Lust is a form of belief--
Build me a city on the moon
to escape to and eat through
the apple core of the poem-- 

they lied when they said
if you don't love yourself
then you can't love anyone else
because if that were
true then i would have spent
the last twenty years of my
life living only on apple oatmeal 
a sexless type of lust--
and vanilla pudding 
cups congregating in the corner
of a dorm room-- their foil
lids i take as silver medals
or approximations for a
one-way ticket to the moon--  
i'm the creature
with the smallest spoon and the 
only form of self-love
i've ever practiced effectively 
is a gulp of instant oatmeal
past midnight-- i open
peanut butter jars just
to smell with glimpse
and lamp light-- take the 
wrist flick of a butter knife--
lust is a potato roll full
of cream cheese or banana medallions
at milk bottom of a bowl of Cheerios--
yes i eat the stems of apples--
through the core the same way i devour
across a poem-- 
wriggle rhyme between my 
crooked cobblestone skyline teeth--
Eve picked
this fruit for a reason 
so i ask you if you're ready
to build a city for me
on the moon-- 
love a body made of apple seeds--
i eat with tiny spoons so i can
save the measuring cups for 
blueberry muffins-- 
our head were lustful of streusel 
i'll let you in on a secret--
the moon is only really a cheesecake 
that i baked when everyone
forgot to check the oven timer--
one slice at a time--
this is empty plate--
i saved the tiny spoon for myself--
i taste so much like unsweetened 
oatmeal i forget that i'm worthy
of a city baked on the moon--
you buy me vanilla pudding cups--
hold me like a ladle--
we can forge the buildings from cranberry
soda cans and glass bottles of
diet root beer that remind my of
my father-- his brown 
bottle fingers he uses to 
drive a card board box of juju bees--
have i only ever baked out of lust
for a version of you 
who wears black canvas shoes--
no i know you like
the bare plate of the moon and
i have never loved something
for the lust of a cupcake skirt--
i'm a queer-blooded oatmeal 
bowl looking for a spoon
looking for a sliced banana medallion--
looking for the sound of my father's
hands--
no 
they lied to me when they told
me i needed to love myself 
because-- i have lived these last
years only on love spooned 
into the skirts of muffins--
into the pie-crust of a moon--
are you building a city yet?
i don't believe in Lust anymore
and if i do it might taste 
something like cheesecake of
peanut butter lids--
i don't have the illusion 
anymore that love was meant to
make me bold enough to hold
a fork in between my teeth
but i do live on the belief
that there's enough left
for a city on the moon--
we weren't meant orbit--
we were meant for graham crackers--
for root beer mouths--
for the apple seeds growing
an orchard out of my chest--
don't let them tell you there
is a condition for loving
you-- and if they tell you
it's Lust eat in front of the
mirror--
laugh in apple cores--
lay bricks of cream cheese--
split potato rolls like
His body
and the moon-- 

