
i like it when it rains on me--
when the carpet is soppy
from flooding--
read me another chapter
i beg my father who takes
another book from the mouth
a leopard licking her fur from
underneath the laughter of the
wind chimes--
she's protecting our
stores so they don't sink back
into the soil--
we have a tendency to let
our memories get deformed
in the jaws of the tiger
gnawing quietly on
what was left of my dresses
oh my father still speaks 
in the language of the frogs
some nights--
pull a star out of his pocket
to make a nightlight--
tells me wherever i sleep
he'll grow me a rainforest
and he has never been wrong. 


 

a conspiracy to kill the sun;
let's share the peppermint candy moon--

there's no other way to ensure
ourselves sleep than to kill
the sun once and for all--
it was never any use anyway--
burned a hole in the sky
just to teach our faces to freckle--
angry on the eyelids of
un-watered sunflowers-- take the
body of another orchid--
parch lip and body turning
into a raisin-- 
the sun reminds me of being
an altar server--
pull the wick from the 
oil-- shake the matches from 
your hair with me--
don't drip the flame
you wouldn't want to burn 
down another church--
this is for the death of the alarm 
clock-- the confused throat
of the birds
pecking at the hem of the skyline
trying to pull forth 
a speck of light to yell from--
no--
no we could finally do it--
the morning would crawl
back into the sea--
sink step by step
by step-- float on her back
to look up at what had
once been a sky but
is now only the
roofs of our mouths--
she lets us rest but 
feel empty-- 
morning without the sun
is like night witch
all the stars erased-- i feel 
bad for her because i know
what it feels like to be naked--
what we'll do is wake 
up just early enough 
for the sun to be groggy--
catch him in the act of
beginning--
he won't expect two freckled
humans to take such drastic action--
a metal snuffer from
our days as acolytes--
walk behind me with incense so
the world knows it's a funeral--
he died like any king--
mouth full of fury and
fear-- we burned our hands for
you-- for the silencing 
of this obscene star
who prompts us
to awaken-- you have nothing
left to wake you but yourselves--
we are free from the impending nature
of a sun rise-- branded hot
into our temples--
the moon comes like
a hard peppermint candy--
wipes the freckles from our
faces-- drinks our pigments 
to leave us bleached 
incantations of a dream--
the same dream where we
wake up in each other's bodies--
write poems on our backs
in water--
this is life without
the sun-- you hold the candle snuffer
this time and
i'll be the incense--
never believe someone if
they ask you to wake 
up before the moon
trust me
trust me--
you'll like it more when 
we light
the candles--
pull our fire from in between
the creases in our hands--
finger-paint a cloud
on the scaring 
face of the
playground of the stars--
they'll soon forget the angry
face of their father--
like we all do--

elegy to my body in a corset.

i wasn't in love with
you-- i was in love with being
wanted because isn't that
what we're all in love with
anyway? and yes i know
i did crave to be your
object but it's no fun
to be a muse for
another artless boy
who uses a girl-body for 
inspiration only of his mouth--
what will you eat of
me today?
stole words to sew them
into black lace--
the calliope of scream
weave me body machine--
the corset was only the wrapper--
each clip another
unsung promise to fall in love
with a part of me he
couldn't peel the wrapping
paper off of--
a corset makes you 
feel like a tasty cake--
flesh moist-- blush in 
the sunset oven--
so so so so many bows
to undo--
the puzzle of the little
boys peeling cellophane off our
bodies like shoe laces--
a corset is one way 
of unlearning how to breathe--
a lesson in silence
and pulling yourself tighter
and tighter until
you diminish into only his
word of mouth--
this is the making of a muse
who wrote her own body 
to relive his notion of art in herself--
i never wrote a poem in a corset
but my body was a different type
of poetry when the sun 
lit me right in the window--
yes i won't lie to you--
i find myself 
delectable now-- 
i'm not looking for an audience--
the night paints the back of my
window into a full-length mirror
i know you can watch me 
but this is not for you--
this is a elegy to my
body in a corset--
a photograph gnawed
in his hungry teeth--
the space between our ribs
is where you're supposed to
start dismantling us from--
pull the bow-- sink with 
me-- cover my face with a bed sheet--
naked and cream-filled body--
i wore my hair
in a sheet of a icing--
tasty cake girl 
eat yourself in a mirror--
peel off the black lace from 
the rim of the corset--
turn the frill and arabesque
back into stanza--
i'm writing my body back
into a poem--
written on the fogged
glass of the bed room window--
oh oh oh
there's nothing left
that could be held in by a bow
fixed between my ribs--

