Curbside Wizardry, perhaps people,
and Red Queens.

At some point we've met everyone
at a bus stop and told them 
we loved them-- 
and I don't just mean
goodbye mothers and 
cross station boyfriends 
I mean perhaps people-- the 
waiting for their bodies to unfurl
into voices from
the seats next to you--
for their phone calls to their
wives or music in
their headphones singing tinny and 
distant like the ghosts of wind-up birds.
He taught me to
read everyone's palms while they sleep
and tell them how many children their
hands will branch out to love and 
how many window seats they'll sleep on
He taught me
the forces of God
breathe diesel-- fill the empty spaces
near windows and the distance
between all the perhaps people
sitting oceanic centimeters apart.
I met him on a curbside
but I had always known him 
as another perhaps person-- the man with
the wizard hat who was either
your father or a prophet or
a wind-up bird who sang like tin--
he measured time with a deck of cards
made of only RED QUEENS and 
JOKERS-- because they're
the only cards you need to play 
WAR-- 
or so he says 
And he guessed where I was from
by the way I held my mittens like
toads and he knew I was scared
and he knew I kept Sundays
as holy as oatmeal and apples--
the curbside wizard pulled 
kittens from my suite case and
corn snakes from my back pack  
and called me MOTHER MOTHER and 
RED QUEEN and OATMEAL GODDEX
and I said that I knew
what I was. He named me
WINDOW SEAT and removed his
white gloves to show off his blue hands--
I told him it was cold 
and he said 
Not in August 
and put each glove over my
wind-up bird fingers and pronounced 
me Sorceress and August. 
He said 
I would fall in love 
with more RED QUEENs if I didn't
learn how to keep time
with the kittens and the corn snakes
and that there were only 
so many jokers to pull from
a deck and only so many ways to
wear a wizard hat and not fall into
a star-- die a perhaps person 
on the curb and let people 
breath you diesel and poetry.
I told him to take a window seat
and I'd keep safe the aisle so 
we wouldn't both fall into everyone's
tin-voices and the thrashing
wheels of God driving us to home--
So of course he kissed me--
like all bus stops do.
Told me that window seats 
were named by girl-bodies like me--
that he was a curbside wizard--
that he was only ever a perhaps 
but that I could write my
name in fog windows-- sing in everyone's 
earphones and do palm readings
by the reluctant Morris Code of street lamps
through the city-- asked me to pick a card--
any card and guess what it would be.
Of course I said
RED QUEEN
and he laughed and pulled jokers 
from my sleeves-- out came 
KING and JACK and SPADE--
I windowsill and white glove
and perhaps girl and perhaps 
queen picked up sidewalk cards
to find him gone-- wizard hat
on the bench
I RED QUEEN and curbside.
I perhaps am left reading my own palms 
and counting the minutes
at the bus stop with a stack
of jokers and red queens. 

We ate only ice cream 
and became Sunday nights.

Was it you who called me
mint chocolate chip?
Discovered my green hair
and how my body orbits with
flecks of comet
set on intimate courses for
collision--
Did we collided in the 
crossing of spoons?
--Fed each other from opposite sides
of a red cushion diner booth
where we 
We both said STOP
and we both said NO MORE--
but we both moved plastic spoons
to each others mouths mechanically
and repeated THERE'S ONE MORE BITE
THERE'S ONE MORE BITE
Did we find each other in
the soft serve twist of the machine?--
your knees and my knees and your
shattered prism sprinkles and my thick
iridescent cherry balanced like
a stack of books on your head--
you call me RED PLANET
and BLOOD MOON--
stem soaked
in nostalgia or blood-- the syrup 
of the strawberries
we left melting on a porch
in August-- feed me like August
and root beer curbs-- like the
bed where we laid between bananas
and you told me this is what the ocean
is like-- this is why we came here
to split each other between bananas
and burn our wrists with fudge.
Can you count the number of banana
splits you've eaten 
on your fingers and who was
with you when you submerged in them?
I ate my first banana split 
after I snapped cinder blocks
and wore my black belt-- 
sat on the edge of a plastic 
boat with my father who called
me RED PLANET and SON
and shaved my hair off into
the bay and we talked about the desert
of Arizona.
Every other ice cream boat
I sat with boys who tried to eat
them for me-- severe banana
spoon by spoon and I said
NO MORE NO MORE
And he pet my hair and called me
BLOOD MOON said there was 
no such thing as love without
sharing spoonfuls of each other
until there's nothing left--
Full bellies and laying wedged in between
the another sliced femur of a banana--
cover ourselves in the peels
so we don't feel so melted 
and naked and cold and August bodied. 
How did we end up here on
another Sunday?-- the night
that dangles her legs over the 
side of another plastic boat--
We melt our wrists here. Melt
our kisses and drink the remnants
like cough syrup and
you say 
NO MORE NO MORE
and I say ice cream for breakfast
and ice cream for lunch 
and ice cream to sleep through the
afternoon like strawberries--
Did you remember me August?
Like our feet on the planks of a beach?
Like our fathers who shaved our heads
and taught us to eat?
When did I stop being mint
and chocolate freckles?
How did we think we could eat only 
ice cream. It WAS you who had
called me mint chocolate chip 
but you also called me 
Sundae
and RED PLANET 
and CHERRY and BLOOD
and AUGUST and fed me
one more bite 
ONE MORE BITE from
the other side of a diner booth
on a night that hung like a Sunday. 