The evacuation of my bones 
was almost an apology--

it wasn't a boy who taught me
nothing that matters that has a mouth--
we kiss the clam shells 
of sesame bun lockets--
you taught me love was something
we perform with our mouths
and the bones blooming in
African violet bruises
in our throats-- 
love like an orchid is sick
and only made of sleeping beauty--
only she never woke up--
just laid to be flipped over
and over like a blushing pancake--
we like our girls golden dough--
chew macaroni and cheese
like some sort of dying prayer
to keep my bones from leaving 
again in shame--
-- read the
box mix over my shoulder--
it's a boy's job to teach 
teeth what they belong
in a mouth for-- 
my bones didn't run away from
a boy-- they ran away so i could
be everything you made me out to be--
this marconi effigy--
they ran away in an attempt to apologize
for cutting my hair so short again--
they ran away 
because bones are too heavy 
and remember too much-- 
he punched me into a billow 
breath of silk scarf-- 
grab me in handfuls of 
ass through my skirt--
spaghetti hair to be twirled 
on a fork-- 
the good barefoot-- learn 
a mouth of Alfredo-- 
no 
it wasn't a boy who taught me
about my mouth and gnawing 
on a moon from the altar
of a windowsill sill--
the passing host in the sky
always turns black eventually
the the evacuation of my bones
back into the soil
God made me an acolyte so 
i wouldn't need a church to ring
a bell-- i'm using it to call
back the husks of a femur--
my knuckles scared of gripping--
my elbows smacked 
from the round table--
ribs shaven with the apple peeler--
i've got a burlap sack 
and i go out at night
when the moon isn't watching
from the inside of my mouth--
i go out when he's not cooking
so i can lure them back under my
skin-- you see we want
deep down to be heavy-- not heavy
like hair but heavy like
pancakes-- like macaroni--
but not to share-- i eat from
my own cereal bowl by a nightlight--
this food wasn't ever for you--
this skin wasn't here just to be soft--
it was here to make a canvas--
i painted with the apple peeler
so much i forget what it
was like to fill a mouth with
a word-- a single word--
he took away every single
word to replace with a bare foot
and a box mix-- 
no wonder my bones needed to go home--
use themselves as seeds for something
more worth while than me--
no i'll get them back-- 
i'm ringing the bell
in a pot and a pan--
a soup spoon on a cereal bowl--
i only thought i would be an orchid
until i realized i'm not lonely
without you--
i've started eating words 
from cereal boxes-- verse
written in macaroni elbows--
i took your Alfredo for a 
apology-- no these bones
with
come back with a shovel and 
new moon held higher than 
the host i have lived off of
for so many nights--
don't eat a moon all at once or they'll
know you were hungry--
measure yourself and the bones
will come back again--
i will unlearn what boys
taught me about a mouth--
we're using the bones for broth
this time only they won't
be my bones--
i'll make you into the cough
of an African violet
so you know what it's
like to be my mother--
you should be scared--
it took me six years--
but i learned how to
keep calling my bones back
when they run away--
this is a half-apology
for every time you
filled my mouth with food
into of words. 

 

Golden string

How many coffees does it take to fall in love?

Woman with purple knitted hat and heaven curled hair

sipped on cup four. Feelings are not mathematical

there’s no golden number but there might just be a golden string.

It wrapped around them on the slushy night when he walked her home

its thread crocheting knots as they knit their lips together

the first time. Love cannot be counted but romance languages can

and between the two of them three tongues are spoken

but “I love you” can be said without words.

 

“I love you” was the gust of wind that blew those curls by honey drenched eyes

“I love you” squealed from the wet mouth of that trumpet

in that jazz club, her palm aching for his as purple skies indicated the end of a day.

They only had a limited supply of hours but that one golden string

invisible to the naked eye, even to his supple hand. It can be heard

in their footsteps, in the 4 am moon, it is breathless as a drum

light as her milky skin. It twines over trees, it boarded that plane with him.

Every morning that knot sinks deeper and tighter as she plunks notes on her ukulele,

he thinks he feels a tug around his finger and looks out the window.

Staring at the same golden sun, the spool of string.

 

 

 

 

 

dissemble yourself--
write instructions in crayon hieroglyphs 
obituaries and hand fulls of cranberries

you will need staples
to make a quilt out of construction
paper-- sleep in skirts gripped
by hot glue--
i have a do-it-yourself
kind of body-- these wrists
are a craft project
but we were wrong to think
there's only one
way to piece
ourselves back together--
i write the instructions
and print them on the
front door to my house
so you know walking into
me is not like walking into 
a gallery or a coloring book--
you become accustomed to 
these hieroglyph alphabets 
i perfected in third grade
when i believed in such things
as Pharaohs and the cut
pieces of pyramids--
the first collage i noticed 
was the poetry of an obituary page

-- 

1. 
take off your bracelets 
and your earring in the jar 
by the door-- you might mistake
them for knives or pins
or your grandmother's sewing 
machine making corsets in the corner--
take off you shoes
but always wear socks--

2.
you will learn to share--
im the neighbor who knocks
on the back window 
with gravel-- shouts for
a bar of soap or
two hand fulls 
of fresh cranberries--
you will get used to saying 
"no" and watching
me turn gravel into fruit
from a transfiguration table--

3.
don't eat the cranberry orange
muffins i leave
on your porch-- your feral cat 
femme fatale-- wait until
i bring the tea kettle and see step
6 for further action

