Our clementine body climbed Mount Everest 
to remember what being loved was like.

Base camp
I wrote your name
on first page of my leather journal--
the one my father read me 
bed time stories from. He told
my brother and I
 about time travel--
about alien abduction 
and filling dresser drawers
with painted turtles-- sometimes
I would blink and watch the
walls of my room fall away like 
the peel of a clementine.
He boiled clementine peels
when he was done cleaning the kitchen
and the walls would
peel away into a home--

1.
My guide told me I was too
thin-- told me to wait a year
a month a week even-- learn
to eat mashed potatoes and 
pour gravy in pirouettes--
build volcanoes like a god--
 He offered me
a skewer of goat around the
heat lamp that night--
I told him I don't eat meat
and he laughed and told
me that we all eat meat--
the the mountain eats me
and that the mountain eats
names--
I didn't believe him because
we hadn't spoken enough 
mountain yet-- not enough
breath-- not enough knees 
not enough arguments with
God and our fathers
who we meet at the door step--

2.
There were two others. A couple--
kissed cold off each other's wrists--
and when I asked their name 
they told me "Us" and I told
them to call me "Air"
because I wanted to feel needed.
Instead they called me "I"
and I know that's what I am--
Us broke their granola bars in two
pieces-- they ate goat skewers
and left their notebooks at base
camp--

3.
Departing each camp felt like
peeling my memory slow--
careful abandonment of the peel
the smell of Christmas eve
and Easter and funeral brunches--
my fingers were sticky and 
we all called my nickname--
Air, air, air, air
I never asked the guide's name.
Air, air, air, air
And sometimes I thought again
about my bed room windows
and dressers full of painted
turtles and if there was someone
to catch my memory as I stripped--
walked naked minded into 
the white blank face of God--

4.
This is where we leave everything.
this is where we have no skin
or white veins to call ourselves
a clementine--
I remember feeling hungry
again even though we had just eaten
or had we just eaten? Had we
eaten rocks or the legs of the
goat or what was left of the 
Air, air, air, air
Us never walked single file
and the guide hummed 
prayers to the starved lips
of the rocks-- the carnivorous 
cold that yearned for 
Air, air, air, air
Where had I written your name?
Was it my name all along or
the name of my father?
Or the name of the mountain 
tricking me into some conquest
of love-- had we love top 
bring to the face of a God
who looked at the bare minds
of a his tiny frozen
meat-eating people-- where
we people if no one
knew out names--
what was us without a half
and the guide hummed
and it was me and him
at camp 4-- which is another name
for purgatory-- 
My journal is useless if
I don't have words left
in my mouth-- the mountain ate 
them along with Us--

Summit
We read bed time stories and my father
narrated each of my foot steps--
This was the first time since
base camp I could picture anything
about you-- it was kissing 
and kissing stones from
my forehead-- and me
kissing you like notebook 
paper-- kissing your name into
heaven who mocked me so 
close with the absence of 
Air, air, air, air
 you held me finally like
a painted turtle-- stripped 
me citrus and Christmas 
and we ate goat meat in skewers--
I don't remember breathing but
I remember being alive somehow--
And there was just me and you
and whatever is left
after your memory is eaten
by the air-- I saw it all
-- smelled your arms 
and the living room and the view
out the bed room windows--
and my father narrated us kissing 
and was it your name or mine?--
Oh! Who gave me hands to write
or lips that eat meat on 
the mountain top--
there was nothing left to 
call because your name
had only been an echo or
maybe a bed time story I repeated
enough to make true-- 
Oh! What does my love call themselves?
Call me-- call me
Air, air, air, air
and pull me peel back each memory
until our skin itself
feels nameless-- 

