you made me origami 
and we fell like folded satellites
to the sound of the rain in the gutter--

what was it that you did
that made me fold 
into tin foil origami?
i Kusudama bloom and Crane
wings into orbit-- bend my
tail into a skull and let my
wings blink red and white--
to be mistaken for sea-sick stars--
did you crease me tight enough to 
make it through the atmosphere of
another planet? this is why
we fold with metal-- take pictures
of the planets-- our sisters
who wear the rings of their husband
to bed and take off everything else
in a full length mirror also 
known as the palms of our hands 
we lens voyeurs who fold ourselves 
coiled as Lotus and and Kawasaki 
roses that keep pivoting until
they become another planet--
we sat together to watch Saturn
undress and I told you not to
take pictures-- watched her
standing in front of that mirror--
smug with her own brass creases and
the sound of rain or sleet on her
shoulders-- collected her moons
around her belly like marble-bubble soap--
this is the sound of a rain gutter
and the haunt of another car pulling out
fingers over the asphalt-- the thrash of the corn
when she's lonely and wishing
someone would take her picture again--
everyone wants to be watched in the mirror--
everyone wonders what they could fold themselves
into if they had enough brass or
tin foil-- or hands that could remember
patience was brass and coronet--
flap Crane wing of bronze and rain--
pull me loose in ribbons from 
the brown hair of the clouds-- make the night sky
modest again so Saturn can learn 
to not make such a show of undressing--
she should leave her comets on until
we're done crawling back into 
the star boxes where we belong--
i folded Cranes in silver
and gold paper on my night stand
when i was ten.
i counted them
by the brown paper bag-full 
because i had wanted 
one-thousand-- enough to wing-beat
the glimmer of the moon-- enough
to challenge the quantity of visible
stars-- enough to send on quests to 
take pictures-- jostle past satellites
stealing wing-beat and flashbulb--
enough to weld the torn
sternums of her rings-- balance
moons in this orbit--
forgive me for traveling so far 
just to fold something for you--
we don't fold paper-- we fold forged in
brass and hedge clippings off
the over grown moons who act like
vines when you get close enough to 
asking Saturn what her real name is--
but yes we were left here to bloom
in Kusudama and Crane wing-- 
welded to the constant turning
of the rain in the gutter--
we didn't need paper-- we were
just counting the satellites 
that get mistaken for queasy stars--
jostled by Saturn's nightly
display-- look at her sway
she look just like you and me--
another Kawasaki rose-- turned
and turned tight watch face-- 
in a rain gutter--

The dessert buffet thief, sequin purses,
and crayon hieroglyphs--

My mother taught me I was a 
buffet thief.
When I got back to
our blue station wagon
from Moselem Springs
breakfast buffet I had a
sequin purse full
of peanut butter cookies--
scooped crumbs from the zipper
and licked the sugar granules
from my palms and buttery
dust from under my nails--
I wasn't very good at practicing 
to be a LADY-- I was never
meant for flowery hats or white
gloves-- I took off my shoes and
hid them under the pews at church 
So I could feel God on the cold
tile floor-- 
My mother told me
I was sneaky 
and that was what worried her.
I was wearing a dress printed
with purple flowers--
wedding cake white shoes made of
marzipan and dinner plates-- 
Have you ever dropped a communion wafer?
Have you ever dropped God?--
I know you have you can tell me--
You can tell me if you steal 
from dessert buffets too--
I've never been able to stop
even though we always went after church--
God kept a track of all the Andes 
Mints I stuffed in my gloves--
tally marks written in blue crayon
on the back of another paper place-mat--
I harbored German Chocolate cake squares--
purloined from their perches on 
tiny dishes.
The cake squished between birthday dollar
bills in my purse-- this is
how we teach girls how
to be LADYS-- about how to eat from
tiny plates and coil
into flowery hats--
into Sunday brunch--keep
your butter and sugar and peanut
butter tucked away where they
can't see it behind the sequins
and eat cake from a back
seat with your finger nails--
I wrote letters on the backs
of the paper place-mats
in four-packs of crayon--
red--green--yellow--blue-- 
Red like strawberry cheesecake 
veiled in napkins--
Green hard candies from the 
bowl outside the bathroom--
Yellow frosting flowers 
to stain my white shoes
Blue berry tart bleeding 
through my zippers-- there
isn't enough room in a purse to 
eat everything--
I admit I dropped a communion wafer
once and I didn't pick it
up off the cold tile floor right
away-- I thought about
my feet on the floor
and the body on the floor and 
the minister scowled
as a I keeled to scoop
him back up-- eat sneaky 
like a peanut butter cookie
only tasting like air-- 
steal God from gold plates 
and hidden in sequin purses--
my bare feet on the tile floor
and my mother telling
me to put my shoes back on--
I wrote letters to the waiters
in blue crayon only I didn't use
words-- I drew purple flowers 
and peanut butter cookies 
and the spiral, spiral, spiral
of a pinwheel peppermints--
It doesn't matter if they read them
because the most important thing
to do with our mouths
is to let them be written
even if we eat from back seats--
yes mother I'm sneaky--
and I pick up God off the floor
of the church next to my bare feet--
I wasn't meant for marzipan shoes
and my purses are still full
of stolen peanut butter cookies--
I'm a crumb queen-- a goddess
of butter stain-- what is a LADY
but a white table clothe 
and a empty purse-- I don't go
to the buffet to worship God--
that's what I use a tile floor
for-- I go to the buffet to
unzip my mouth and leave with all 
the red and white mints-- breath
winter like a cigarette--
Make my own hymnals on the paper
place-mats for the waiters to sing
when they notice I'd taken the whole
dessert table for myself--
I've made this sequin purse
into a rib cage to hide all the sugar
I've been missing.
Yes, mother I'm sneaky.
Yes, father I write purple flowers
and walk barefoot through buffets--
I don't fit on small plates
and don't try to tell me
I'm all you can eat--