4. 
teach your saplings to stand like
Osiris who married his sister 
and ruled a kingdom on crayon
pictures-- i named my garden
Isis so she'll always grow closer
to you

5.
don't touch my tomatoes
even when they grow in through 
your window-- that's called 
temptation and we're 
Egyptians now
and no one is named Eve to
take the blame for it--
they're waiting to turn
into cranberries-- 
write me a note from the
obituaries like i taught you
write poetry 
i don't read English--

6.
if the tomatoes turn to apples
it means i want you to kiss me
and don't kiss me like
a neighbor or a brother
i want to be kissed
like an obituary

7.
eat the muffins this time
i baked them with tomatoes 
that were also apples
and also full of your bracelets
that turned into strawberry
jelly candies in the jar by the door

8.
study your hieroglyph alphabets for
me-- you will be tested because
as i said i don't speak English--
if you want to put this 
body together in someway
that makes sense between us--
we'll need a common language
and you're most like a Pharaoh 
of anyone i've ever kissed

9.
see 4 only this time teach your saplings
to bend like Nut the goddess of the sky
and the heavens where we pull
the obituary headlines down
onto a page--

10.
see 6 again and again
until our kisses taste like 
tomatoes

11.
turn the paper over
and write your own instructions--
take candy from the jar that was
once your bracelets 
and earrings-- stick
them to your neck with the 
jelly filling-- these
sugar pearls into cranberries

12.
now you know a way to put
me together-- fold the instructions
into a paper airplane and toss
it into the branches of 
the tree we named 
Osiris--

before you love someone
let them teach you how
you can put them together--
dissemble and re-assemble 
yourself enough times
to fall in love with new bodies--
new trees-- new tomato 
muffins turning
into candy-- the collage of
obituaries where we picked our
names-- 
we
do-it-your-self
Pharaohs 
we don't have a hieroglyph for
Adam because Eve was the only
one brave enough to use
a mouth
and Isis loved her brother
for a kingdom
see step 6 again--

 

If the room is empty, do you fill it?

he asked me 
like all boys do
if i had ever been bold enough to
fill an empty room 
and i told
him that if i had it would have
been just a part of the
lies we make to teach boys
to love us-- im counting
the times ive pretended 
not to be sick so someone
would make me into something
to pray at-- i pray at microwaves
and the feet of boy-kings--
so that they know they want
to kiss me
only if i were a 
statue could i fill the vastness 
of a room with other people standing there--
we are all vast but flash-light lit
under our covers-- i was vast when 
i sat on the ledge out my window--
a vast match stick play ground--
a vast church yard with just
enough trees to last us from dawn
to dusk--
i pray at my visitation hours--
pray at ghosts who clap
to wake me up so i dont forget
the morning in sick like 
me on knuckles of a bearded dragon--
we teach boys if they fall out
of love she's crazy and she falls
in love she's crazy and if she's crazy
she's another girl we sat on
display in the windowsill
next to the African violets
of our mothers--
no one waters them anymore--
he pierced me ears with 
juju bees and a spoon of honey--
he promised after he made me
into a goddess-- who 
ever wanted to be a goddess--
all ive every wanted was to
have a room to fill by myself--
a plastic planter to become
an orchid-- steal the mist from
your tea cup and leave 
the spoon of honey
im big enough now to almost
fill a button hole-- while you still
think im as wide as a fireplace--
voice thick thrum in a bushel of mum
who learned to laugh when everything
is dying again--
mar my statue with marigolds
and kiss me when coil in your grease--
your white napkin fingers that
teach me how to look
less like a dying girl-- pin
my skeleton to a cork board--
you can't love anorexia out of a body--
only i can do that
but it's nice to pretend to fill
a room and have you watch me 
and believe that for a second
i am the house plant that feeds herself--
paints a rain cloud out of honey 
and chai breath
for now ill work my way through
each button hole on my sweater-- 
i lied when i said id never cheat--
i kiss my own collar bones in the mirror
each morning-- trace her hips
like soup ladles-- like the spoon fulls of
honey you wish that i ate--
i know ill find you
outside the door to this house
i can never manage to fill--
somehow i only seem to succeed in 
becoming more and more like
the first purple advent candle--
the fire place where my body
will lie in wake--
serve me waffles at my brunch--
ill put on a show and eat them
with the jaws i hid in my hands--
believe me believe me 
run away from the crazy girl--
you know not to follow me into
the labyrinth hedges of my thumbs-- 
enter the trance of honey
and circles and windowsills and 
over-watering the African violets 
until they drown delirious from thirst--
i know he'll wait outside my 
house in the february 
to kiss me goodnight-- pray at the
feet of a stair case-- for
a girl he's never actually kissed--
i learned to kiss myself because
that's the only way to teach yourself
to love-- i love this sick girl--
the violets always come back 
when you remember them 
and honey doesn't go bad from waiting--
you hand him yourself 
in polished fragments of
a cupcake skirt-- kiss him
only in the presence of mirrors
so somewhere close you can
see yourself enough to fake love
fake yourself to engulf a room--
girl body waterfall
girl body statues-- he feeds
you pearl necklaces of grapes
and then you escape into
your own thumbs you have learned to
fill-- fill me mirror
fill me crazy girl i love
more than a prayer at a microwave--
im an anorexic-- obsessive compulsive
disorderly queen-- the panic attack
you left on the cusp of a honey spoon--
im scared of the windowsill--
anxious of the coil of my 
own thumb prints-- yes i left
you in dissociation-- no 
im not just the husk of a green
bottle haunted by hysteria--
this body is a mirror 
in my reflect has no ghosts
she only know how to glow
and i kiss her like an anchor--
i know i can't help but lie
and tell you that i can fill
as many empty room as you take me
to-- who doesn't want a boy to
pray at them from the bare feet
of a staircase?
just know you love my mirrors--
you know better not to 
love the crazy girl-- 
im not saying you kiss a skeleton 
when you kiss me-- but no one
would kiss me if they know
he was watching-- they 
were watching-- 
watch me kiss myself from a button hole--
walk out in between the hedges--
topography of my fingers--
i hold hands with myself--
and the boy-king still thinks 
he has a muse--