Smile like a tulip you
black hole girl-- I'm guilty of 
Instantaneous Combustion

I'm not going to lie
and tell you that I go
back together like
the pieces of broken plates
my family has sacrificed 
on the red-speckled kitchen floor--
the plates with the blue and yellow
flowers-- those flowers somehow always
so God damn happy--
Don't tell me to smile-- I'm not
your tulip or your Distelfink--
your pink bubble kiss--
I'm not your back seat--
wear the blue gum balls like pearls
and maybe you'll know what it's like 
for planets to fall into themselves--
You think of girl bodies like
black holes but what do you
know about escaping me--
Oh, boy-- I wish I broke like a plate
because we have duck tape for
that-- No--  
I'm not your
metaphor-- your manic pixie
dream girl-body in boy jeans--
You don't take tourism to
the mouth of a black hole--
this is where you learn 
about burning about destruction
and rebuilding yourself--
You aren't allowed to break
that easy like a smile flower dinner plate--
I don't break I burn-- I ignite-- I blaze
I radiate and eat light-- 
If you love me you 
learn to carry buckets of water--
I don't break and I have
never broken-- and don't
ask me about stained glass--
I'm not a halo-- not a Saint Mary
-- this is where the sun sends
her daughter to sleep--
I can't guarantee you won't burn
with me but boy it'll be
real quiet without the distelfinks
testing their voices--
I burned the sheets between
us last night again-- I know
loving me isn't a choice anymore
and the buckets of water are for
you not me-- I don't want a boy
who carries duck tape and tries
to put the pieces of my 
manic-pixie boy jean body 
back together-- I break
 plates on purpose to stop
myself from leaving this spacetime--
I want a boy-girl who knows how 
to stay out past my event horizon--
put out 
the fires in our sheets-- 
I want love to teach you him/her/them
to worship this reconstruction--
this isn't a phoenix this is 
me seducing space time for
my own bed sheets--
Boys always say they want a girl
on fire-- girls always say they 
want a body who can eat a galaxy
and lovers I can do both at the same time--
gender never named me anything
but super-massive and self combustion--
If you want to love me you 
have to break a dinner plate on the
kitchen floor and say
Fuck you flowers for being so
God damn happy! Don't you
tell us to smile-- we eat sunlight 
we shatter tulips
and silence distelfinks. 

Anorexic turkey-girls
and giving thanks for the
genocide of cranberries.

You don't want me for a turkey-girl-body--
my sad sinews knit me thin
-- white-meat waistline--
--and pocket-knife breasts.
This flesh is just another scar--
dark licorice and tar
and drum drum drum in my thighs--
come and tie my legs up behind my head
in Dhanurasana-- I philosphize here
in foil-- swallowed by the
oven mitts and the casserole dish --
Don't ask what 
I'll be eating this year 
I'm the body--pluck me clean-- 
I'll be a turkey-girl-boy--
the roast-- the sacrifice-- the plumage
Share me and carve me out
in slices-- keep the bones
in a bowl for soup.
This year I won't have to eat myself
because when I do I leave nothing
but wishbones
for siblings to choke on--
drum me on the kitchen 
walls and the inside of the oven--
pound prayer rhythm on our table 
and up the stairs from
the basement-- I'll marinade
in the ashes of my grandfather
who drinks Irish whiskey
at the breakfast bar--
This is hiding behind
my roasted skin. This is unearthing 
the mass-gave we hide in the trays
of stuffing. This is cranberry
bubble blood and the cuts 
on my arms from can lids--
This is Thanksgiving for girl-bodies
of wishbone and memory-tongues--
My thighs reminisce in pumpkin pie--
wear whipped cream on my forehead
like ash Wednesday
and you sprout brussel babies from
beneath me in the oven.
The chairs recall 
that we were unmarked graves in the
stuffing-- sleep between the femurs of
grandmothers and mason jars
of watery blue berry jam-- 
We woke up all together-- clamored
free of the soil to see cousin Macy
and march-- you
asked me if I could march anymore
or if my wishbones were too thin
for November--
pinched me shut like pirogues
and peas and tupperware--
you all ate roasted
chestnuts on a street corner
or the sofa--
got fat off bells and buttermilk
rolls-- billow above me
and my oven-- this is
hiding-- this is seeing
the moon in empty plates--
this is giving thanks for wishbones 
and ovens and my blood becoming 
cranberry marbles 
in the pan-- orange peel
and simmer and sugary genocide--
this is hiding and new moons
and the clatter of silverware
when you bang my drum stick
legs on the table-- this is 
breaking the fine china-- this
is where we buried our 
mothers-- this is my white-flesh--
what's left of my dark meat--
make me turkey-girl-boy-body 
and this year I can fill
my plate with my own bones--
fill in the spaces by bleeding cranberry
and waving to my family 
floating like blue berry jam
and buttermilk rolls. 
Keep my bones in a bowl
for wishes and soup.

We aren't vegetarians on Thanksgiving.

