My three black belts and 
how to punch me like you mean it.

I have three black belts.
I knot
each around my waist
beneath my dress before I leave
the house in the morning
to remind everyone
that I'm something to be feared--
that I have enough rings around
my hips to be a child of Saturn--
Call me Rhea 
I wear the moonlets to dangle in my
radius--
What a sight it would be to see
a planet fall and break--
again
Yes and yet I couldn't snap the wooden
board
he hung above my bunk bed.
I watched it every night and still
couldn't call it my enemy--
she had herself been cut from another
tree just like me 
every wooden board knew what
it was like to put April on her face--
Yes and yet
with all these black belts
I can not in fact protect myself 
against any
someones I've ever caught in 
my orbit--
they bow before they enter--
slow and quiet-- cold bare
feet on the wooden dojo floor--
pirouette to mimic the dancers 
we've seen on TV-- I didn't mean
to make a moon of you and I can
call you Titan so that you can make
a dwarf of me
I didn't mean to catch you 
in these rings-- tie you up
between the black belts 
that lie to you that I am
something to be feared-- 
this isn't self defense. 
this the graceful art self destruction 
of the child of gas planet
who holds a match dangled 
above her head--
I know at least twelve different 
ways to deflect
a punch if you want to aim
it directly at me--
just tell me to be ready
one, two, three...
and hesitate with me like
we were only going to dance.
I know you don't want to punch me.
I don't want to punch you either
but here we are in orbit--
a collision course predetermined
to become comets of each other.
My father was red and chalky 
and kept Mars in his bones.
And it's so funny how he
kept trying to hang the
board above my bed-- thinking
I would someday grow to learn 
how to break things other
than my own radius-- other
than my own moons I hurl out of orbit--
tell them to circle me no longer!
He tries to 
remind me how I could break things--
how thick I was at my iron core--
He thought I was a fighter-
lived for
inflating my hands into
red puffy gloves-- 
wrapping my
torso over and over in gauze--
I'll tell you not to hesitate to 
punch me even if I'm clothed
in nothing but dangled moonlets
and the three black belts 
I've knotted one
by one
by one--
Punch me once good enough
to feel my skin.
Tell me it was worth it--
tell me it was worth it to
tie myself up each morning 
with three black lies
that there would ever be enough
belts to protect me from 
every piece of my body
broken out of orbit--
I'm not here to teach you how
to defend yourself
I'm here to teach you how
how to break and keep track 
of the pieces.
How much like a dance we are--
how much like planets
like black belts 
like moons--
You can call me Saturn-body 
when you finally aim and kiss me.
I'll call you Titan
before we disperse into comets
or break wooden boards
with our feet 
to earn another belt to
knot under our dresses 
each morning.

 

We should have closed the window
before we became shadow puppets.

You held the flash light and I told
you I wanted to grow bigger--
wanted to take everything
inside me that was murk and 
midnight bleed
myself out into wolves or
bear skulls or the sprawled fingers 
of a red tail hawk attempting 
flight off of a white dorm room wall.
You held my hands
and shadow-kissed me 
quiet-- don't turn off the flashlight
we'll be nothing but the goats heads
and elephant trunks of our own hands--
I'm scared of the shadows we keep
in our hands. Your hands are always
so much bigger than mine--
how many bears do you keep 
growling under your knuckles 
and in the creases written in your palms.
We had the twilight taken
in our double-helix spins--spun
in between the dusk of our own bones.
Catch the hawk shadows! Quick!--
before they 
escape out the open windows 
and sneak under 
street lights-- stalk passers by 
and find their way into 
our neighbor's living rooms--
eat the pinwheel peppermints from the crystal
bowls waiting in their vestibules--
The hawks wipe their talons on
welcome mats-- stain themselves
in streaks of sun-silver and 
flecks of black gold.
We have left our hands in all 
our neighbors  living rooms 
in elephants and wolf jaws
and the shadow-lines of our 
own ribs bound around our chests.
These puppet cages contained by blankets.
I don't want to I lose my hands again.
Help me find them between
the pin-pricks-- the thimble-top star dome--
we can grab them when they try to sulk across 
the moon's scowling face.
I know this is what happens
when you play shadow puppets with someone.
I knew I should have learned how
to make beasts alone with my
own flashlight or in the safety of the sun
and the asphalt.
You became the sun.
Gold and dim and you pulled
all the darkness from under my fingernails
and out from the corners
of the closet where all the shadows
eat sun flower seeds while they wait
from the daylight to pass
over head-- where they wait
for lovers
to make each other's hands into puppets--
take my hands and roar wild
in my fingers.
Oh! I knew you were the other
wing of my red tail hawk-- 
will our hands come back through the window?
Leave it open, leave it open
I know they will at least need
to return to the closet.
Oh love ee became shadow puppets and
you said I had always looked
like the silhouetted of a rabbit
when I stood sideways.
I have mistaken all my lovers
for the skulls of bears.
Sit here in the closet with me and
fumble for our hands-- step over
the sunflower seeds and we 
can sleep next to each other
smothered between the shoulders of
everyone's shadows.
Make shadow puppets with me.
We'll keep the window closed--
watch hawks sulk across the moon.