your body smudged against the canvas and
other ways to live in someone else's memory of light 

art museums are places for
lovers-- i knew what i was doing
when i took you here after hours--
light dark we escaped
into the midnight setting in the gallery--
this is when the pears roll
off the table of the still-lives--
you pick up the fruit of Picasso 
and tell me that it tastes 
something like laughter or
a muted prayer-- pursed lips
of a brush-- let's dance with
each other on the tightropes that
were supposed to keep us far
enough away from the canvases so
as to not become part of them--
the museum guards during the day
aren't there to protect the art
so much as protect us from ourselves--
stop us before every scab of oil paint
becomes a reflection--
these pigmented mirrors--
and so we pull ourselves 
into the gnarled mouth
of the gallery--
you plead for me 
to push you up against the frame
of a Monet-- let's
knock the paintings 
off the walls together--
i'm sick of this organization--
we fall out through the other side
of a Renoir--
i will never forget
how fast we ran there-- body 
turned into a fading promise--
oh lover i always knew
we would shiver like his flowers--
let's not crawl out--
i want to be a girl
in a little red hat-- and you 
can be the poppies kissing
each other's necks-- when the sun 
comes up again we 
will wake up in a blur--
scabs on our knees from 
lying together in bodies 
torn open by the pocket
knife paint brush of Soutine--
Monet made our lips thick
enough to kiss through a canvas--
the light in the gallery 
reminds us that each painting
has taken up the task
of stealing a fragment of light
flickering in the decayed 
eyes of a painter--
facing up towards the 
shuttering sun in a casket--
he still feels the dismembered pulse
of initials slathered
in the corner--
maybe we shouldn't have jumped
off
so many ledges--
now there's no where else 
left to jump--
drink coffee from the bench in
front of the blaring of 
the card players--
you ask to take a dip inside
and i say
tonight 
tonight 
tonight

i drove into the mouth of a shadow-beast.

headlights against flesh--
the rust-bitten pocket knife 
tattooed with the name of stranger--
your name is the color of
a blade flicked open in
the sun-- carve your name
into the steering wheel
& make this journey your own--
we are not born until
we drive into the night sky--
leave earth-- leave ground--
leave limbs--
this road was raptured 
by the atolls burst out 
of the street lamps--
bomb the pavement with
light-- until we escape
the firing range--
the hairy legs of the corn
field in winter prompt
us to run
run 
run
run into the night
with me--
no i didn't want to 
break so much with the
blare of these headlights--
i turn on the radio
to hear my father read
me the same bed time story--
we're suck on the last chapter
but there's never anything more
& the glove box is a toaster
oven for my boyfriend to 
toast white-bread--
he's asking me again why
i can't love him even though
i tried-- have you ever tried
to love someone?
it's the kind of thing
that feels like being driven into
the mouth of a shadow--
i told him i was 
trying
trying
trying
use the car horn 
if you hesitate to get on
your knees before the 
crooked joints of the 
mountain-- the house
with the bright face full of candles
where i have stopped
in another life--
they bake apple pie at
night & cross-hatch
their windows with 
pie-crust-- paint cinnamon
on the door frames--
i know what happens to the trees
when you drive at night--
the contorted
spirited wrinkle
in the bark-- shadow beast
shadow beast
open your mouth so i can
fit the whole car inside--
no one wants to be left
half-eaten--
i want to turn off the radio
but the book has no ending
& the night light my father
reads by turns into a headlight beam
running me over in my own bed--
i'm the type of road-kill
who carries their body off
the street to 
die in the mouth of a tree
turned shadow-beast--
low-growl in the razor-toothed
throat of a gust of wind--
flick tongue across window chimes--
this is what it feel like when 
i drive home alone
across the corn fields--
legs unshaven.
window cracked open--
to smell the fires set by street lamps--
the thick sweat pulsing off
the bodies of
the shadow beasts in june--
write my name in their
torsos with the dulled pocket
knife named by the flea market--
i write
goodnight goodnight--
there's nothing as violent
as light.