I am a vegetarian 364 days
a year or so but we all fall
victim to one day around
a table. I don't talk about
feminism here-- and 
dead names walk like
ghosts in salad bowls-- I turn
back into HER
-- wrap
the apron around my waist
and convert to puritanism
where we all came from-- no
this isn't about breaking bread--
This is about white men and
the Indian burial grounds--
this is about the ghosts we conjured
here-- no there is no SPIRIT ANIMAL
for puritans who shucked 
a coast of their own bodies
to build corn fields-- 
we wash our faces in 1952 and apple
pie-- fill ourselves 
with helium and call upon our ancestors
to march with us for cousin Macy
while people Stand like Rocks
on the land we bake into 
stuffing-- this table is Iroquois
casserole-- bake Sioux--
Cherokee grape leaves-- mashed
Navajo and a pie crust for
the Powhatan and Pequot to die
on the same land-- this table was built
by cannibals-- this table
tastes like small pox and Tippecanoe
and a ghost dance to remember
something about all the bones
this land has eaten-- I don't 
eat turkey-- I eat drum sticks
of a people whose whose hearts
we canned in cranberry sauce
and thumb-printed into ovens--
Standing Rock I'm sitting here
with a plate full of stuffing--
a family high on helium to look
down on the city of lights--
Standing Rock I am a coward and 
I might get to call myself a queer
feminist but Thanksgiving I am
a successful puritan-- and the day 
after that and the day after that--
I'm sitting at tables while the Rocks
themselves are Standing-- 
When I was in third grade
I named myself "Blue Feather"
and made a tepee in the backyard
where my brother and I hunted buffalo--
if only they had told me about winter--
about what the word "hungry" meant
in the mouths of trees--
about fences and the last buffalo 
on a white man's kitchen table--
heads of Lenni Lenape over mantles--
I had wanted to be part of a tradition 
that didn't involve cannibalism--
but no-- my mothers didn't grow corn--
we grew small pox and beer bottles to 
shove down throats-- force the trees
to drink because at least drunken 
ghosts are worse at haunting us--
I don't eat turkey but I'm eating 
Americans-- and I'm sitting at a table
while Rocks are Standing--
My people walk Christmas over corpses--
I'm sitting violently quiet--
and the tear gas doesn't work
on a people who've already walked
a trail of tears just to pray for
water-- I'm sitting while
there's a Standing war zone--
there's corn fields on fire
and at least we have our pumpkin pie
and our children in head dresses 
and our children who build
tepees in the backyard-- maybe
we should throw concussion grenades 
in the sandbox so they know
what white people do to Native Americans--
And all the words of queer feminist 
means nothing to stop a rubber bullet--
And there's no wound an apology has
ever healed-- I'm not a vegetarian--
call me puritan-- call me Thanksgiving table--
don't march with me-- lets drink
helium into the sun-- I want to Stand like
a Rock with you but I'm fed apologies of
helium-- white-turkey breast--
field churned with stuffing
drum drum drum stick the beat of 
all the hurt this skin has done 
and we blood sealed jars of cranberry sauce-- 
and we bake pumpkin pies
and we mashed
ghost dance-- baked
the Rocks-- Stood like pilgrims 
around a table where
I dare not claim to be vegetarian-- 