Call me Blue bird.

Call me Blue bird one more time--
I want to hear your say it
not because I want to be a Blue bird 
anymore but because I want to
hear how you say it-- 
Say I like I could be someone's 
throw blanket-- worn heeled 
socks or the vibrant belly
of another cup of chamomile tea
blooming in mist and fogging glasses
frames-- I want to be that
again someday-- I want to know
that I'm small enough to fit in someone's 
hand-- no I never wanted you to 
call me goddess or hail me saint
of milk blood bleeding honey
for sweet martyrdom-- cut the
bird feeders down so I don't come
around anymore and I'll still
ask if you want to call me Blue bird--
feed the seed to the squirrels and
watch the blue jays kamikazae
for each fleck of sun flower.
I like to think that someday I will
catch you in passing
so that I can ask you what
makes someone a Blue bird
what makes someone a lover
What made you call me 
Blue bird. I don't want to be
a Blue bird anymore, but I 
want to know what I'm supposed to be now.
I can be Cardinal or Morning Dove
or Chickadee or Swallow
or Falcon or Cockatrice 
spit fire on my own wrists--
Oh can I be Poet?
Maybe I'll see you 
seated across the aisle 
on a bus to a city I want
to live in-- my back pack will be full
of too many dresses that I don't want to wear anymore.
I'll hold a black notebook 
in my lap where I write
to the hypnotic rhythm of the bus's hips:
I want I want I want 
I want I want I want
I want to be a Writer 
and you'll carry your shoelaces
in a draw string bag and 
look out the window
And I will say aloud
in the absurd silence
of a moving room full of people:
I want I want I want 
I want to be a Poet
And maybe you'll be reminded of something
about girl bodies
you once wrapped yourself around
or something
about Poets or something
about waiting for a Blue bird
at Port Authority
and carrying Blue bird bags of
dresses. Yes, Blue birds wear dresses
when they visit a city
that has always swallowed them
too fast and burned it's tongue
on their cockatrice feet.
Of all the things I've ever been
called no matter how many poems
I write I still have never
called myself a poet.
I have been a Blue bird.
I have been a goddess-- I damn
well burn my self enough to be a martyr
and cut my hair short enough to be
a girl-body-- breathe fire enough 
to pretend to be a cockatrice
but I don't wear enough dresses
to be a city. I never wore
enough dresses to be your city.
Oh! And don't get me wrong. I
don't want to be a Bird bird.
Oh! Why did you have to make me feel
so much like a poet?
And everyone will have
been wearing head phones on the bus
and no one will have heard me
say that I'm a Poet-- but it
won't matter because it was never
meant for them. It was meant
to be heard between the towering torsos 
of buildings singing 
Writer writer writer
Come home to us
You can be a throw blanket
a worn heeled sock
a cockatrice and we won't
make you wear dresses if you don't
want to
Writer writer writer
you can be POET 
you can be mugs of tea
you can be our patron saint
of missing people who
don't wait for you at bus stations.
I'll wait for myself.
I'll probably write another
poem about you on the way.
I'll leave it on the seat
next to you and I'll imagine that
you read it and think
about Blue birds and think
about poems and think about 
girl-bodies with black notebooks
who write their name 
over and over and over again
spelled different.
on each blank page

Cottages of dead leaves, revolutionary war barracks
and all our mother's phoenix scales. 