Our God of Gumball Machines
who had a sun and 
witnessed the birth of all the blue planets

Did I ever tell you what quarters are? 
I'm sure you have
heard his pocket change clamoring
when our God walks
the curb of the horizon like
a hitch-hiker each night--
arms butterfly balance beams-- 
this God who
thrives on rides from strangers--
I know you've heard the clatter
and clang in each foot-fall-- 
snapped your fingers to his steps 
and wondered why God has so many quarters.
Wondered if he likes Gumball machines--
Sing the coins from your living room 
and spend every cent
of the hour as 
He takes His pilgrimage and 
His hum drawing darkness and star over a day.
You pick him up in your blue jeep and he
tells you to take him to 
the edge of the woods again--
you give him your spare change
and he laughs at how the quarters
feel in his endless pockets emptying
into the Marianas Trench--
stack and stacks and stacks 
of quarters and pence and yen 
and rupees and pesos and 
and shillings and drachma that
he has been saving for gumballs. 
Before there was dark
Before there was light
There was only God and himself 
and the Gumball machine--
it blinked neon in the corner
of nowhere and it irritated God
to the point where he had to sleep with 
his back facing the other side of forever.
Somehow he always woke up staring at it
and it's empty shoots and slides 
The worst part was its bulbous head swirling
with unborn planets that mocked
our God whose eyes hurt 
from lack of dark and light--
he said to the machine
Give me a sun 
and the Gumball machine
laughed and glowed brighter
so our God could not sleep-- but
he did not give up. He kept vigil 
over the Gumball machine-- listened
to the neon patterns-- counted every single orb
until he had named each one and all
their moons and all their solar systems--
He said
Give me a sun
and when the machine laughed
this time God broken his
arms into quarters and pence 
and rupees and drachmas and fed 
each piece of himself
to the greedy creature
one by one by one by one
He said 
Let me have a SUN
He said
I will have a SUN
and the machine lurched and the slides
pulsed and pulsed and stretched 
and hurled down
a glowing piece of light for
God to pick up in his
hand-- still warm and soft.
He put the sun in his mouth and 
blew a pink bubble from which he 
would destroy the forever nothing.
And the Gumball machine cried and scorned
Him as it felt all the planets falling
from it's skull-- come Jupiter
come Mars come Moon come Neptune
come planets quiet and X-named--
God worked his jaw for seven days
and seven nights until each one
was hanging where there used to 
be forever nothing.
At last in his palm he held the
blue one-- delicate and quiet 
and sweet like the nights when He used
to sleep away from neon-- God
watched earth born from the swinging metal
door of the Gumball machine and he said
We will all one day laugh about
this-- you and me and the Gumball machine
But now let me have a blue planet 
and another
and another
and let them find me on the curbside
of the horizon and in the sun. 
and let them have a sun.

The chocolate box dissection
of my body
and fathers who still
collect stamps.

