A elegy people who still keep score at mini-golf
and all the places the stars are hiding.

No one who writes poems 
on paper towels has ever believed
we live on a golf course--
Black gates and moon rovers
teach us to forget that God painted
us fluorescent orange, blue,
and green and thought we were
both beautiful and so so
funny-- 
Like lopsided ice cream cones--

That place is for 
people who lock their belt buckles
like dictionaries. Those are the
people who have mistaken 
the stars for white golf balls--
Short men who believe in hitting
things to make a sound-- believe
in drums faces and 
think that wind chimes sound
like screaming instead of the
laughter untangled from 
the necklace of the skyline--
What a world to believe God would give us
mallets to hit a jar of fire--

They believe the stars can
only go 18 directions-- 17
of which are only forward-- 

People aren't usually aware of
how funny and mundane space is.
How much Neptune is like a spatula--
how much gravity stirs like a wooden
spoon and licks the edges
of the bowl--

The moon is a quiet thing--
A girl who wears thick glasses
because God borrowed her eyes
for Orion's belt.
A muffin or a pierogie.

He cracks open constellations in my mother's cast iron pan
on Sunday mornings. 
God believes in mini-golf. 
He believes in the 
absurd glory of animatronic Gorillas 
who defend the twelfth hole-- that
there's nothing more 
depressing than being on
par in a game of mini golf game
with your brothers--

Boldly nudge the neon green
planet we call earth into 3rd
hole-- the cavern where our
bodies climb into the night sky--
we've lived in the windmill 
and cultivated fake grass like wheat fields--
we've watched your brother's Mercury
plop into the blue soup of the fountains--
that's what nets are for--
and if you've never stood
waist deep in blue
soup then you might as well 
keep score at mini-golf.

Some nights God lives
in the fake lighthouse-- the same
size as heaven. He pretends his
world is as small as the mini golf course
even though it really is.

Naming storms and pouring rain water into raisin bran.

If I called the dark-bellied clouds "brother" 
would he rain
gentle like a shaker of oregano rested the on
the grease-veil counter of a pizzeria
named after someone's dead father--
Mario, Maggiano, Maria, and Sebastian 
tossing pizza dough like Saturn rings--
like galaxy-- like shadow puppets
from God's fingers when he gets bored
at night and dreams us into doughy bodies.
Would he meet me under the porch and
flicker the lights in the living room like
an unexpected sibling-- my fourth 
brother-- the one who God never
dreamed into a body.

If I called this storm mother would she
sleet like snow-cone soup in August
slurped from my elbows 
and a wilting cone that crumpled
like the lips of tulips in the heat--
we're kissing each other goodbyes--
She would change my blue raspberry
stained shirt and call me darling
call me honey-- call me backseat 
navigation-- call me naked 
like only three-year olds know how to be.
Tell me we wear white to remember what
we have eaten.

If I call this storm cousin
would he leave with only goosebumps
and the ominous wind meant for someone 
else-- the breath on our necks
as if we were the spines of
old books-- he feels alien signature 
on a birthday card
where he forgets that I spell
Sarah with and 'h'-- the 'h' is where
I hid my fears of rooms without
candles and losing power-- the 'h' is
where I plug in my night lights.  

If I call this gale 'grandfather'
so he would decorate the sky in hail
shaped like jelly beans and fruit snacks
fallen from the top of the fridge that
was also heaven.
Call it 'uncle' like sun shower
like holy water batons-- like
peanut- M & Ms and dragons 
Call it 'father' like the loose
soil the morning after it rains--
the type that eats your shoes 
and settles like raisin bran mush
incomplete with out its raisins 
for eyes-- only bran and milk
blending the flakes into the soil--
soil where we bury the toads
like tulip bulbs-- kiss
each one to check for brothers
and princes

But we don't just call a storm--like
we can't call a body without God dreaming
in dough and sauce and tossing us like
Saturn rings like Mario and Sebastian-- peeling open our mouths like
dehydrated flower lips-- barefoot with
our shoes still in the raisin bran--
these dough bodies all slick from the rain--
these birthday cards that are supposed
to remember our we're all spelled with silent
'h's hiding something somewhere-- where do 
you hide your fear of the dark?