I finally set out to build my own home
in the autumn roasting afternoon
from dead leaves stacked delicately
one on top of
the other--
I sorted them each by color so that
the inside was cozy brown and smelled
like the bellies of toads 
and the outside flashed the red scales
of phoenix and cat fish tails.
My neighbors called me an artist
called me a poet
called me a piglet with
walls of straws and sticks 
and not enough bricks to
case myself into my own home.
They called me the anchor and 
wrote me letters on the backs 
of fat leaves-- rolled their words up
like scrolls to mail to me on the backs
of moths and toads.
said I was building a cottage to 
be a vessel to God.
said I was a martyr. A dead leaf martyr.
A goddess. 
A wolf. 
I finished by sunset which was
earlier than it should have been but
still too late--
and I missed the way the lamps lite
the corners of our room
and I missed the way August 
puts our short hair in curlers
and reminds me of the the
three times I could turn myself
into a braid-- sat on the table
in the kitchen while my mother 
crocheted my brown hair
into the tails of the fish
and the phoenix--
into dead leaves and the thick
tasseled thighs of the oak trees.
All I needed was a dirt floor cottage
for myself.
I had just wanted a place alone
to work. One room. One room. 
One room-- feeling my hair grow
itself into braids and the ghost
of all my mothers tear the leaves
from the walls each night
and yell to me 
Come out, come out, come out
your are DAUGHTER
you are PHOENIX and FISHTAILS
you are DOLLHOUSE
One room. One blanket and an open
side like a doll house so that everyone
could see the dance I put on each morning
when I get ready-- count the layers
of my own skin come alive 
one by
one by 
one by--
How my hair grows again so that I
have to shave off the braids in mirror--
and my hair falls off in leaves
on the dirt floor--
I walk outside thick socked and waist
deep in leaves from the 
destruction caused by all my mothers
the night before--
I want them to see me like
I see myself--
loose-armed and pose-able
and un-braided--
no I'm not a doll. No, I'm
not a girl but I put myself here
for you to move my body however
you think it would move 
in the walls of a leaf-cottage-- of
these barracks--
see this is not a home or a bunker--
It only has three sides and no roof.
Bring your children. Teach them
about arms and dead leaves and hair.
Teach them how I sleep like 
a revolutionary war soldier--
slid into my bunk like a metal 
sheet of cookies baking
throughout the night and yet still
cold-- I lay gold brown-leaf--
toad belly and
listening to the men
breathe above and below me--
at least my I live my barracks alone--
despite the ghosts of the soldiers
pacing in the attic
back and forth and back and forth
and the hoards of mothers who
come to visit me and beg
me to give up this state--
teach your children that it best
to fight a revolution from
a dirt floor wrapped in a blanket
crocheted by all your mothers.
That it is best to cut off your braids
and pretend they were always just
leaves-- best to make homes
with three walls because the neighbors will
want to see what you do anyway--
it is better to not leave them to guess--
they'll make you out to be a wolf
a goddess or all three
piglets stuffed under layers of leaves.
By the next morning there will only be me.
I'll remain seated on the dirt floor
without even three walls to call
my cottage. My barracks. 
All my mothers came to take the leaves
in the night with the wind
their father had given them--
I'll put my hair back on one phoenix scale
at a time and the toads will gather
and ask if I still want to the letters
or if they should just
take them straight to God--
the soldiers will take sticks 
and build their own forts above the
Valley below-- away from where their
mothers can still remember them--
Oh! And I'll be here in the dead leaves
and the dirt letting
you all call me WOLF
and daughter until I build these three walls again
when autumn roasts the afternoon. 
 

Rose petals, chocolate chip windowsills and 
my disease of falling in love 
on people's back porches.