You don't like it when you
bite me nougat or Belgium cream--
you're a boy who wants all
his girls praline-- read the bottom
of my body of chocolates 
and taste me full of holes--
This confection dissection I've been
built for-- I was born for--
they arranged every part of a girl-body
in a box for you to choose from--
leave the white chocolate squares
of these bird cheek bones-- barren 
and pluck my chocolate raisins
one by one by one 
out of the limp vine of this spine
until we both break like cordial cherries.
This is sex now. This is blood.
This is what love is like for boys
who learned from their fathers stamp collections.
Blood-- like this raspberry mousse--
No you never could stop yourself--
you were trained that these squares 
were cut for your conquest-- for your
unsent postage-- a binder sideways
half-eaten apologies.
Please  
Leave me naked.
Leave me virgin rum. Leave me kneeling in 
the frame of another postage stamp--
Who taught you how to read girls backs?--
point out the pieces that you
want-- love us à la carte and lick 
the glue off our backs like your fathers
did with their stamp collections--  
hold us here under box lids--
in these ruffles-- under these ruffles--
eating these ruffles
your pantie packages-- with all the 
gold hems-- and when you kiss me
like caramel I could have almost
believed you weren't just another
stamp collector-- another boy
who lined every's body up in boxes--
in lines-- in chocolate raisin 
vines-- I am another still shot
in the book of your father's
stamps--
paste me between the biplanes
between the Pekineses 
between the ladies who tilt
sunhats towards Model Ts--
take me take me
and don't depart me eaten
in halves of butterscotch
you didn't feel like finishing--
Was I too thick for you?
Too sugar? Too glue? Too 
much like the address of your 
father's biplanes--
Ganache and jaw bone-- 
You didn't think that I had a chest
full of marshmallow
these fists of pecan
and these elbows 
cracking with cashews--
paste me and post-mark me in the 
pages among all the stamps 
you've neglected to mail
your teeth back with--
Did you think I would
wait for you under a lid just
for you to decide what parts
of me were worth all these wrappers?
I'm opening up
your father's stamp collection
and mailing you back each kiss
I ate from you-- and I won't
try to tell you that you were
an envelope for me-- 
I never left a square of your
body uneaten-- I never saw
a boy as a chocolate box or
frilled frame of a postage--
I saw you like a raisin vine-- 
like your father and your father's father
and like scientists who say
they have to cut things apart
to figure out how they work--
then tell me how I loved
you and left nothing uneaten?
Tell me how I kissed you cordial 
and cherries.
Tell me this is sex-- this is squares
this is your father turning 
the pages of our elbows 
this marshmallow 
this is praline--
This is me telling you 
I ate the unfinished chocolates
you thought you could taste half of
and close the lid.
This is me unraveling the stamp
collection of your father to 
send you my wrappers.
This is postmarked.
This is where we live now.
In ruffles. In squares.
In my our bodies of chocolates
and stamps
and closed the lid.

Let's lay low like pie crusts-- 
we roots. we apple torte. 

Knead me with your dry knuckles
my sisters my mothers my grandmothers
who unravel the skin of granny green
apples in pirouettes-- those dancer ribbons
I once held out the window of a blue jeep 
when I was seven-- trade my ribbons
for purple carrot shavings--
for the peels of red bananas
and honeydew I ate with my 
elbows rooted on the kitchen counter-- 
my feet bare as cinnamon and apples--
we were born in nutmeg dirt
in the blizzard of confectioner's
sugar that was snowing and
snows
and snowed-- 
the blizzard of 96' that 
baked us all into apple tortes
on the radiator--
kneaded my mother sweetly 
in another pie pan from the
seat of a blue jeep still waving
the ribbons of green apples--
I was only thumbprint in crust--
and my grandmother roasted 
butternut squash and the 
fat finger roots of sweet potatoes--
of her own mother who 
also had dirty feet
and elbows that rooted
themselves in kitchen tables.
We were all there
hiding under a blanket of pie-crust--
sugar--butter--flour-- vanilla 
call me the child of tortes and
crumb muffin-- call my body the scone
we name our own--
make love and girl-bodies with me.
make us sweet and dirty like
we were meant to be. 
Live our lives brushing
the sugar from our daughter's foreheads
and telling her that she will
always be inspected for burnt edges
and for the cinnamon and apples she buries
herself beneath-- don't clean your
feet
daughters. My mother-- let's be dirty
like cinnamon sticks and unshaven carrots.
Let's lay fat and bearded in the oven--
we are the bodies of root and gourd knots
cold and huddled in the 
glass sternum of the pie dish. 
We won't tell them that we kiss under 
the dough and under the apples
and under the snow and under the sugar--
we won't tell them that we peel off
the skin for show-- a strip tease--
this burnt burlesque 
we won't tell them that we love most
the burnt edges-- the places
where we failed to be hidden by 
the crust or by the snow.
We pie dish feet-- we flour hands--
we kiss and squash neck.
Lay low with me in the pie crusts--
pour the cinnamon and apples
over our heads-- slice me out of the 
grave plot next to my mother
and my grandmother
and my neighbor who accidentally
had a daughter too. Slice me out of
girl-body-- out of
the veins of the potatoes-- 
dig us each out of
dinner tables.
Oh, Cinnamon feet! Oh soy bean!
Oh porch!
Oh mother and snowed and snowing
and snow. 