On Tuesday all the door knobs fell off and
the almanacs told us to make
French toast--

If I recall correctly it was a 
Tuesday when the house started to lose
door knobs-- wobbled like 
baby teeth or the wiggle legs 
of the green dining room chairs
that we used to put almanacs under--
If any of us had read the almanacs
we could have predicted this--
we would have seen that this
is the year of falling doors and 
elbows that unravel like cordial cherries--
We all woke up as warm together 
as a cinnamon bun skillet-- winter
broke us open in blood and syrup--
chocolate on our lips we crawled on hands 
and knees to see where the doorknobs 
had rolled away to-- 
We swore we heard  them laughing 
in the distance
like tiny screws and wind chimes--
or maybe they were taken
by the mice who hoard candy wrappers
and baby teeth in the
basement-- 
the first to go was the doorknob 
to my bed room and you
didn't know if you were allowed
to come inside anymore--
I said that the door was open--
It was always open now but
you didn't know how you were supposed to
get inside until the hinges also
receded and I had no more 
walls left-- only the glass
bookcase leaning in the corner 
where we displayed all of our Almanacs
and inside the back covers were lists
of all the years when we lost baby teeth--
Not many people know that the mice
are the tooth fairies-- only they
think of teeth like
gem stones-- harvested from
the colder side of a dream--  
pay our children in pennies and quarters
and dollar bills they save from
washing machine raids-- 
The doorknobs to kitchen left next
and we took to making french toast in the
hallway-- and the oven was in the living room
where we all melted cordial cherries
and broke open like red stem
and chocolate-- next we used the coffee
tables as stove-tops and forgot
what it was like
to have a bed room to sleep in--
we dressed night in chocolate-- tight
coils of dough and cinnamon-- you
asked if we needed icing and I 
remembered that the mice also stole
all the screws and the bolts-- you
would be surprised at how much is held together
using only our belief in gravity
and walls leaning into each other--
as we lean into each other
on wobbly green chairs in the living room--
I love you so much like
French toast and I never needed
a door knob to know it-- I don't
know where they went or if they will
be coming back but we never needed
them top open each other-- 
The last to disappear was the front door--
What is a house without a front door?
Were we only a kitchen in a hallway--
only a skillet mouth filled with French 
toast-- people breaking like
cordial cherries in the basement 
Where the mice re-purposed our
door knobs for their rituals-- 
wrote almanacs to leave in our glass
book case and under the legs
of the wobbling green chairs-- 
Yes, we all expected things to fall--
we always expect things to fall-- unravel 
But what we weren't expecting was how
the house fell so gently into itself--
how somehow we all wobbled and shook
but that we didn't fall-- picked up
baby teeth like crystals to put
back into each other's mouths--
we leave each other French toast
kisses and sleep in the doorways
so we know that the walls don't
leave us alone-- we never needed
a front door to open to make
a house of this oven-- as long
as there's still cherries there
will always be something to cover in
chocolate-- and next year when the
door knobs come back we might
forget what it was like to fall
apart into each other-- forget
about the mice in the basement
but it's okay because a part of loving is
forgetting and learn to remember
that the door knobs aren't
the only ways we can make
this house a skillet on a Tuesday-- 