I don't love you like neighbors.
I don't love you like park benches.
I don't love you like the pumpkin 
crooning about his own death on my
front step or the wind chimes that 
gossip all through the night. 
They're singing about the soy bean field
who mingles with the corn at night
when the farmer is too busy feeding
watermelon to the foxes to notice
their escapades.
When I knock at the back door I'm not here
to borrow sugar like I say I am.
I'm not baking banana bread or
chocolate chip cookies-- I'm here to borrow you.
Yes, I'm here again to fall in love
only this time it's you instead of him. 
I'm here with a basket of roses petals
that I held once at a wedding as a flower
girl when I was seven. I saved it for
this very purpose.
When you open the back door I'll
throw a handful in your face 
and then apologize artfully.
You'll invite me inside-- your vampire
your flower girl-- the love sickly
neighbor whose windowsill always smells
so horridly like 
chocolate chip cookies and coffee
and making love on a sofa bed
-- I'll come in and hide  
the petals all around the living room--
sneak chocolate chip cookies in your
sock drawers.
When I go home for the night 
you won't stop thinking 
of me and roses and cups of sugar measured
out to bake us into the same slices
of banana bread. Somehow you still
smell my chocolate chip 
cookies on your skin.
You'll eat me for the first time
and wonder how someone could taste so much
like everything you ever wanted--
I'm your own sugar and your banana peels
and a hint of nutmeg and rose petal.

We wake up.
We make pancakes. I make my oatmeal.
I teach you how I put my body together
petal by petal by petal.
I teach you that that I keep my body
divided in parts because it's been
too broken to keep in one place.
You sip my coffee and I teach you how
to wake up to me-- we learn love
from a back porch light where
I still sprinkle flower petals
from a bottomless basket--
peeling off pieces of myself to 
say I love you, I love you, I love you
Oh how I could love you again and
again and again--
open your back door I'm not here to borrow sugar.
You see that's the disease-- I always
end up here on a back porch of someone
I've never met already knowing that 
I love them.
I know that they dance.
I know that there's something about
the arches of doorways that makes
them uncomfortable-- I know that 
they take everything too seriously
and I love them for that.
I love them for the way they sit in chairs
to how they hold a coffee mug
and how they look out a window.
Oh everyone likes chocolate chip
cookies until they find them in their 
socks drawers and they know I'm just 
another vampire-- that I'm just like
the soybeans and 
I still love them when they dance--
I still love them when they dance.
when they dance 
when they 
dance
when they dance
like the rose petals that I had tried to
leave for them-- 
like there would ever be enough 
roses or cookies and back porches
to say I love you--
It's so easy to love for me. 
I want to learn to put you 
back together in slices 
of banana bread and teach the window chimes
on your porch to sing a song about me
and you and the way the soybeans have
sex with the corn on our sofa bed
each night and we never tell the farmer
and the fox eats the watermelon
and leaves the rinds.
I know that they dance--
Oh I know that they still dance--
They never needed me for that.
And when I leave out the back door
I came in it will still
smell vaguely like rose petals and
chocolate chip cookies in the living room.
You'll wash your hands and sometimes 
find that the sink pours out sugar.
Maybe every once in awhile you'll wonder
if I still bake banana bread. Wonder
whose porch I took my sickness too--
how much my vampire blood sucked me dry
as corn in October-- get lost in me--
remember me on your back porch.
Remember how I put myself together
in the morning.
Remember how I peel myself off
in rose petals.
Remember that I dance too--
only I dance in windowsill and 
back porches and somewhere
in between the soybean and the corn
where they meet at night to share
love and slices of banana bread.
Oh you know I'll always love you
when you dance.
When you dance.
When you
dance.

Do you want to be an autumn rain with me?
-And other ways to love yourself.

Do you want to be an autumn rain with
me? I'm asking you because I need
permission to love you-- I want
someone to tell the both of
us we are beautiful together--
myself and this skin and this
autumn rain that woke both
of us up too early and too late--
eyes painted open by oak leaves
intruding in the windows we forgot
to close because the room
had felt so small the night before
and we had felt so far apart--
sat on opposite ends of the room
and called each other the names 
only lovers call each other
like 
ugly and broken and useless and heavy
and burden-burden-burden
opened the windows so the neighbors
could hear us fight--
We wake as broken coffee mugs on 
the kitchen floor--
we pick shards from each others bare feet--
Remind each other that there will 
be more coffee mugs 
and more mornings 
and more skin that always 
grows back after the cuts--
that our feet were made to bleed.
You tell me I have the feet of a dinosaur
and I kiss you and feel guilty about it--
stand naked statue in a mirror.
I had told you to wear slippers.
It's too cold to strum our 
ribs in another foggy bathroom mirror-- 
So we knit ourselves 
into sleeves today--
the quilt of our mother
who pulled out our hairs one
at a time until it made a rainbow-- 
blow our spines inside out like
the spiderweb spires of the old
rust laden umbrella who rests heavy
and burdensome  
by the door-- head hung like a grandmother--
We both fit under one umbrella
even if we still get our feet
wet. We can hold hands so everyone
knows that we are lovers 
ugly lovers--
unfurl each others fingers like the grip
of cold naked statues-- 
tell each other that
we're pretty enough 
to be stone
to be obelisks 
to be a pair
of angels who perch on the empty mausoleum
of our father
paste our wet socks on the radiator
to sizzle like oak leaves.
You can use my arms for firewood--
cut off our bangs for tinder
together we can be pretty in 
our sweater sleeves and 
autumn rain-- be pretty in our 
bleeding statue feet--
be pretty from either side 
of our room-- open windows 
to hear us scream
we're pretty, pretty, pretty--
will you will you will you 
be autumn rain with me?
Be statues?
Be broken coffee mugs on the kitchen floor?
Be my skin and my autumn rain?