-- but write my name
in peanut M&Ms-- this cloud has a surname--
call it by it's title-- it's called "Jessica"
It's called "Sandy" or "Irene" 
it is not a member of your family
and it doesn't even send you birthday cards.
It doesn't know what your hands feel like in the
summer when you paint your skin in blue-
raspberry--

Stand on the porch and wait for it
cup it in the your palms and tell
it that it is home-- it was meant for
this porch and for this body and for
this night-- tell it that your body
is dough anyway-- that you are both
bodies of mostly water and fragments 
that once made up Saturn's rings
-- formed out of the sleepless nights of
a God of shadow puppets 
and stained white shirts. 

Attempts to make my bed 
and stop waking up on fire.
1.
I've drilled my body to wake up before 
the spiders and before the sun.
2.
I make my bed but it comes undone.
Un-click my seat belts and un-do the spider mother's
knitting quits they make
for their dead children--
3.
If I'm not careful I'll wake up with
my hair on fire- fire like birds
exploding from the roof and throwing
their babies like missiles-- like fire bombs
-- fire like spider children in your hair--
fire like all the quilts--
4.
heat-- in the wavering forehead of a tabla drum--
shaken like carnival goldfish-- like 
helicopters-- like fire--
5.
I don't like alarm clocks.
6.
There is no such thing as a pleasant
alarm clock. 
7.
Remove my head
from the inside of the tabla drum.
8.
I live there-- body rocked by your
thumb vibrations-- call and response
of the goldfish-- beating
of the helicopter wings--
9.
For most of the day
I un-buckle like a shaken carnival-- 
I ask my wrist how
many more hours until sleep finds me
again like an 
unwanted encounter between lips--
a slip-- an accident--
--a falling of baby fire birds--
10.
I make my bed in the morning
and spend the day in refold-- re-tucked
arrange the pillow upside down and rest my head
like a helicopter but 
anxiety is as persistent 
as an unmade bed
11.
I wear my comforter as a cape and you
ask where I'm flying to.
12.
Fall into sleep like
a fire bomb.
1.
Wake up before the fire
and before the goldfish.
I make my bed beneath the gust
of helicopter wings
and fold the sheets
like spider mother's quilts--
I'm just the dead child with 
the tabla drum as 
an alarm clock.

What do you remember about my plum skin?

Whatever you said when bit me is probably true--
but i wouldn't know much about my own 
skin because i've looked at it
so long that i have begun
to see myself as only a frog in the bathroom
mirror-- my own prince-- slick slimy 
and sexy as a caterpillar dream--

they probably said that i had skin
like a plum-- tight like a telephone 
wire-- tight like a lid of
blueberry jam-- tight like the telephone
wires we forget are making puppeteers 
of the street lamps at night-- 

do you trust the street lamps to hold up
our wavering voices on Sundays
when i find myself calling you?
i'm convinced you know 
what my skin actually looks like because
you told me that it's like a plum--

do you forget about the telephone wires?
do you erase them from the skyline
in an attempt to fain your own autonomy?
did we ever cut those strings from 
our elbows or did you just kiss me
enough to forget about the telephone wires?

i don't even like blueberry jam.
blueberries are too good to be tampered with.
if i could change one thing i would
have blueberry skin--

in my aunt's town the
wires are under the streets-- and 
for some reason it makes me
wonder if any of them know what plums
taste like-- or if they all believe
in themselves as amphibians--
voices below the ground in the winter--
do they call people they remember on Sundays nights?
do they call their mothers 
when they run out of blueberry jam?

and i know that plum skin isn't a compliment--
it's bitter like the closed eyes of frogs. it's dark. 
it's flickering like the street lamps. it's tight like a telephone 
wire on a Sunday. it's almost never what
you wanted to dream about when you're a caterpillar
dreaming about blueberries-- but darling 
can you tell me what i look like?
i know you of all people remember-- i know you
remember that you liked how sweet my bruises 
were-- I know you made some of them in an attempt
to turn my into a blueberry.

i know you don't call me on your Sundays--
and maybe your town put the telephone wires under
the cars-- maybe the frogs are listening
to this message-- but darling you 
know what my skin is like-- 

caterpillar dream
me until it's Monday. 

 

I don't think I've ever been a stranger.

The trouble with me is that I've been nowhere.
I guess I've only been no where
if you're only counting places 
my sandal-feet have touched stones--

I don't care what my mother says
about sandals being bad for hiking 
sandals and bare feet were the only things
meant for walking if you want to know 
how the stones feel about you.
Shoes are for strangers.