To those
who ask where anorexic 
girl-bodies come from-

Six years from now when
you find yourself in love with 
me again--it will be
easy to find me--
you can start by
sowing yourself into the 
hem of the dusk. Take
out your paint rollers
and dip them in the bruises
on our forearms-- soak up the tar 
night left smooched around
our eyes.
Pluck out
your irises and replace
them with dried watermelon
seeds or freckles of a full bellied-
moon-- if you're lucky enough
to catch one impersonating
the sun--
Yes. 
You know where
I walk when I want
to leave my body-- we can meet
half-way across the 
soy beans field that was
once a corn field and was
was once my bare arms
shaven in a kitchen sink
full of full-bellied 
watermelon rinds-- bite
me down to the honeydew 
green grin--
I'll be here
in the field where the foxes
write me love letters with
their feet-- the field that
was both your mother and my
mother and somehow our sister
and the curled toes of a pie
in the oven back at home
Our home-- your home--
the foxes home dug
out of the moon--
-- Yes you
can meet me there-- only on
my terms. Bring your paint
rollers-- we're sealing 
the sunset behind us
and becoming a skirt--
don't be afraid to unfurl--
You can be a woman here--
It's okay-- I'm not one either--
and I'm queer as the fox feet
but I still fall in love 
with boys-- scared of
paint rollers and using
the corn field for sex--
I think boys are scared of 
being dirty and
I think it's funny how a species
can know so little
about soil and claim to know
so much about kissing--
yes my love is the kind
of love that bruises you--
smooches you black under your 
eyelids-- my love 
haunts sunsets and 
speaks in watermelon rinds
and spits the seeds 
in the Lima bean field-- 
I'll say
     Did I ever tell you where
     anorexic girl bodies come from
And maybe you'll try 
to find where my legs
become roots-- 
And maybe you'll ask
if I'm queer because 
I've spent the last
few years learning all
the different ways
a boy can bruise you--
just to come back to 
the field and re-plant myself
each time
I'll say
     Did you ever walk across
     the Lima bean field
     Did you ever eat soil
     Did you ever carve out
     your full belly and lay
     shaven in the sink???
I'll teach you how to kiss--
and I can't promise it won't be
dirty but I can promise you
will curl like the toes of a pie--
take out your irises-- see with 
your skirt hem-- no see
with the watermelon seeds
no see with the hollow of a
tilled field and 
that is where we grow
anorexicgirl-bodylove
so bold there was no food
left to feed it to help 
it grow fuller-- I paint with
bruises and boys are terrified--
this love is going to 
dress us in skirts-- walk us
across smooth skin in the sink--
Meet me on my own terms
and I'll teach you what
kind of love I can eat 
with all these bone empty 
rooms-- I have
spaces for you to sleep in--
spaces to grow Lima beans--
spaces to kiss--
spaces for listening to
the crust and curl of your flesh--
if you want to unfurl tonight.
Sow the hem of your skirt--
Roll into the soil--
It's just me and foxes
and whatever sunset we decide
to paint. 

 

How to love 
bad luck girl bodies and
why we break mirrors.

1. 
My lovers keep dust pans 
in their backpacks. 
They have deep pockets. 
to stuff extra mittens. 
They know
I punch mirrors sometimes
and they never let me pick
up the pieces of bad luck 
all alone-- pull the purple
and blue glass
from my knuckles and laugh
at all the confetti-mess
we make on the kitchen table--
They know I don't eat anything
other than sleet, poetry,
and my own ceiling--
call me rose thorn
call me pink rabbit's foot--

2.
Now we've got seven
years to figure ourselves out.
We can make stained glass
windows where there used
to be bathroom sinks--
take showers in the sleet
and wash our hair away
until we are left as a pile
of scabby leaves bunched by the
side of the road-- wet sleeping
bags and soggy smores--
you tell me you love 
bad lucky girl-bodies
and I say that I do too

3. 
Don't ask what
I mean when I say 
Umbrella 
Because for me it's likely
that the ceiling of the room
could begin to fall again 
and I'd need something
to catch the stars in
if I ran out of coffee mugs--
if the rain became stained
glass-- if we bled
and needed something to 
catch bad luck in--
Fuck me tonight under umbrellas 
and sleeping bags--
Peel off these leaves
so we can be naked--

4.
Learn that I only count
kissing if it happens under a ladder--
climb me to the ceiling 
and we can rain and we can
sleet and we can find some
way to wash the bad luck
out of all my cuts-- no
you didn't have to notice where
the roses grow on
my forearms-- I'm not dying
I have seven years left--

5.
If we fill the coffee mugs 
13 times we could empty
the room of all the purple mirror--
These stained glass windows
tint our skin to look like 
saints who fell in love
be accident--
I never meant to kiss
anything
other than a dove-- 
You were so quiet under the ladder
that I thought I might
just be kissing myself
in the mirror again before
     everything
     breaks
          and broke
I know you want to name me 
Judas-- but I don't hang myself--
and I don't deny him
   I speak louder than cock crows
      and leaves
I rain and umbrellas start to look a 
lot like halos and halos
look a lot like laying in leaves 
and that's where we sleep
when you forget that 
you're supposed to fill
silence with each other's lips

6.
It's funny how we cut
ourselves on confetti
and only we know
that the black cat has a name
and her eyes are made of
stained glass and she 
has the throat of a pile of leaves--
opens umbrellas in our
windows so no knows
how tightly I'm holding on
to you--
Don't leave me halo boy 
and dove feather-- 
I broke all the mirrors
so we could be alone--