Grilled cheese, 3a.m. gas station donuts
and how to avoid falling in love with girls
when you're 11.

I don't like girls
I say bold and sixth-grade-girl-bodied.
Shoes still on-- laced up 
to my thighs-- to my neck--
knotted in my hair--
one black chuck and one pink
I lay awake-- pirogue belly towards 
the ceiling of my room that is 
painted to look like the sky--
trace girl bodies in the clouds--
reach under my pillow for a slice
of tangerine gum and chew
until my mouth no longer
tastes like grilled cheese or powered 
donuts and stricken matches
I don't like girls
I like the way she crouches close
to the creek-- traces
circles with her index finger
in the water
and catches frogs with one hand--
I don't like girls 
I like how she opens
tasty cake packages with her teeth and
splits each doughnut in half
to share with me--
We learn to hide our 
powered fingers in each other's 
mittens-- hold hands like statues--
Walking home from the Turkey Hill
at 2:57a.m. she tells me that we're 
out past curfew and for the first
time of many I feel like we
have become part of the dark stomach
of the moon--
the side not so white and glossy 
like rows of powdered doughnuts
under neon lights--
we move like centipedes beneath covers 
of a quilt she pulls me into with her--
we watch a sleepover unfold 
in a warm brownie tray-- between us
we can lay to rest these
sixth-grade-girl bodies--
peanut oil on our knees and powered
doughnuts like snow globe salt
on our gloves
No you don't want to kiss her
You don't like girls
She smells like incense and
the silence of stricken match
You don't like girls
She asks you what boys 
you want to DATE MARRY OR FUCK
You don't like girls
and you can only think of her
You don't like girls
She makes grilled cheese
on a gas stove every day after school--
cuts the sandwich in half with 
the spatula and you learn 
to eat your body in the shape
of a melting triangle--
kiss her like cheese-- and peanut oil
and ripped knees of jeans 
and the stunned body of a frog 
blinking under the grasp 
of our mittens-- 
You don't like girls 
You don't like 
girls.
I learn to tuck my face into
a pillow-- dipped into the
quiet match-stick- black side of the moon
and repeat
I don't like girls
I don't like girls.
I like shadows 
I like the moon
I like grilled cheese
and I like being held in her one
hand like a frog
and washing snow globe
salt off my hands when I get home
to my sky ceiling
in my pink and black chucks
still knotted up to my knees.

Trick or treating at our dead grandmothers doors and 
dragons who roar in mirrors.  