Pizza slices I've folded myself into.

Mamas Delight Pizza knew our address and our order 
when we called for delivery.
The delivery boy was Mike and 
he drove a red car that resembled 
a coca cola can that had been
kicked up and down main street 
for a decade or so.
He carried the boxes on top of his head as
he approached and tucked the 
flying saucer dish of cheese fries
under his arm-- 
this man a mozzarella marinara 
ballerina poised at our front door.
This was back when
my dad "made" dinner" from
the holy trinity of the Airport Diner,
The Kutztown Tavern, and Mama's Delight Pizza.
We each had out method.
criss-crossed legs on the floor--
watched the termite tampered bones
of the house on Noble Street grow plumage
from my father's paint roller--
dipped it and handed it to me
to paint white the box
that was waiting to become a rain forest
waiting to become a kitchen
a staircase 
a corner 
a windowsill
waiting to become a family who folded
themselves into pizza slices 
and now paint their own bones
into themselves with the rollers
and the brushes-- sitting
on the floor in a circle--
suburban refugees stranded without 
cable television 
We told stories
and I folded myself
and my brother folded himself
and my father folded himself
together-- passing the crusts
like the bones of my grandfather
still walking back and forth
in what would become my room.
My father told us stories
between mouthfuls of sauce and cheese
and cardboard box and fry fingers
told us about what the night sky looked
like in Canada with his own father.
Somewhere mother folded herself
into a car on the way home from
work to fold herself into our circle too.
I made up stories about school
because I didn't have any real stories
to tell-- I was a dinosaur-- saber tooth
a girl in a blue hat knit by my mother
pouncing
on park benches-- fearless because
I didn't know I was fat yet 
Didn't know I wasn't supposed to
hesitate at how many times I fold myself
into pizza slices
I didn't know I was anything other
than a dragon tamer
and a paint roller 
and a cheese fry shoe lace string
pulled tight on my black Chuck Taylors
Just like daddy
I could still fold myself like
a pizza slice or an airplane
into anything-- tell my brother we
were Indians and rain dance 
in the rubble of the driveway.
I miss that house of bones where
my grandfather still lived in the
crusts of pizza and my father still
folded himself into the circle 
on the living room floor with us--
He asked me why I took the cheese off the 
pizza and I never had a good answer
other than that I liked how
squishy the dough felt beneath--exposed
and raw and so much like my own
skinned knees-- my own gums-- my
own blood pulsing to give
that house's bones feathers and 
femurs and fat in it's cheeks--
Our house has heavy bones now.
Collects orphaned mittens in the corners--
holds my elementary school crafts in her
belly-- eats all the cheese
I peeled off when pizza slices
when I was short and fat and skin-kneed--
filled her closets with times she meant
to cry but couldn't find a place to be alone--
keeps my grandmother's cat statues in the cabinets--
plays cable television like a 
elegy each morning.
My grandfather knocks on the walls
of my closet as he waits for
my father to order pizza again on a Friday. 
I never ate the cheese
and I don't eat pizza anymore
and my house is heavy heavy heavy
with all the pieces of ourselves
we've folded into her since the paint rollers.
I don't eat pizza anymore
but alone in my room I can still
peel my skin off like cheese--
remember my skinned knees
and tell stories to myself about being
a saber tooth girl or
an airplane--
Open my closet to find my grandfather.
Eat pizza in my poems.
Grow fat and heavy and fearless.