Poems for boys I've met before, 
Our metamorphosis on marble counter tops,
and finding you again over a phone call. 

I've never met anyone once.
You don't get to know me first
because poets pick up people
like geodes-- we aren't stamp collectors--
we shift for fern fossils with our
fathers so we can learn how to make
another person out of the silt
-- I tell you 
I see you like a metamorphic rock 
and I don't believe in diamonds or amethyst
but I do believe in Quartzite
and marble counters where you'll find
me rolling out my wrists in 
another pie crust--
I'll bring you apples and cinnamon
to sleep with in the blankets-- I remember
the oven coils of the earth
that formed us both with
the first spoken word in the dark--
I know it's unfair to meet someone
who has already met you on a back
corn field road but trust me
this is how we make granite--
this is how the corn learns to 
lean on each other and get
through another snowcone-headed dusk--
poured over the day in iridescent syrup--
Do you like me like rose or lavender
or amethyst?
Have you met me too and do you just like
to watch the dusk turn water melon 
and peach skin and blushed apples?
I remember something about
your hand prints in the fern fossils
in a valley of sand-- I remember 
your voice breaks geodes into rock candy
or snowcones-- 
On this gravel road 
I discovered 
that the foxes are the ones
who bake the stones into layers-- 
churn the earth into dough--
make people into marble counters
to find each other on-- crack geodes like eggs
and knead the earth's pale crust-- 
The foxes eat the left over watermelon 
rinds from the garbage--
and lick dusk from there paws--
I've known everyone at some
point or another-- and I met you 
again in a phone call--
you laugh like quartzite you know?
Has anyone ever told you that
you have the voice of peach skin?
Next time I'll meet you on a gravel
country road-- well wait for the foxes 
or for the pie to fill the room
with cinnamon--
This isn't an introduction
this is a metamorphism-- this
is how we name stones-- 
and how I introduce myself
with my head of snowcone syrup and
my voice spoken into the dark--

Alien flower morning-- 
sugar grain letters from Jupiter and 
how we whispered in spearmint--

Is it April or August 
when the Alien flowers 
grow?
~I ask my father every year 
even though we never know when
they're coming-- they don't
grow from the grass or from 
the thickets of onion-boiled weed
around the house-- the Alien flowers
sprout one lone stalk-- lighthouses--
beacons-- obelisks to a 
God with someone else's name-- 
pink-purple lip monuments to a
mother with oven mitts on both hands 
who uses the soil in place of brown sugar--
we called them Alien flowers before
we knew their mother lived
on Jupiter-- pressed their sweet
leaves-- cookie cut by 
discarded space ship wings-- 
pounded the dough in the fall of 
asteroids becoming lavender 
rock candy in the atmosphere--
She's trying to tell us about
her life there but she doesn't speak
human and before her children
left Jupiter they had once spoken
to each other in edible flowers--
garnished the house in agave orchid
and African violets on the staircase
every morning to tell her they loved
her and to tell her they were all leaving
and never coming back the same-- they 
returned in a space crafts and made speech 
with their tongues--
My brother and I understand because we 
sometimes speak in lavender to say goodnight
from these bunk beds--
whisper with the spearmint 
in the backyard--
We learned herb languages to tell
the stories that mouths forget--
grew our roots in the yard and held
onto each others onion-bulbs-- 
--caught the love letters from
Jupiter once a year-- mist tasting vaguely
like bubble gum dust-- leave
the candy wrapper to get stuck in the grass--
Humans don't remember that
the air on Jupiter is made from
confectioners sugar-- the soil
is purple-bruised from stray
celestial photography and the thumb prints
of astronauts-- the Jupitarians
once ate meringues and watched earth 
quiet like a soup bowl-- stirred
a long bony finger in the syrup
of the night sky and laughed about
how pink and vulnerable our skin is
even just standing in the sun--
freckle spattered with dandy lion hair--
Oh humans are funny things on their backs
in a soup bowl singing the alphabet 
as if each letter were going to 
finally become a hyacinth--
but Jupiter mother's children 
grew restless-- wiped the sugar
from their eye brows in the morning
and threw themselves away across
the atmosphere-- and the staircase
went silent without the African violets--
and no one ate pancakes and 
traded daffodils and the mother 
pressed the lips of Alien flowers
in the hopes her children would remember
what it was like to breath sugar
and talk foliage-- sent her 
love in grains breathed silent 
as a dandy lions losing their hair
before death-- making wishes for
themselves-- 
My brother and I would find the
Alien flowers out there--
walk into a mist barefoot before
the house had drunk enough coffee 
to remember anything but
the sound of falling lavender rock candy--
And my brother and I knew what the
flowers were saying 
because we used to talk in spearmint 
leaves and boil onion grass in the
microwave--   
She was so lonely out there--
bruised by satellites and calling
her children home with each petal--
she tells them she loves them even
if they give up her language of
flowers-- even if they only
return to take her picture--
even if they stop believing in sugar--
And the next day the Alien flowers are
gone and only my brother
I remember how carefully they 
spoke and how perfect each petal was
and how the whole yard was a 
cacophony of purple oven mitts--
She stirs us gentle with the stem
of another Alien flower and we wait
from a windowsill to 
count her stanzas in the dew again--
We speak Jupiter--
we eat spearmint and sugar--