I devoured the sky with a fork and 
a spoon-- packed a suite case
from the lighthouse to the moon--

drifting people
keep spoons and forks in their
suite cases on the perhaps 
that the sunset might be ripe
enough to eat--
we'll stop and take a wicket basket 
full-- stir the clouds with me--
we're running away again 
as we first did when we were eight--
run away as a family-- trunk
full of amethyst stones intended for
to swallow heavy as worry--
we're not only feet travelers--
we aren't bound by limb or skin
or utensils--  
i'm talking about people
who meander out of their bodies
when they lay down on a sofa--
ramble into another ceiling
excavate the caverns of the cushion--
trip on another windowsill while 
they mistake themselves for a
fork scraped against an
almond cookie moon-- deep spoon
crack the surface a creme brulee pond--
when i was eight
the world fit into my grandmother's
faded blue shell of a suitcase--
i have always packed it to run
away to our apricot nectar channel--
to the back of a blue station
wagon plowing it's 
way through a peach field--
through a thicket of sky scrapers--
to hotel 
bathtubs i use to deploy
the submarine fleet--
carry the suite case to Atlantis
to stack with sand dollars--
gamble with the dried urchins--
the back half 
of the suite case has always
been devoted to the stuffed 
animal congregation-- the kiwi, the lion,
and the red bull with the 
chewed curly tail--
the front pocket is for pencils--
and spoons and forks which happen to
be all the different ways write
a poem--
write yourself into a spoon full
of sky-- a snap of a chop 
stick or a ball point pen
bleeding into the apricot nectar 
channel--
it's best to leave 
when the sky is ripe with
another thunder storm-- ring
over the lighthouses put
the stuffed animals in the back pocket
take your fork 
and spoon in your hands--
it's time to eat the electricity--
sip sorbet of the blushing sky 
we all packed suite cases for meal--
when i was eight i knew 
what it meant to escape
but since then i have turned 
my forks into pencils-- my spoons
into the hollow hungry click
of a pen--
the animals don't come along anymore
because now i use that space for
poems and fragments 
of poems i can't find an ending too--
are you coming with me tonight?
i think the sky is almost ready--
it turns ripe while your 
not looking and no one likes
sour clouds-- pluck a star from
the broth with the broken chop sticks--
this is how we devour a sky--
suite case ready to amble away 
from a body-- i pack a suite case
as an anchor so i don't walk too far 
from the moon-- 
when it's new i spend the night
away from myself-- knock at the door
to my bed room to ask my body if i
can come home yet-- they don't 
permit me to sleep in skin
until i've eaten enough
and i tell them i'm full 
and it's cold and everything
only tastes like apricot nectar-- broke
window of ramekin creme brulee-- 
the channel turn custard thick
last night while we weren't
looking-- i'll drive this time--
the blue station wagon has been
know to path roads with 
the amethyst in the trunk--
we'll drive up there to the lighthouse--
from there get forks poised for a moon--
i can't eat all this alone--