Attention
and other reasons why 
why we let ourselves get 
raped.

We all got raped for the
attention.
For a headline
For a front page
face ink stained from
sweat that crawls down
our backs when we sit up
from an another nightmare
where you don't hear us say
NO NO NO
but we like these dreams
asked for these dreams
sweaty and thick between
comforter where we fold ourselves
safe as pirogue filling--
mashed potato these bodies into 
midnight until there's no more
stains,
for the attention. 
You know-- the flashlight faces--
the stares of our fathers 
who tell reporters we're 
broken
we're 
different 
we're
shadow
We're
The magpies waiting to flush
And don't you dare call me sister
as if the only way fucking
me with my arms pinned down
would be wrong would be if we
were tied by blood
some sort of an incest
I'm not your fucking daughter
I'm not your mother
I'm a calliope of magpies--
ink-blotted dove-bodies refusing
to wear white
None of us were born virgins
you just taught us that's what
you wanted--
but it was too late because 
we were already little whores
who wanted your attention
attention attention--
Yes that's what we wanted Mr. Trump
Attention--
That's what I've always wanted--
You know?
I wanted hands and mouths 
and a collective of men yelling
at my body to give it attention--
grabbing my arms like purse straps
Like door knobs--
At least you have to invite a vampire 
inside for him to take everything.
We all started
to wear bras in fifth grade and by
the end of the first day the boys
already knew how to snap them--
lashes on the backs of girl bodies
learning to be quiet
and take the attention with grace
the fifth grade boys laughed because 
there was another 
place on our bodies for them to 
use as a handle--
I want you to yell at me from your car windows
I want you to call me "Baby"
Call me "Little dyke"
Scream "Yes, yes, mama, yes!"
I'm not your mother
and I have been raised to know
I'm not a human either-- We collect
dolls when we're young to teach
our daughters how to take
care of themselves when they
feel like everything has been 
siphoned from them--
close your eyes only when you lay down--
No-- not all of us had our arms pinned down
when you fucked us
but we all know 
what a car window is for 
and we all know what
dolls teach us about our bodies
and we all mash 
this skin like potatoes before 
we try to sleep-- pretend 
that there won't be nightmares--
sing like magpies from carved out gourds--
keep the underwear at the bottom of
the drawer-- don't wear the skirt
again but remember it folded in a triangle
on top of our dressers--
Yes we all came together here today
for the attention--
because one voice crying rape 
isn't loud enough and eight voices
lets us know it's just
another women's problem--
Another flock of magpies
the diagnosis of hysteria
asylum rooms cut out of the boxes
they squeeze us into along side
Cover Girl Ads in a People magazine
Pucker up and try to tell them
consent is sexy
because if nothing was in it for them
then what would the point be?
Yes, you've caught me.
You've caught all of us.
We did it for the attention.
We love the attention.
NO NO NO  
I'm not your mother.
I'm not your sister.
Don't you dare fucking
call me daughter.
You can call me shadow
Call me magpie--
Call me whore.
It's what you mean.