Catch me in a crystal cave August 
and I'll take you where all the stars
fell and grew into corn fields--

Seal me inside my mother's mason 
jars-- rows of suspended raspberries
and the runny blueberry sauce
from summers ago when my
brother and I discovered
dirt and knees and what
it meant to be dried by the sun--
collected freckles like cherries-- We save 
fireflies next to the jam 
in the mason jars-- pickle their
bright abdomens until the cabinets glow
in the kitchen when the light only
comes from what's left
of a street lamp or a drowsy moon--
My brother and I sneak here
to eat Milano cookies in the dark
and I tell a ghost story that scares us both--
we sleep on the floor of my
parents bed room and watch the 
stars move in the bellies
of fireflies out the window--
Sneak out the back door and
scavenge enough
stars to make the crystal caves into our
own sky-- this is where we first loved--
this is where we echoed louder than raspberries 
shouted to wake up the moon
-- this is where I learned that in
the dark we were both only
pockets
to keep pieces of light in-- and the rain
was just another rung of our ribs--
and so the power would go out 
in another lightning storm and it
was either August or June--
Wednesday or Sunday-- and we'd 
be looking for our baptism candles 
and matches and find our way through
our house that was also somehow a corn field
and a thicket of raspberries 
and the wide white toothed mouth of a cave--
The thunder cracks open
mason jars in the cabinets and everything glows
on the kitchen floor-- 
boiled berry fires or 
hazy stars coming into bloom--
A celestial vine held over the churning
battery factory lights--
That's where my father works 
sitting beyond the corn like a 
broken kingdom-- that's where all our fathers
worked and collected fireflies in
their pockets to bring home for
us in the morning-- my father
drank diet soda and counted the stars
reflections in a mirror
while my brother and I slept on
the floor of my parents bed room--
we ate breakfast while he ate dinner--
all of us damp from dew and the storm
and the water dripping to build
stalagmites in the crystal caves-- 
I don't miss Kutztown-- but I miss
the mason jars and we what we left
of ourselves still echoing over
the startled leg hairs of the corn--
we siblings bathed in rain and collecting 
the fireflies in our pockets 
in the hopes somehow we could keep
their lights from going out 
or falling into the grass--
The batteries my father made
were never as bright as his
jeep head lights-- the night 
was never as long as a
thunder storm-- sweep
the glass off the kitchen floor
before the jam gets sticky-- 
Boil the fireflies in your pockets
until they turn back into stars.