where will the sun go when it
is finished--?

i broke the yolk of
the sun with corner of my spoon--
soaked up the ooze of the fat
with the corner of a bed sheet--
the crust of the wheat bread
triangles--
this is what our mother left for
us-- 
watch the sun dig a grave
with me--
fist after fists after fist
of dirty horizon--
is that where you'll finally
lay down with me?-- bent
back of the woman 
who carries the earth
like a sack of golden delicious 
apples slung over her shoulder--
the sack rips
and lets loose the suns--
uneven and bruised from
the fall--
tape the apples back into
the tree when they all have departed--
re-sew each leaf to
the naked torso--
resist autumn if you can
before your eyelids grow too
heavy with the weight of
egg yolk and soil--
let's wrap this up in a bed sheet--
i wonder how many more years
the sun can keep this up
and where will she go
when her work here is finished?
do you get tired like
the sun 
my love?
resurrected every day--
the burst of an egg shell
on the bed post--
if i could run away with
a star i would take
it somewhere so bright
that it could rest--
uncurl her coiled spin
and sprawl out on a park
bench to watch the squirrels
tuck pieces of stars into the
ground to grow 
new elm trees--
the sun bleeds cardinals
in april-- blue-bird
lipped
in march and waiting
for there to be enough
eggs to make a quiche in the
oven-- your mother will
visit when the sun is finished
and there will be cupcakes
with too much frosting--
blow out the candles
so everything can be dark--
this is the silence the
earth yearned for from the 
depths of her throat--
screamed so loud it was
all eaten by the descent 
of the sun into 
the dirt-- oozing 
stones under finger nails--
dig a grave with me for
the light to sleep in--
crawl in crawl in
i'll tell the cardinals to
write our names on the tomb stone
underneath the name of the sun--
pass the salt and pepper
we'll eat our eggs in the dark--

empty my bones from the jewelry box;
my grandmother's orange gloves
turned out skin in cigarette smoke

when my grandmother died
we picked though her wardrobe
like paleontologists
hunched over the filleted 
carcass of a triceratops--
her ribs opened wide like
wings-- this is what we
call a jewelry box--
the container to house
what's left of you bones--
i blow the dust off
a pair of orange gloves--
tight like a second skin
my flesh turns into cigarette
smoke-- precarious as a bar stool--
her broaches we can use to 
sew out ribs  back into 
place-- we saved approximations
of the moon
shrunken down to the size 
of these pearl earrings--
what did she see in them?
did she ever use her sunglasses
as a mirror--
when i die i hope you 
are bold enough to wear me--
let me leave green halos
on your fingers from the 
fake gold of my blue-gem
rings-- pull the 
pin through the skin on
your collar bone and
feel how deep my blood used
to run 
when my mother pinned on
my green shawl with a bouquet
of fake stone--
you'll find my irises in a set
of a cheap earrings at the back
of the box--
when you wear them you 
won't be able to help but
to look again and again
at the sky as if hoping it 
will be night--
when you wrap yourself
in my old blue scarf
i wanted you to remember 
the times i had wrapped you
in the absence of my hair--
pull the incense out of 
the seams of another sweater--
how will you tell your friends
that the shirt they like
so much was pulled from
the rib cage of a triceratops--
your parent-- your
brother and you--
pass down the burden of
the paleontologists--
blow the dust off
your parent's bones--
wear my eyes when you're thinking
of taking a walk at night--
find yourself impossibly
draw to becoming
another earring
dangling from the bottom
of the moon--
find a mirror beneath all
the necklaces and 
orphaned pendants so you 
can look at yourself--
touch your face
to find you're still
wearing the orange gloves--
tight tight tight--
blew away like 
cigarette skin.