I've chopped off a pony tail--
Stumbled with the short ragged and wild-grass hair
of a flapper-- balanced
up and down the older
bent leg of the states.

If you count the ocean and the rain water
I guess you could say 
I've been everywhere too.
I've floated on my back past
Tasmania to stop in Sydney where 
I looked for koalas and worried about rock fish
killing me from the poison before 
I reach the store.

You see I've yet to master the role of a stranger--
Would you believe if I told you
that my mother walked me in a parka 
at the foot of the Himalayas 
and told me that God mad a path
to walk if we dared to face him?

Did you know I write car-advertisements
on the forty-second floor of a tall
building in Manhattan that makes trees look
like toe-bones? I stop at the same
cafe that serves Australian coffee
in blue card board cups.
I sit in the window and watch the same 
people I've never seen.

They name me
-- call me
Pixie, call me Muse, call me
Darling-- call me BLUE hair-- BLUE
hair-- the blue hair girl 
who is somehow eating a garden
salad in a diner in Boston
while counting the spots on a 
poison dart frog on a raft in
Brazil where she was also
born a rain forest child
in leaves and water-wet brown hair--

My name, my name is BLUE girl
and you've known me since I was
three-- I always order the same thing

I count the box turtles under your porch--
I eat banana splits if I haven't learned
where my hips are yet--
I walk with broken headphone in on the same 
telephone lines as the crows--
You know me-- you know me
by the only parts of me that
stay the same which are my blue
hair and my smile that tells
you that I have always known
you and I have always
thought that your hands alone
hold the sky from the earth
when it's heavy at night
like stones-- 

My smile is sideways because
I lost my retainer 
when I was ten-- so my teeth
look like paint-peeling fence posts
in Georgia.

You were my dentist who told
me I needed my wisdom teeth 
removed-- 

I buy apples at the gas station.
I always put two yellow packets in my coffee--
You know my routine from watching
me recite it once.
BLUE GIRL
and you're comfortable by
my sandals
and my fence-post mouth. 

No, I guess I don't want to be a stranger 

I like water more than stones.

Times I've been slide over the counter
with a child-proof cap.

1. 
You told me you loved everything I did for you
but not the way I tasted. 
You said
you loved me like cough syrup--
like sticky shot glasses--
this fake-grape blood that they use to mask
my chemicals has been the only artificial 
part of me-- the prosthetic-- they grew my 
vesicles in a vacuum so no one was mistake 
my taste for something grown with dirty hands.

2. 
Split the calcium pill between my teeth
because we already have too many joints and 
big pills feel like beetles tittering down
your throat.

3. 
I was the silence of the aspirin tablet--
Advil and you're mother's veil 
silky in the back of the closet
like a spider web-- woven to catch
flies and the thickest beetles.

4.
I became so routine that I was consumed
like gel-gemstone before the
first aches of the morning settled in your
ankles.

5. 
Valium

5. 
Your mother's name is Lisa like everyone's mom

6. 
Ignore the dosage if it tastes like a gummy bear-- 
You consumed me each day like a jar like
the candies they tricked you into believing 
had vitamin a, b, c, and d hidden inside--

6. 
Vitamin-- C only tastes like oranges because we think it does.

6.
No one knows what vitamin a, b, or d do but we like the idea of alphabets 
you said I know how you spell you name
and that was a good enough reason to love someone.

6. 
I couldn't spell his last name and never would.

7. 
They told you that you need fluoride and all you can think of
is fluorine and neon lights the nobility of compounds you
can only breath in-- fluorine is toxic and I so am 
I even though you find me as easy as a counter top--
roll me across-- 

7. 
If lids were child proof you wouldn't have opened me
like this without your mother knowing.

7. 
I can't help that cherries don't
taste like my skin-- there will be no pit
to spit on the sidewalk or out a window

7.
Fluorine would kill the beetles
if we opened the lid.

7. 
Loose your teeth in the sink.

8.
You need me to hold cats
and sleep over at your girl friend's house--

8.
I'll be the one you fall asleep to
no matter how many cats there are.

8.
I'm in the cat fur.

8.
I'm the reason you own a lint brush.

9. 
Treat cough drops like candy 
to make people think you still 
have a cold.

9.
You still don't like the taste.

10.
I wasn't made to me rolled over
the counter--

10.
I want to be eaten like
bare-foot grape soda or murderous
black-berry hands-- flick off
the beetles and stand on the porch next to me 
for one night 
without my cap.