Arguments with the car radio men:
Dashboard Twizzlers  
and my father playing guitar from 
the backseat--

My radio has the voice
of a room full of father-age men--
elbow into each other-- spill
coffee and crack diet sodas 
on my dash board-- the device has
refused music for at least eight 
months now-- I have to hum over their
chatter and pretend my
father is playing guitar
in the backseat--he's plugged into
the dash board singing some 
three-chord Beatles song
that I used to believe he'd written
for me and etched in vinyl--
Oh HEY JUDE-- HEY JUDGE
HIDE YOUR LOVE THAT WAY--
OH WE ALL LIVE IN A YELLOW
PAPER BACK WRITER-- most
of the time the radio men 
keep their discussions
to retortions and distortions of 
fox news headlines-- incantations 
to the beat of some 1980s pop tune
I never heard play from beginning
to end--keep grasping for the
the chorus 
of a song my father wrote
about sunflowers or was
it about his LITTLE GIRL
-- radio
chants
angry and impatient headline
fragments--
MOVE ON MOVE ON-- LEFT WING-- 
SYRIAN WHITE TENT HOTELS SING
IN A DESSERT
TRUMP FINDS WALL STREET HACKED
BY TWO BALLET DANCERS
IN LOVE WHO SELL LEMONADE TO 
THE RUSSIAN SPIES IN OUR
COMPUTER SCREENS
BECAUSE EVERYONE'S SAYING
THEY'RE QUEER NOW--
sometimes the men get bored and
inform me I've made a wrong turn--
merge right-- count the stop
lights until you reach 
Fleetwood where the porch to the old house
is still held up by a 2x4 plank of wood--
and the spearmint bush doesn't grow
candy anymore-- it's dried out
and ready to be burned--
the Twizzlers don't grow behind
the garage without my father
to water them with the quarters
in his pockets--
The men inform me 
that the Speed Way gas station has a king
size bag of Twizzlers for my father--
they had saved it for him all
these years to plant a new
batch in a red thicket like
bamboo on the floor the car-- 
in the back seat he's still singing 
out the window-- plugged into the dash
board of the car-- feeling
under the seat for a distortion peddle--
 doesn't notice his
LITTLE GIRL drives five miles
over the speed limit and ten miles under
if it's dark outside-- she doesn't trust
headlights-- hums louder now over
the voices of all the men sitting under
the hood of a car-- he can only hear
the spear mint leaves and the 
crinkle of grocery bags escaping
out the back windows--
strangled jelly fish-- running from
the radio men-- 
Sometimes they stop arguing long
enough to chant and advertisement--
voice-crinkled falsetto-- 

Pick up a bag of tasty
twisty ZANY Twizzlers open up
excitement--

You mean open up 'sugar
and red food coloring'?
I try to measure excitement
in something other than 
tubes of corn syrup 
and glycerin--

No we mean open up
a bag of your father's 
guitar strings and 
pick the last sugar spearmint
leaves from the air vents
in your dashboard-- that's
why this car runs so damn slow
Are you driving to Fleetwood tonight?
Someone told me it's snowing 
and all the streets and their
sidewalk filled up with white

Stop it! Stop it!
That's the song-- the
song with the chorus  my
father is supposed to sing

And the air vents turn up 
ALL THE WAY even though 
I flip the knobs off
and they shout
and they shout Twizzlers
and they shout
and they shout spear mint
and sugar crystal and 
my father finds the distortion peddle
and the men conclude

This is what happens
when LITTLE GIRLS listen to
too much radio and drive
at night alone-- 

And my father stops playing
from the back seat-- and we
stop
at the intersection on Franklin
Street in Fleetwood-- my father leaves out
the window like a shopping bag 
and the air vents spew candy all 
the way
to the back window-- red vine
rear view mirror--
I stop at a gas station I've never
been to and eat
the seats clean again--
before the men strike up a conversation
again-- and we drive for
eight months
and I buy a king size bag of Twizzlers
to plant in the back seat 
where my father used to play guitar--