 

Who taught you to bake a moon from cups of snow?

had you wanted to be alone?
none of us were the type of people
who liked to check the weather-- me
or you or the boy next door with 
the wire-haired dog who barked
at clouds-- we listened at 
night here by the unlit fireplace
and heard him barking so we knew
what was coming-- we have never been
afraid of a snow storm--
the cellar is stocked with everything
we need-- the stained glass windows
are behind the curtain for when
we want to make believe the sun is
changing-- or fiery enough to 
turn the snow into rivers--
among stacks of condensed milk 
and canned sweet peas we hid the 
video tapes and the VCR-- equipped
only for another trip to 
a incantated morning full
of illuminence in the windows--
i had though it would be better
to be snowed in alone-- i had 
thought you would be happier out there
and the neighbor boy's dog became
only a muffle in another 
layer of marzipan smoothed over
the heads of the trashcans--
what were you doing here so
late-- i had told you
when you hear the dog bark that
means that it is time to leave--
time to forget-- time to stack condensed
milk and video tapes
in the trunk of a car and find somewhere
to talk to the grey-eye sky 
all alone-- he's only looking
for a simple conversation about
stained glass or our tendency to
forget that it can't snow forever
or has it already snowed forever
and we have only forgotten
what a morning looked like without
the sun sprawled out in sugar-icing 
layers--
you and i dropped the moon
into the oven that night
because the house had given up on
keeping us warm but the planets 
know what it's like to be frozen--
it was only warm in the kitchen so
that's were we ate canned peas
an d pretended each was a 
tiny solar system attempting 
an orbit-- squished civilizations
between our fingers--
that was the first time we looked 
out the window without the impersonation
stained glass making believe 
it was summer or the square glasses
poised on the nose of a cathedral--
did you mean for it to be you
and me here alone with the faint
echo of the neighbor's dog alerting us
to the snow?
did you remember or was this
only an accident that it happened
to be you who had stolen the moon
the night before 
how convenient
to know someone so prepared 
to wake up with all the sugar 
of the earth dumped onto the front
lawn-- no we couldn't have been sweeter--
dip your head into the sweet milk
with me and we can still
dry in the kitchen were we 
are leaving our sun to cool in the pan--
close the windows-- we can forget about
the rest of the earth-- we'll
open the door only when we run
out of sweetness-- pluck a cup from
the glow-dust on the welcome mat--
when you open the door
we can still hear him-- the dog
that is-- he's still calling someone--
a match stick in his throat--
warning us it will snow again tonight
and you and i will be here--

 

Canned mermaid tail,
the rusty wombs of a laundry mat
and mancala match of coins and scales