10.
Call me lover instead of cabinet.

10.
What good am I without the beetles?

10.
Valium

10.
Your mother loved me like cough syrup.

10.
You printed your name on 
a label around my waist and called me--

10.
Doctor

10.
Nurse.

10.
Beetle.

10.
Emergency contact.

10.
The number of vitamins 
you taste when you eat oranges
without me on the porch.

10.
The open child-proof cap.

10.
It's just beetles 
left when you finally open the jar
without your mother.

10.
It's just beetles.




 

The culinary expertise of 9 year olds 
and using string cheese to tie up your hair
in pig tails.

My mouth became a microwave oven.
We all stood too close to 
watch my teeth mutate--
morph into the stale marshmallows on
a dinner plate-- peel sticky 
from your thumbs-- wipe everything 
but blood on your
thighs--those stuffed bratwurst jeans--
your thighs you
haven't truly noticed yet--
They are only pant-seams and places
where you hide peanut butter and
marshmallows-- 
My mouth became steam-- a skillet--
a stove top-- belt loop tug-- the melted
butter into your own recipe for soup-- 
Did you ever
eat something like a 9-year-old?
You must have. We all did.
We used our mouths to cure curiosity
and now we fill them with kisses 
that still don't taste as good
as microwave marshmallows--
Because everything tastes good
in a 9-year-old fist full
baked chips-- forget
about the thighs--
I wore my hair in pig tails
tied up with low fat string cheese
I knew I was sublime-- god-like--
Your body was nothing but a tool
the alarm of your 
microwave mouth-- warm
the morning in a bath of butter--
This is when we learned about butter
and that the butter wasn't actually 
butter-- it was margarine 
most of what I taste 
is only a memory of when 
I was 9 because as far as I know
butter is only a myth that
we invented to stick
cinnamon and sugar to potato rolls
at midnight-- and string cheese
is good for pig tails because
it melts to make pizza 
if you roll it inside
a tortilla with canned tomato
sauce-- splash the sides of
your microwave mouth with marsh-
mallow-- or blood-- or canned 
tomato sauce--

Who was it that told you 
where your thighs were located?
Did they eat the string
cheese from your pig tails
to tell you that you had been
fat all these years-- that
no one was proud of boxed brownies 
and microwave mouth marshmallows?
Did they tell you no one
who was sublime had pigtails?
Did they wash your sticky 
thumbs with salad leaves?
Did they tell you that
you had butter stains 
on your jeans?
Teach my mouth to be 9.

I don't have enough hair
for pigtails anymore.

Dusting the freckles off my shoulders
and what it's like to kiss
an alien with blue raspberry chap stick.

I was your everything
bagel-- cream cheese smile 
like a smear of lip gloss--
When we were in fifth grade
we all wore chap stick
to pretend to be the women
we would never become.
I wore high-heels like a 
neck brace or a retainer.
My retainer was blue
and I lost it on purpose 
three times until the trash
took away the clasps those
white gloves wanted to use to
make me straight
I was a blue raspberry chap stick 
if there ever was one--
and you say that meant I 
was an alien-- frozen for analysis
of the freckles on my shoulders.
Each brown specks mirrors the constellations
from the planet I was born on--
abduct me but not
like a hitchhiker-- I've
walked long enough along these corn
fields to start to make crop circles
with my bare feet.
They're in the shape of bagels--
You said you don't kiss girls
with blue lips out of principle and I said
"Well good because I'm
not a girl--"
I brushed the freckles off my 
shoulders then like sesame seeds
or remnants of someone else's stars--
"Do you believe in life
on other planets?-- look
I hold stars between my teeth 
not that they took off my retainer."
And you ask if I ever eat the blue raspberry
chap stick because it looks like candy--
you say I look like candy--
maybe my shoulders are coated in pop rocks--
moon stones dazzle me like
Orion promised me from his belt
buckle-- what were we but fifth graders?
What are we ever but fifth graders?
Everyone is naked in fifth grade.
Do you want to go back?
Tractor beam to the stream where we thought
about being women and I told
you I didn't know how to 
shave my legs so I used my Dad's 
razors--
And do you follow my crop circles--
can you read my blue lips--
I'm not cold because I'm dead--
I'm cold because I'm as 
blue as I've always wanted to be.
You can keep the freckles
from my shoulders as reminders
of the different scars 
this hot-white star has kissed me with.