You have to make mischief
of the morning even
on Halloween.
The ghosts are groggy in the sun--
but we can hear the 
slippers of our grandmothers
shuffle sleepily under the front
doors of their tomb stones--
they're looking for ice cream 
cones and tricker treaters--
they sleep only to the sound 
of doorbells.
Trick me trick me
Trick me into crawling back under the dirt
trick me into the vampire 
on my door step in the morning--
I invite him inside willingly--
it's the kind of day to drink blood
like cranberry juice over breakfast--
we grow bat wings
and candy corn teeth.
I'm twenty now so no one
thinks I belong here in my
dragon costume.
I'm waiting 
outside my dead grandmother's tomb stone
-- gripping a grimacing 
plastic pumpkin basket. 
No it's not a SEXY
dragon costume.
A dragon costume--
with real dragon skin-- 
The one I wore when I was seven.
I can still fit into it 
and I roar in the mirror--
Scale and tail and fire--
oh fear me mirror and doorbell!
I brandish my claws and grin.
When I was seven I was as
thick as a bowl of Reese's cup--
I'm dressing up as a seven-year-old
this year-- wearing claws and 
teeth and fire-- 
When I was seven
I was bold enough talk to ghosts
who hung themselves as dangling piñatas 
in our stairwell--
they told me I was a frightening
dragon- queen- body- warrior
of porches and plastic pumpkin pails.
The conquest of sugar and scream--
Ring the doorbell before
you throw eggs at me--
I'll catch them in my claws--
When I was seven and made a breakfast
the day after Halloween of popcorn
balls and mashed M&Ms--
stirred it together in a cauldron
with a blue raspberry dum-dum
for a spoon-- I whispered spells
to turn myself invisible--
sneak into the day light--
creep on all fours into another Halloween
night where you wouldn't be able to tell
that I was once a girl body 
beneath these scales-- 
spoke only in doorbells
and discarded wrappers on a kitchen floor--
Ask the ghosts if they 
eat chocolate eye balls
and break kit-kats with the vampires.
This year I'll be a seven-year-old
and you'll all be so scared of my scales--
you won't know what to do 
with the body of a creature
not afraid of the door steps of
dead grandmothers--
the girl-body who laughs and
tricks you into inviting them
inside-- vampire and dragon 
and queen. That's what I am for
Halloween-- 
I'll ring all your doorbells
and knock on tombstones
with a fist full of claws
and silver candy wrappers--
Wake up and roar in the mirror. 

First dates with Holden Caulfield
and boys who play chess.

Do I count you as just another boy
who I played chess with?
Castled me into corners and
call 
King me-- king me
I said 
We're playing CHESS you know?
and you laughed 
because you thought I was kidding.
I sat short like a row of pawns
playing out their lives in strategic 
sacrifice for their KING 
their king who 
takes you square by
square by square
one sauntered step at a time
until you call--
CHECK MATE 
because I was too busy watching 
the way your horses danced with your
bishops and couldn't help but 
wonder why lovers played with war
on a coffee table--
It was my queen who wanted patricide--
who wanted to see you in squares
of blood between the bent knees
of the pawns.

I met Holden Caulfield for
the first time in Central park.
I was waiting at one of the chess
tables for another boy or lover
or tyrant to CHECK MATE
me into saying 
I love you
only for him to kill my queen again.
He came up to me in his red hunting
hat and told me I shouldn't trust
boys who play chess--
I said
I read about you
and he rolls his eyes.
He gets
this all the time-- bunches up
the sleeves of his flannel and 
removes the red hunting hat
to stuff into his pocket
he says
That was a long time ago
People passing by
walking their dogs and holding
on to their children by the
collars of their hoodies
look at us and 
notice Hold Caulfield now sitting next
to me. Some of them point.
and take pictures with their disposable 
cameras-- flashes on-- we blink
away stars-- 
The hold up copies of 
Catcher In the Rye 
and ask us
where the ducks go in the winter
where the duck go in the winter
he shakes his head
I don't know
I don't know
can't you see I'm playing checkers?
And I say
They play chess with each other
and forget to swim
and he laughs and says
that if you love someone you
learn to play 
checkers--
And I say 
I won't keep my kings in the
backrow
And he says
You can have kings three
checkers high.
And we made ourselves jumping
monarchs from the squares 
of a checker board.
I can't tell you who won
but there were no castles
there were no kings
no bishops and no horsemen 
to write dances about
falling out of love 
like coffee table war
like patricide
like lost queens who
all the pawns had cried for.
Only stacks of checkers 
taller than the
sky scrapers around us.

The parking meter and the the pieces of 
my body on your nightstand. 