it wouldn't be the first time
i kissed someone through a veil 
of kelp-- she sang like mosquitoes
around the wick of a green candle--
she had eyes stolen from the smooth
throats of conch shells--
cold fingers of market fish
cozy in beds of ice--
and from the wayward March colored 
pier we talked about
all the beaches we'd used
to kiss boys and how many 
soapy quarters it took to dry my 
striped sweater at the ending of another
night where i submitted myself
to her--
and the blue crabs took off their
shells to show off their legs
to us-- we told them they were
safe here on a numb unwanted beach--
each night she said she'd run away 
with me if she wasn't bound 
by fish scales-- 
she plucked them off like mancala
beads when she was angry at her body--
i told her i do it too--
measured out the flakes of
my skin in the cupped palms
of a wooden playing board--
i moved to a the island
as a pilgrimage-- a return
to the rusty womb of a laundry 
mat where i was first devised--
the blue bloody horseshoe crab
girl
who orders pineapple sundaes alone--
tears out the mangled 
hearts of the peaches to plant
around the parameter of the beach
house-- 
i've never paid the rent 
so other families
come to boil the crabs
from the big pot in the kitchen--
scoop ice cream from the carpet
in july-- i wait for the cold
to take them home so i can be
alone with the mermaids again--
i am a horseshoe 
and horseshoe
crabs are like ghosts--
when the ocean is shivering 
no one
notices me washing sand from
my waist in the outdoor shower--
bringing in the crab
cages from the dock--
matching socks 
on the floor of the laundry mat
i think of her again-- 
i think of kissing her fish scales 
and the motion of the machines--
laboring like the fat wrists 
of a shoreline-- to wash 
away the flower petals of
another MacDonalds bag--
i lite green candles for her--
i tell her i'm ready with my
butcher knife and mancala board
whenever she is--
it's january now and time
to be new and give up on
boys we've kissed on beaches--
she doesn't want to be another
tale for me to tell when i decide
to go back to the land--
when my peach trees are as tall 
as the pits i've swallowed here--
we played mancala so she didn't
notice the knife--
until the candles went wobbly 
and thin 
and the mosquitoes came
to drink our blue blood--
died on the porch-- turned
to quarters for me to do my wash
in the morning from another
fat-wristed womb-- 
i saved her a pair of corduroy
pants-- a striped sweater just
like mine--
we canned her tales and tossed
them back to the ocean
to keep them cold for pizza toppings--
kissed in the outdoor shower 
and i taught her to yank 
the pits from peaches-- 
she said it was so liberating--
like a crab-- peeling off a shell--
clink of a mancala marble--
this is what we do with
our scales-- 
she asks if it will grow back--
her tail she means--
and i tell her i'd grow 
gills if it did--
sell my clothing to the laundry
mat to have something to 
keep her hands busy--
no one wins mancala-- but
we all grow back
our fish tails-- hate these
scales-- cut one
by one while the blue crabs
kiss each other in 
a pot of salt and water 
on the stove--
it's july again so people
remember the ocean--
still drying everyone's 
clothing in the oxidation
sensation of the hands of the
laundry mat--
write to me when i leave--
remember what it feels like
to swallow a peach pit--
 

 

Shoe boxes are for dead chickens,
the shallow grave of sunflowers,
and wooden tombstones in magic marker

we had all seen something dead before--
the sunflowers who sang elegies to
each other in the rain that came
too late-- i covered their bodies
with a shovel full of dirt so 
i didn't have to remember
i failed them as a mother--
the next day saw
a cardinal fire-work feathered--
spat against a window by his own
desire to 
fly into another sun-- we'd all 
seen the squirrels unraveling
their hang noose intestines-- swung
above their heads to hitch-hike
on at the bottom
of the hill on Noble Street--
we had all seen something dead
forehead graced with a shovel of dirt--
a shallow grave of the sunflower--
it is another thing to realize
something is dying-- 

i was a plaid skirt and blue knit
hat-- june was always rare
-- especially for ten year olds--
i crouched in front
of the chicken cage--
tapped the bird's 
candy corn beak every time
he tried to sleep-- he was so
so so so so sleepy 
all the time-- 
I had wondered what a chicken 
would dream about that would make him
so eager to sleep-- and his fur
was different colors than 
the other two--
a loose breath of a cloud-- pulled
free in cotton balls from
the medicine cabinet--
i knew
he was like me.
i knew he thought about
sunflowers-- sipped water
like a cup of Oolong tea--
lay in the soap dish of my
hands to sleep
sleep sleep like we all wanted--
sleep in the hand of a giant
-- i wish i could have
known he was dying-- i wouldn't 
have woken him up so much-- 

don't wake me when i'm dying
brother-- i want to fall asleep 
in the hand of giant-- my giant--
help her write my tombstone
in washable marker-- i wait
for a shoe box-- like
we all wait for a shoe box--
tap my beak three times
until it becomes a sunflower seed--