7.
Did you notice the confetti 
turn into salt on
the kitchen table? The stained
glass windows followed
and the room tasted so much
like sleet
and like the ceiling
and like kissing you
when you couldn't remember
my name--
you asked if we were going
to eat today-- I told
you that you love a bad luck
girl body-- and that there
were still mirrors to pick up
and leaf scabs to
peel from my forearms-- 
I've started growing roses--
We can pretend to be saints
or at least apostles-- I have
always been a fisher of men--
not Judas men-- but men
who deny God three
times before the cock crows--
You ask me what it all has to do
with mirrors and I say
nothing 
and everything
I'm eating poetry-- I've never
kissed you under a ladder 
so give up and sleep
with me under these umbrellas--
we have seven years
and seven days in
a week to figure out 
what do with the roses
and what to do with the scars
and if you really
love me enough to fall from
the ceiling 
and shatter like a mirror
or leaves or like the salt of our
bodies we poured on the 
kitchen table.

Hunting for an evergreen, choking
on tinsel and
the ghosts of statues outside the window.

We all woke up earlier
than usual.
We felt winter ponderous our stomachs--
laden like statue thighs-- like
quiet cashews-- like chocolate box lids 
like stir-fried tinsel--
caught in our throats so that
all of our voices sounded like
cracked bells--
silver bells silver bells 
silver saw blades on the kitchen table--
The wind came with us to conspire
when we met around the 
the boney hearth of the radiator.
We spoke in murmurs and shooed
away the ghosts by lighting
the advent candles early-- 
In retaliation they rattled spoons on 
metal surfaces trying to drown
out our plans-- breathed
heavy and yanked the last leaves
off every maple tree--
They knew what the snap of winter was for.
They knew our melancholy task--
the infamous annual expedition
to hunt down an evergreen tree
to keep watch over the living room--
keep the ghosts of the naked
sculptures from crawling
in the windows at night for warmth--
we all knew it had to be done.
We all knew it was my father's job
to hold a saw blade.
The statues had already
given them warning--
rustled and whirred their
voices through the veins of 
the trees to tell the evergreens to
hide themselves-- cover
their breasts in dried leaves--
shave off their needles-- and 
pretend to be oaks or birch--
curl themselves into wreaths
and die slowly like the bees--
My father told me to wear 
two pairs of socks and 
my old ripped Chuck Taylors--
We were too nervous to sit
down for breakfast so we
stood at the counter and ate
while the statues ghosts
watched us out the window--
my father ladled
Cheerios with a soup
spoon-- cracked his diet
coke can like a geode on the counter--
slipped the yolk down his throat
and reported the taste of tinsel--
and told us we didn't have much
time-- 
Even the windows were sighing with
all the ghosts who wanted 
to put their stone feet on the radiator--
We check the frost for foot
prints.Cast more ghosts 
from our lungs to try to 
smell needles bleeding in
the rock-bitten air--
My father nodded and held high
the saw blade-- we had never
liked the saw blade
though we knew what we needed it for--
we needed it for tinsel-- for
family-- for radiators and 
to keep the naked statues out of the 
living room-- we needed it for
advent-- for blood-- for penance 
and Pentecostal fires where
we could talk quieter than the 
cashews or the chocolate box lids.
Evergreen are terrible at hiding--
we only needed to flow the odor
of their fearful sweat and the 
timid trail of needles she
had tried to wash down the drain--
no the evergreens can't wear enough
dead leaves to trick our family--
we are trained well in the hunt.
It has always been my job to corner
the creature-- her back up against the garage 
we begged my father
to let her go just once--
just this year and my father 
raised the saw and my father cut
and my father slit, slashed, gashed
and lacerated the evergreen free
of her own legs.
Everything is quiet after something
dies. The ghosts stopped their protest
and went back to sulking outside
our living room windows-- picked up
piles of leaves to cover their bare hips
and tried to warm their chests 
now open to the freshly
cracked winter--
in a low hum they sang about silver bells
silver bells silver bells
silver sticky-blood saw blades 
so that we could only feel 
apologies in our stomachs as cold as statue
throats or tinsel.
We helped our father drag
the evergreen by her severed thighs
into the house to keep watch
while winter played spoons
in the pipes of the house
and on the windows-- we washed
our hands in the frost-- and my
father said silver bells silver bells
silver bells 
and swept her leg hair down the drain. 