Empty your pockets of me
on the nightstand. 
Untangle me 
from loose change and wadded
up receipts that count our bodies
in stacks of pennies and dimes--
Save the quarters for the parking
meter in front of my house
and we can count ourselves
down in half-hours.
You can tell me that you 
love me but
only like the steady falling
of all the numbers out of our
mouths--
we talk like 
parking meters-- like
thick-bellied tip jars-- 
like pinball bumpers blinking
back and forth-- 
we intertwine 
like the knob of a gumball machine--
slide down the neon spiral into 
each other's throats--
Call me bubble gum. Call me 
candy wrapper on 
the coffee table.
I can be peppermint if you
want this to feel more like winter--
But you'll have to spend some
time cutting all the summer out
of my hair first--

You say you have leave-- that
you already 
carry me too heavy in your sleeves-- 
Oh and curse my paper weight bird bones
and my eyes lashes of pine cones-- 
gather me in sea shells we both
collected to pretend we knew
what vessel love was carried in.
Tonight me and you are three quarters tall--
carry me to a nightstand--

there's no more space on the 
shelf for all the acorns
I have left in your pockets
and I'd understand if you wanted
to throw them away-- out a window 
or rested in sea shell-- I was planting 
a forest in your sweaters
so one day you would wake up and find
that there weren't enough numbers
to name all the different shades of
leaves-- we'd learn how the trees
sign their lover's names in their bark with
patterns of roots and autumn--
I leave my name on your nightstand
spelled from the numbers 
that fell from my mouth--

I don't want to go home yet
measure me in change if
you have to-- I can be a nickle
skyscraper-- a red wood of greeny--
rain pennies-- 
And you'll tell me you
have to leave-- havetoleave
and I'll say that there's 
five more pennies in the parking
meter and that there's still 
parts of you in all my coat pockets.
I'll offer you pin wheel mints 
and another hand full of sea shells
another hand full of ticket stubs
another fortune cookie promise
that  reads
"we all end up on a nightstand"

And you havetoleave
havetoleave and I have to become
a nightstand and you have
to wake up in a forest and 
we have to talk like parking meters 
and you tell me you love me
and read my poetry from 
a crumbled receipt. 

Our last words and the decrescendo of these
windup toy bodies.

Was it me who told you that
we're all just like the bees?
Your last words were 
funny and simple
just like we all want to go.
Oh love did you notice
that we're slower today?
I told you 
WAKE UP
and you said sleep
and sleep 
and sleep 
and sleep--
So we came to-- down tempo again
and in the dark of someone else's living
room.
All the pollen 
from the apple trees we neglected
to pollinate was caked
 on our eye lashes and
there were tangled nests 
of dead blue berry bushes at our feet--
You said
It smells so quiet.
Unhurried we had let all the fruit die
as widows--
And we both died as widows with each other--
ate the bushes to hide the crime--
And so I said 
decrescendo with me my windup toy boy--
there's no more apples for you
to make believe that I tempt you 
with something other than the loneliness 
of watching everything die so slow--
It was autumn that reminded me how
much we are like bees--
I know you only hail me queen
because you like to think I'm your
mother. 
I have all your last words
written down on the inside of
my wrist-- these are ball-point
pen prophecies-- I don't
wear your words as tattoos 
but as memento mori 
I write each 
down as fast as I can but
the drones talk too loudly over
each other and I draw each word
out of their mandibles
while they croon about flowers
and lost blue berry bushes.
Each worker bee is still wound so tightly 
one by one
from the chiming gossip
of God's king ring.
He keeps the foot steps of a janitor--
swings our rythyms like tamborines
on his hips when he does his rounds
in our neck of heaven--
the one we make when we sleep
together and feel each other breathe
more and more like a violin--
lie belly up in bed waiting
to be assumed.
Your last words came to me 
when I was trying to hear 
my own name over each slick clink 
of gear and cogs and noose taunt spring
beneath these wings-- oh yes need I remind
you how much we are like the bees?
Yes there are less of us now
and too many trees
too many apples 
too many wind up toy boys who 
call us queen and then forget our names--
I brush my fingers over the 
hole in my back where our master
had wound us tight-- 
I don't want to forget that  
we have been part of the same
decrescendo-- kiss me like a violin
and don't pretend you will love
me like anything but another windup toy--
that's what boys do.
Your last words were funny
and simple like us.
No I won't tell you them,
they're for me to write
on my wrists and you 
to speak once
when we come to in the dark
of someone else's living room.