Turtle tracks and the other side of the hydrangea bushes

We named our turtle Fred.
We picked her up by her
shell in an attempt to teach
her how to fly but she never grew
crow-wings. She could cross the yard--
bent knees and head down
humming something about a creek 
something about a sister or a brother
or about the color of the leaves
floating on the water in October like
boats down the river sticks.
She was crying something about 
where she thought she might have been born.
Between two rocks. There was water
and there was the sound of trees
cracking their knuckles.
We watched her crawl-- 
shift-- stagger-- moan to the 
edge of our brownie-pan of
scratchy-grassed suburbia
looking beyond our neighbor's hydrangea
bushes and calling "stream stream!
do you see me mother?"-- 
only to be lifted back to 
the blue and purple kiddie pool where
she spent her summers.
She scrawled poetry with the claws on 
her back legs-- tally marks
in the plastic hull of the pool--
doggie paddled around the parameter
of her sun-bathing rock. She
patrolled-- tucked war paint 
in the streaks of red behind her
ears and grimaced with her beak
when I tried to smile at her. 
I called her "sister" and she hissed--
caressed her shell with my palm
and cooed, "darling, darling, I'm sorry..."
I sat on the stone by her cove
and waited for her to peer out from her shell.
She blinked and shed tears
for the goldfish she had eaten--
their scales still sticky on her chin--
fins floating around her head--
I played harmonica and asked 
her if she liked it. She waddled
over to me and told me that she
knew her mother was over there--
over there past the hydrangeas
past the lawns
somewhere between two rocks
and creek water-- that she
knew a God there-- a sister--
scratched--scratched--scratched at 
the walls of the kiddie pool and 
cried
Eden, Eden, Eden, Eden
She waited out lightning and thunder
in that pool as her mother shrieked 
to her from the clouds calling her
past the hydrangea bushes.
It's been a year since she followed
that voice over the wall of her 
pool and her pool is still there
haunted by the ghosts of devoured
goldfish tails and tales from lightning
cracked shells and shed turtle 
scales and I know it's been a year
but I'll follow her
tracks from the corner of the yard
meet her in Eden, Eden, Eden, Eden 
And she'll tell me she found her 
mother and her sister but that they 
were only stones-- rocks 
caught under the bellies of October
leaves-- she had been clawing towards
that Eden and the water sang harmonica there.
And I told her I was sorry she had
seen so many storms from the rim 
of that kiddie pool--
in cased in plastic
and she said it was okay that
she had missed me-- that I should
climb over the hydrangea bushes.
I'll go someday-- I'll go back to my mother--
someday someday someday
become a turtle writing poetry 
with my back legs through the summer.
Become a stone.
Become a sister. 

   

Sticky bun girls and the tornado burger.

My uncle taught me how to be a sticky bun girl
and we plunged elbow-deep into diners to
fold paper napkins on our laps 
like clergy-- like the holy union 
of spinning diner stools and steak-cut fries.
Defeated tornado burgers spun wild and free-verse
and cursing about the steam off the grill--
Blue tooth-pick tassels on our sandwiches we
let hamburger buns talk about the wars they 
harvest purple hearts from
-- let the ketchup
complain about the sidewalk 
and the sauteed peppers  
muse about the bench in the alley where the chef
sits to smoke a cigarette when the line
out the door of Letterman's diner thins around noon--
We made pickle-poetry-- paged
past the flyleaf of our napkins and 
bound up each meal with mints
spinning us both like windmills
on the hump-backs of the corn fields--
breaching at sunset and calling to their
mothers for hashbrowns--
We could all be food poets if they didn't
teach us to sit like LADIES
eat like LADIES
throw up in a bathroom sink like LADIES
learn to order salads at a diner like LADIES
hide from tornado burgers in the 
cellar like LADIES
peel off the outer most edge of a sticky
buns like LADIES do and give the rest 
to a man who earned his place in poetry--
No there are no LADY-poets
only poets who had been called LADIES--
Had menus scold them 
when they were ten to not lick 
the bottom of a bowl of tomato soup--
to be tape measured and led into the cellar
to let the tornado burgers pass overhead--
pull sauteed peppers from their hair--

Before they learn how
to talk I want to teach my children
to eat-- speak-pronounce proclaim
the words scraped from a grill with a spatula and
pulled writhing from hot tubs of sunflower oil--
the poetry of
our teeth and hands and mouths and 
tongues-- 
I will stand on the dining table and 
tell them to throw their utensils
on our kitchen floor-- 
Beat the bellies of the pasta pots
with forks--flick spoons
at the fine china--
we never needed china plates anyway 
because there was never a wedding--
We only ever
needed our hands. 
Burned diner menus that offered us
salads--
My children will say "Where's our mother and
where's our father and where are
the wedding pictures set out on the 
coffee table like a trophy?"

I will tell them they told me to 
sit like a LADY and eat like a LADY
I will say
my uncle tried to teach me to be a sticky bun girl--
I had triumphed in tornado burgers
with paper napkins on my lap--
licked glaze from my
wrists and used my fingers as soup ladles
and they will call me kitchen sink
They will call me sunflower oil
and ketchup and when I bake brownies
they will hear whole kitchen smell
like broken china plates--

I want my children to think about
food like poem-- write sorrow into
their jaw bones and eat the brownies
that remind them of the mothers they
never had.
Sit like a dinosaur I'll say 
Eat like a tornado
Share steak-cut fries in the cellar
spear sandwiches with blue tooth-pick tassels
and spin yourself on the diner stool
to the core of the sticky bun--