Sharing thumb print cookies:
A quiet elegy for my Clone

I didn't mean for you to happen-- 
It was all a mistake to 
feel enough self-love to
think flesh more than a mirror--
To clone myself under blankets 
at midnight when all the regrettable 
things grow legs and walk
about my bed room as shadows 
and the sprites of car headlights--
I met myself, you, in a dream
or a nightmare--
we held hands and walked
along a street in New York
--felt like the subjects of 
a romantic comedy-- 
A camera crew followed us
and the bill boards lit  
our pale skin like a stained glass
window made of m&ms--
shared foil bound chocolates from a bench
in central park-- pretended 
to be wilderness explorers
in Alaska-- I said I'd build
a cabin for us and you surprised
me when you kissed me so much
like I had always wanted--
it tasted like a handful of 
jellybeans or biting the icing rose
off the corner of a birthday cake--
you were me but with a different birthday
born in my green bed sheets 
from a dream-terror where
I loved me enough to make an us--
I laughed at your lavender hair when 
I woke up to find you here
in this bed where I fall asleep 
alone-together with a court of nightlights--
you told me my hair was lavender too
and we took some time discovering
so many intricacies God had endeavored
upon to make my lips and my eye brows--
Our lips and our eye brows 
You lips and your eye brows--
You said we should make pancakes
and I reminded you we don't ate
pancakes anymore-- and you held 
me like a cupcake wrapper--
while I cried about skillets
and all the bowls of batter
unused in the fridge-- you reminded me about
the chocolate and the nightmare-dream
and I told you that I only
ate in my sleep-- but oh you still
kissed me like confectioner's sugar--
So we dressed in front of each
other instead of a mirror-- got tangled
in shoe laces and buckled 
in our belt loops-- Oh! What it is
to have known myself in you--
only you didn't
wear cuts like wrist watches 
or m&m scattered match-stick burns on your
forearms-- when you asked what they were
I told you they were only scars
and you said there's no such thing
as ONLY scars--
You had my soft skin without
gashes-- without the reminder-wounds
cut from art class collages 
senior year-- without
the prune-lined bunches at my hips from where
all my pancake skin left me before
I could dip it in syrup--
We baked thumb print cookies because
I always bake thumb print cookies
with my lovers--
you laughed and didn't believe that
I loved you-- didn't because that
I loved me and us and this
body we shared scars between--
you asked if I could cut you so that
we could be the same-- so that
you could know what had made me
so different in the same skin--
instead we pressured our
shared thumb prints and filled
each with raspberry jam-- 
with blood-- with scabs--
with wounds sealed shut by the time
of an oven-- our thumb prints on
each other are bloody and so much
like the m&ms in the stained glass
window at church-- we knew this
was a love that was forbidden
we knew this love would leave
us empty cupcake wrappers--
we bloomed in icing roses and
you told me to remember you in
every thumb print we made to
fill with blood and jam-- 
but I couldn't remember which were
yours and which were mine--
I said
Kiss me this one last time--
I want to eat chocolates on a park 
bench and build us so many cabins for
me and us and you--
You said you could have loved me
if maybe our skin was more similar--
not so much separation of scars--
I tried to peel them off to share
but you were already crawling into 
The oven-- head first carefully over the
trays of our bubbling thumb prints--
You told me--
I kiss you in the mirror 
I kiss you in your wool socks
I kiss you in blue icing roses and
all the fear you remember in a pancake
I kiss you in lavender hair--
turning blue and painted in m&ms--
And you were assumed back under
a street lamp in a dream-terror
back where I would meet you again
only not to kiss-- just to measure
thumbprints and hold each other
like cupcake skirts--

Spritz cookie shotgun-- 
The ritual violence of baking and
good girls don't burn in the oven