Dear brothers,
I became a vampire to avoid 
brunch buffets and photography.

No, I have nothing against
the sunlight-- 
in fact it's the thing
I miss most about
being human-- 
--other than you
of course--

I collect
rays from my window 
using the bouquet of
triangle prisms you left for me.
--Unfurl them to grow sunflowers
under a new moon. I pretend
I'm nothing but my brother's shadow
that he chases at recess-- fade in
between shrugging elm trees--
I wonder who will tell him
his sister resolved to 
become a vampire--

I tan this skin pale
by lunar sun dance and have no need
for mittens or coat pockets
-- I drink blood
of bird feeder blue jay and 
feed off innocent back porch
feral cats with paws of milk--
I collect pebbles to feel
less lonely-- because
their flesh is like my own--
no we're different now
and I don't want to be warm
plates or family portraits--

You tell me it was cowardly.
You tell me it was selfish suicide
to become a vampire
but I became this for 
both me and you--

You know I wasn't buffet
blooded like the rest of you
-- and what else would
that leave us with? Arrange me
on a plate and I'll be the edible 
flower--I'll be the fork and the spoon
if you'll be cilantro and 
planks of wheat toast-- let's scrape
jelly from our hair--
I never trusted the size of buffet plates 
and I don't believe in dessert tables--
they have always wanted to carve 
me in slices of a heat-lamp brisket--
take pictures of me in a Sunday dress
all freckle-punctured and napkin
on my lap like a trampoline
or a blue jay belly--
You know I love pancakes-- but
I'm scared of getting trapped
between the layers-- scared
of them scrambling me
into the comforters of egg
whites and saliva of the yolk--

No one wanted to watch my skin
thin out and drip drip drip
from my skeleton 
like blue jay birthday candles or
like butter bricks perishing in
a skillet--

I didn't want to be your picture--
a freckle prick or sunflower--
Didn't want to know what a camera iris
could see in a girl-body 
who had resolved to melt--
no, no you won't watch me in another 
picture-- but you can still
peel me from out between the elm trees--
chase your shadow and wait for it to 
turn around and become
your sister-- can you forgive me 
for the feral cats? For the blue jays?
For the hands and elbows 
I traded for moon rocks--

I miss you here but at least 
I have stones-- and blood
doesn't taste like anything without
a tongue so I hope you eat pancakes
for me-- hold edible flowers
and play with them in your hair
before you eat them-- 

I still see you in every sunflower
I grow from my prisms
I still see you walk on the haunting 
smell of bacon from the diner up the street 
I still come to watch you play at
recess and take pictures of you
to fill my buffet plates--

I eat moon now-- I eat
love and I eat your shadow-- 
No you won't find me in the old pictures
you have to pull
me out from beneath the pancakes
cut me thin slices from 
brisket-- 

Oh! Forgive your anorexic 
vampire sister-- I just
wanted to escape the buffets 
and the photographs-- come back
for me and we'll eat cilantro and
walk to each other across
silhouetted planks of toast.
 