i told my mother three hours
later that my chicken didn't wake up
anymore-- that he was sleeping--
and then i said that he was dead or
dying but sometime it looked
like he breathed--

i was a bad mother-- an alarm clock
mother-- a sunflower grave mother--
too late with the rain-- you
can sleep-- we've got enough shoe boxes--
you could have asked for my hands--
you just seemed so so so so
sleepy--

i picked him up with two forks--
transferred to the converse box-- 
-- the other two chickens
seemed to have known more than i did--
they didn't watch me while i
removed his body like a salad topping--
and i didn't cry until i tripped down
the stairs-- with the box
and a wooden tombstone in my hand--
he flew again-- brief and stained glass--
his body a slant-eye statue--
i cried because he had been so so
so so soft
and so so so so
sleepy-- turned stone stone
body of the dried sunflower--

someone told me it's hard
when animals die-- and i had wanted to
tell her that it wasn't hard when 
animals die-- it was hard
when you forget what shoe boxes are for--
forget that sleeping 
is all that's left to do--
and we had a hand and soap dish
-- drank Oolong tea from 
the kitchen table-- i just hadn't
wanted to see him die
so hard and stone-- 
i kept his elegy brief
and the sunflower bodies rolled
over where he slept--

when i die don't pick me up
with forks-- i want a giant 
and a show box-- and a shallow
grave
like the sun flowers   

The autopsy her back yard body:
Garden shovels that are also pairing knives
and the temptation of butter sculptures

i watched when you called her Mud-- dug
fat in hand fulls of muffing-crumb soil--
toasted almonds from the oven sheets--
constructed her chin in toiling
bags of butter-- pressed with a fork
into dark brown sugar--
you made out back yard into a blue mixing bowl--
i told you to leave her there hungry--
let her rest--
it was how she wanted to be-- 
she never wanted you to build her a sculpture--
she wanted to forget the space--
dug deep for a stomach of only dead leaf--
naked bristle thigh spires in evergreen 
and the bare neck stretch marks of birch
-- contort femurs
to hold up a grey-shell sky--
cracked to give birth to a flurry of 
snowball chickadees in january 
you took pictures with your flip phone--
pearl in the hazy screen of a clam--
our yard only wanted to sleep hungry through 
the winter but you wanted her 
for garden shovels-- 
wanted to feel Mud
caramelized on your rubber boots--
pry coffee cakes from under the grass so 
as to clear space for the 
that shovel-- dirt slanted garden
shovel poised always so much like 
a pairing knife--
i watch you while i cut
granny smith apples from 
a kitchen window-- i'm baking you
a pie for when you're done
like a good oven should--
i couldn't look away when you
took the knife to finally
reach her thick jugular in the soiled--
bleed the sewer line across
the crisp tassel lawn--
Couldn't you have carved her statues 
of stone? of sugar? of Himalayan
pink rock salt-- lit with a tea candle?
she didn't need more butter 
to make her feel so much like a dead leaf--
evergreen hairs into pin pricks--
i watched you raid the fridge stick
by stick and toffee brick--
all you needed was the
pairing knife-- cube each box to 
erect effigies of what we look for
in a girl-body of butter-- she
had curves-- grease face glisten 
in dew-- she'll eat again when there's 
white flowers to chew on in the yard--
the statues are just going to melt 
anyway when the sun cracks the grey
shell of the sky--
i don't have enough butter
the finish the apple pie so 
i'm waiting for you to come inside--
put the pairing knife in the coffee table
drawer-- i'll steal it by
the lamp posts-- cut the arms
from a statue to fill the blue mixing bowl--
i worry the smell of the apples turning
into rubber boot caramel will
wake you so we'll try to smell 
quietly by the flat tongue
of the oven-- she's telling me
to stop the the mud from bleeding--
wrap her veins in pie crust 
and bake with the butter statues--
i tell her i am only as much as an oven--
and a pie can only smell so quiet--
she cries in drops
pieces of stars through the cracks
of a chickadee nest in january--
jugular bleeding into a pool
to hatch frogs and white
flower in the spring-- wake 
up in search of a shovel or
a pairing knife only to
cut butter--