elegy for our manic pixie dream girls
and other ways to put out a star--

and so 
when you look up at the stars at night
there is a faint possibility they
are all already dead--
faint mouthfuls of light
spat liked wads of blue or white
chewing gum at the smug face of the
earth for lovers to mistake as
eternal-- did you cut your hair
short for me?
perched on the toilet with
craft scissors-- 
collect the hair in a ziploc
bag to remember yourself--
were you a martyr for me 
or for plot line--
how many stains of purple
lipstick on mirrors have you 
become?
who killed the birds whose
feathers you wear as earrings?
i met you sitting on a stone
by the edge of the steam--
you were waiting for me to
pull your name out of 
your own throat--
wrap our necks in mardi gras 
beads-- dangle quiet 
as flecks of stars we had become--
i came back to say 
i'm sorry--
not for where you are but
for what i let you become--
and i'll still always
think of you as
hopscotch in the rain--
i plucked the wings off
a butterfly and
wore them as eyelashes--
this is what you turned me into--
i think about the life
a star
and devouring their
dying light with a twirled fork
and a spoon--
did you escape with me because
no one asked you to escape into
yourself? what color would
you paint your nails if
you never knew me?
i imagine you might
have listened to cassette 
tapes when you were home alone--
ribbon printed with the voice
of your father who dug
his grave with a burnt spoon--
where are we going now?
the last thing i really 
wanted to know from
you is your real name-- no 
not the name you tell the boys
who cut your hair and 
lay next to you on roof tops--
what is the name you tell
your brother when you
say goodnight over
the vein of a telephone line?
the name you wrote
on the inside of your journals
in elementary school
when the window was as
good as a doorway--
maybe that's where you learned
to climb trees--
i didn't bring flowers because 
you wore so many in your
hair that i figure a garden
would grow wherever they 
decided to plant you-- no
i brought back the pages
you pulled me through-- the words
this story that you gave
me-- i want to give it 
back-- i want to know
where you would go if you
weren't just another sacrifice 
to bring a brooding boy to
a back porch-- listlessly 
smoking a cigarette--
god i miss you-- god i miss 
you-- 
i'm sorry-- 
i'm sorry
we lost your story 
for me--
tonight i'll harvest back
your hair from
the beams of star--
we'll make you a wig
and start over. 

i was waiting for your phone call
in the bell of a daffodil.

i'll grow roots from
my toe nails here in the 
mulch & the soil--
soak in the 
eroticism of the dew--
i left the morning blushing
from the night before
when we lay with each
other draped in ivy--
the moss grew over our legs--
made us monsters--
made us hairy--
made us invisible--
& the snails rang their shells
like bells--
i woke up to find you
gone again--
is this your idea of how
to wake up the sun again?
the necks of
the daffodils snapped &
shrieking in dial tone--
dial tone
dial tone--
i don't know which bell to
listen to because any 
could hold your voice--
are you humble enough
to speak with the yellow
lips of a flower?
i am-- i am not afraid
to fall in lust with 
the taste of petals--
you always knew i would
eventually leave you for
a tulip--
puckered face tight 
as the knots that still
keep our phone lines entangled--
i don't want to the 
daffodils to stop ringing
like wind chimes--
it remind me of august
& pulling another orchid 
from your throat--
don't forget to
water us-- puncture 
a hole in the angry grey
of a cloud & drink with 
me-- drink static
drink acid
drink foot step
of thunder in the seduction 
of the soil--
i ask only that someday
when you come across
a bed of daffodils
that your remember how
much you kissed me
like the skin of a petal--
take a fist of 
dirt & root
& call me from the bell
of the daffodil--
crack the dial tone
like a foggy morning dove
egg-- i'll open
up the moss--
grow monstrous with me.