Now Hiring:
The Night Shift Waitress
and Other Ghosts

For three years the Collegeville
Diner has been hiring
for a night shift waitress 
on the weekends-- 
They call to her with 
square letters
settled on the billboard.
A prophecy sun faded
like smoker's teeth.
The stop lights
perform across the diner's 
face each night in the melancholic 
dance between green, yellow, red
green, yellow, red--
red-red-red-red
and there's no more pickup trucks to
stop to watch the lights arabesque--
The cars have all crawled home 
on their hands
and knees to avoid the ghosts here--
the one who re-reads the same
Inquirer from 1967 at the bus stop--
the ones sitting on their bicycles outside 
Quick Stop-- they spill slushies 
and hurl stale pretzel twists every night--
we all learned to read these acts as omens
--some order caramel ice
cream sundaes from McDonalds at 
four a.m. in November--
leave the spoons on the curb
like finger bones--
And of course
The ghost of the last night shift
waitress keeps guard over
her duties-- refuses every replacement
her boss brings in-- girls
with chipped nail-polish, 
blue lip stick, and square glasses
on string-- everyone has quit before
their first night's end--
they don't want to compete against
a phantom-- the night shift waitress
holds onto her black tray-- shuttles
The cherry-topped heads of
vanilla milk shakes on her hip--
refills the fountain sodas
of men curled like rusted
springs in booth seats--
The manager tells her
that it's time for her to go home--
he throws out her time card every week
and she always makes another one--
fills out her hours but never
demands a pay check--
She continues to turn on the waffle irons
too early-- scoops batter
while the manager tries
to exorcise her spirit by dumping
the tip jar on the floor of
the kitchen-- he tells
her he'll pay minimum wage--
he'll give her more smoke
breaks-- he'll give her Christmas Eve
off this year but she doesn't listen
anymore-- she's learned 
not to believe in anything but
clocks and the constant rotation
of cherry and meringue pies in the 
dessert display--she shuttles burgers
to the ghosts of truck drivers--
steals homefries for her dinner--
writes her name in ketchup and mustard 
in the sinks-- stacks 
waffles next to the towel rack
-- drizzles the syrup-ed 
strawberries over the cash register
and laughs and laughs and laughs.
She alone watches the arabesque of
the red stop light-- 
bakes the whoopie pies just
to roll them like truck tires 
out the front door.
The night waitress gets off
at the first sights of the sun.
6 a. m. she perches on the porch
and counts the money from the tip jar.
Take tomorrow off
Take tomorrow off
the manager pleads--
and she looks at the smoker's teeth
of the billboard and cackles before
she leaves to re-read the paper
from 1967 before her bus 
to return again the next night.
The manager counts the red stop 
lights-- wipes the strawberries
off the register and counts 
the stacks dollar bills
for comfort-- looks 
out to read the prophecies
the ghosts wrote in slushies and 
stale pretzel--
sleeps whipped cream and cherry-headed
with a the night waitress
lingering above his bed like a 
stop light. 

Bone blue prints I write
on paper napkins and  
in the back seat window
of my mother's blue station wagon.

No one means to fall in love
with an architect.
I'm sorry you got written 
into the blue prints but
you have to know I'm a poet 
of fictional floor plans-- I highly
intend to live in each of these futures--
grow old wrapped in the 
cartography veins of another
one of my 
road-maps unfurled on my mother's dashboard-- 
she drives me to Chingoteague--
holds her breath across bridges-- 
she wakes me up early from 
topographic nightmares
so I have time to trace our way back home from
another psychologist appointment 
where we read billboards like pro-logs--
I write out the trajectory of my bones with
steal beams of simile
-- of onomatopoetic assonance--
personify this park bench for us to kiss on
someday when I'm too old to 
say Iloveyou and too old to construct the outlines
of beach houses with a blue crayon-- 
I measure my stories by crafting the
shoulders of our walk-in closets--
tape-measuring our porch knuckle bones
kneading themselves
into cottages and clutched clumps of moss--
these femurs we'll bury with 
hand-shovels by the lake house
of neither of our grandfathers--
lay brick shins behind the eye-lashes
of evergreens-- 
You should know 
I drink warm mug handles and cup
people close to me like coffee mugs--
I start work late in the night/morning each day in a diner
that used to hurled bi-planes
over the quarry in Kutztown--
I labor over the blue prints for
houses no one will live--
I pick them up by their foundations
and push them like thumb tacs
all over a planet that has
only ever sat on a desk for me--
I live with you on
the coffee cake coast of Maine--
in a penthouse as tight as a knee bone--
we own an apple orchard and I bake
pies-- they cool on the back porch
still trembling-- steady as a rib-cage
but without as many bars--
I live in a toy shop window 
and you sew up my wrists even
when I burn them again and again-- I write
my daughter's name in the fog
of a back seat window so she 
can wipe away and become an architect 
just like her parent
I breath asphalt into the roads 
that clip belt buckles onto
the mountains we will climb
To shout new names into the 
pale face of the clouds-- 
I finish the day by folding my
paper napkins into triangles--
tight as the knee cap of our
apartment door in Manhattan--
I tuck them into the glove box of
my mother's blue station wagon
in case we get lost again on the way 
to Chingoteague or a psychologist
and the the back window forgets
her promises. 
Take out one and we'll follow
it like bi-plane tails. I'll
hold you like a coffee handle
and when your done you can walk
away-- wipe your name from the back 
window-- or hurl it into
the laughing face of a cloud.