I haven't held enough toads in this life time.

We were waiting for April's leg hair
to grow again-- she had worn tight
jeans all winter and knit hats
to hide that her scalp was no longer
just peach skin and cat tongue --
we were waiting for the air to feel
breathy and labored like
the birth of flowers in the front 
lawn who knew they would soon
be decapitated like all the female
martyrs-- to bleed warm milk
from their necks-- rain 
water splashing from their
nostrils like faucets--
we were waiting for rain 
to fall like soup ladles. 
And it like creamy chicken noodles--
came just for the purpose
of waking up the toads.
They were each buried like flowering tea and 
lost keys to the garage door
that long ago broke off it's hinges--
We brushed the hand-cut noodles off the 
porch to see the toads waiting for 
us there. My brother, my father, and
I stood to see them all wearing their newest 
stone-skin and wishing well eyes--
My father taught me my hands were
a microcosm-- a cave-- a cradle--
a cage for me to eat handfuls 
of soil with-- but at least
it tasted like chicken noodle soup
when it rained in April-- there
was no chicken-- only rain and
noodles and some sort
of broth that made the toads
tell us stories of how far they had 
burrowed in the earth since we'd seen them 
last. Held each one tight enough
so that their face peered from between
our index finger and out thumb--
I kissed each one but not for a prince--
just for the secrets they told me
about China and the remnants of the 
old chicken coup under the porch--
They told me that I would always be
their first and their last lover--
because toads turn to stone
in October--
Maybe if I held more toads 
and collected less stones I would
know more about chicken soup and China
and I would eat less soil
and be reminded of the things my
father taught me with
toads and my hands and
the microcosms they hold
between my index finger and 
my thumb. 

When I die leave me out on the corner 
like a slumped tweed sofa with wine stains
or the Christmas tree still looking
for her roots.

I have to admit that I love the soil.
I love worms. I love the August
that makes dirt into oatmeal into
grits-- into cream of wheat-- into
split pea soup after a storm. I'd love
to live there. Buried
to my neck like a sculpture--
like how they found the Sphinx--
broken nosed and peaceful like
a prize in a box of stale crackerjacks--
Yes-- I compared myself lifeless body
 to  a lioness-- 
Sadly, I have a bias.

I think the soil is for growing.
Maybe you can just plant my thumbs
I'd like that. Out by where
we tried to grow sunflowers
that died in a drought-- they would
grow spearmint trees and my children
would return with their children and 
point the thicket and say
"And that is your grandparent."

"How did they get so old?"
 
As far as I know my dead body will
not be doing much growing without my thumbs--
especially not sealed up in a casket
like a zip-lock bag-- save
the shoe box for the dead sunflowers--
everyone forgets the dead sunflowers. 
 
I'm purposing the family walks me
out to curb. If you already rented a hearse
Instruct the driver to take everyone for a spin
to get ice cream-- preferably 
Dairy Queen in honor of me.
Don't cry. Ice cream and crying 
get mixed far too often.
Tell them you're burrowing
the hearse from a friend and
buy a pineapple sundae for me.

Sit me out on the curb like something 
honorable. Like a tweed sofa
left over from a dorm room--
wine stained on the cushions that look like
a birth marks or rashes. Don't let
the garbage truck take me--

I want to be sat out 
with a sign that reads
"Free to a good home"
like accidental puppies
or Christmas trees.It will be easier 
for the angels to happen upon me
that way (assuming angels will
be looking for me).

I've heard sometimes they disguise themselves
as garbage men
or mail carriers-- they can pick
me up by the collar of my shirt--
take me to sit on another curb
outside of heaven.
When they arrive in January to
clean up the Christmas trees--
dust pans in hand for the needles--

When you all come back from ice cream
I'll be gone. No shovels.
No oatmeal dirt. No tombstone
with death scarred into its face.
Remember me and how I hated 
the mailbox. Send me letters if you think
of it and when a spear mint bush
grows in the front yard 
remember your parent grew from
their thumbs.

Remember that I was taken from
curb side with the Christmas tree--
Both of us left behind roots
that still grow spear mint. 
Sit on the tweed sofa
and eat the pineapple sundae--
melted from the car ride home.