Everyone's mother had
a spritz cookie shotgun
loaded on the bottom shelf
of the baking cabinet--
We needed protection from 
rolling pin thin nights where
frustrated winter threw fists of 
dough at the kitchen windows--
the pots and pans clattered
and fell from the shelves
and another painted blue plate
shattered on the floor
into a pile of sugar sprinkles--
My mother curls her back over 
the calendar counting the days
until Christmas-- writing recipes 
in the smudge of batter 
and muttering prayers to the ghosts
of our family's bakers--
we have to speak in Italian if 
we want my great grandmother 
Gennari to bless the dough
with silent and unmentioned hints 
of anise and amoretti-- 
she speaks through our
finger in struffoli seance--
trigger-snap-- pan warp rapture
in the oven heat--
gun shoot and cookie cutter these
wrists into stars and angels--
We were made to be bakers-- made
to take pieces of our body dough--
lick the wood spoon and swollen
bowls of our sisters--
If the recipe cards
taught me anything it is that
good girls don't burn--
good girls rise and blush under 
the red coil or flatten out
their own bone spires to 
trace pizzelle patterns--
No one eats a burned cookie--
dumped out the window in disgrace
to girl-bodies-- did you sleep without wax
paper? Did you forget to brush
your face in butter before bed?
Oh what a shame to waste so much sugar--
sweep the broken sprinkles from
the kitchen floor and make them 
back into a plate--
My mother asked me to check the cookies
until they blushed --
naked and soft and golden brows--
crown these girls into women--
This is what our dough was meant for--
we learned from the smudges 
and chocolate stains of our
mothers and our mothers mothers
who defended ovens and brushed their
daughters with butter before they slept--
sewed wedding gowns with
the sugar from all the broken plates--
discharged all we had left of un-burned
skin in sprinkle bullet--dough evergreens and 
poinsettias-- these cookie 
press stars and snowflakes
teach us that there is such thing
as a shape worthy of butter
and sugar and one egg cracked
on the counter by your youngest child--
teach her she is already a spritz cookie
gun shot-- she always speaks Italian 
and sleep in a pizzelle press--
Cut her into a snowflake while
she sleep and wipe
the blood from her wrists--
this is violence and love and 
recipe cards-- fudge brick
and crush candy cane-- we'll
all grow up to own a spritz cookie
shotgun-- wipe it clean with an oven
mitt as we mark off days 
on a calendar from the kitchen table--
discharge ourselves and plant 
sugar beads in our foreheads--
ask our grandmother if she ever felt 
truly regal or if she always knew
she was only a reiteration of 
the same sugar and butter that made her--
waiting and waiting 
to burn and leave disgraced
out the back window. 

Colonization of Mars:
The gravity of zucchini bread 
and other ways I remember 
our weight on Earth.

Here is a picture of the garden
I grew for us here-- I know it's only
rocks and dust but sometimes you 
have to grow what's left of love--
take shovel to the iron oxide and
dance wakeful for rain--
They told us we would die on
Mars-- not a sudden death--
we'd grow old with the small planet's
disgruntled flushed face-- 
Turn frustrated and dusty like him--
leave foot prints stamped across 
the blushing terrain.
Had I told you how I spent the first days
trying to find
another life form to ask
why Mars was always so restless?
I dug with my hands until
they were bloody in the soil--
There are no zucchini on mars
or other vegetables for that matter
but when I go out for a walk in the 
afternoon I pretend I'm in your garden
again-- the one your father taught you
to make-- you hand me a peach like a fist
and we're tart and green--
These anxious Earth bodies aren't held by
the weight of the air-- 
We're finding ourselves in the same
orbit-- same walks looking for a place
to planet the zucchini--
You see humans weren't made to be so red--
and the face of Earth stares like
the pit of a peach calling for April--
calling to us traitors-- the red people
without gardens or lovers to send postcards to--
Some nights I hover just above my bed
and wonder if you slept better
without me asking you to hold me--
if it wasn't Earth that kept
me tethered but some force that
you kept hidden only in your arms--
it wasn't fair to have made you a planet
but I couldn't help but notice
that there have been few people in my 
life to have made me as heavy as a moon--
and you were one of them--
At the time I signed up for the 
first colony on Mars I had suspected 
we would all die red and war-like anyway
I figured it was worth the change of location--
You told me you loved me once
under the pressure of planets 
dangling by strands of yarn on a clear
night when we sat on the porch 
and we baked a loaf of zucchini bread
from a recipe on the back of a bag of flour--
we sliced it warm and heavy-- gooey
on our fingers without forks--
you know the soil here feels like that bread--
feels like your sticky fresh hands 
and sometimes I even
imagine there is warmth sewn in the Martian dirt.
I didn't tell you I was leaving because 
I knew it would ruin the zucchini bread
and that you wouldn't look out a window 
the same way you open an 
oven to check on the bread before it's done--
tooth-pick fingered and anxious
enough to float out of Earth's April grasp--
Maybe I left so we could feel the pull across
the stretch of space I'm sending this letter
across-- maybe there was never any pull from
a planet or a peach pit and we only
imagined it to help us all stay in love
long enough to bake bread and 
wait on a porch for the planets to 
come out of hiding-- 
When you sleep remember we have two gardens--
one is red and rusting and the other
I hope you still keep. Bake for me
even if it only tastes like gravity.