girl dinner

i love to get the wrong kind of hungry.
cold canned beans with a wooden spoon.
a handful of knives & a sugar light bulb.
i have never learned how to eat. i want
it to be something about gender but
i know it has more to do with bodies 
& the werewolf in me. i open the back door.
let all the mice in & we go crawling 
on the foreheads of cardboard boxes together.
they say, "i thought you wanted a wedding?"
i tell them, "i have too much to do."
by which i mean, i have too much to devour.
my favorite times of my life were
the paper plate times. when everything 
was flammable. when i didn't need 
to remember exactly how far i went.
everything was snow & blood. the tongue
always has a gender & so does the stomach.
if i ever get out of this though i promise i'll cook
real people food. i'll be a wife with an apron
& thousands of ground beef recipes 
at the back of my throat. for now though,
i am the cutting board god. i eat the carrot
unpeeled with dirt still dusting wrinkled skin.
scoop hummus from the plastic container.
every little morsel. lick the spoons' head
& shoulders. i think it's ancestral. a hunger
like a lightning bolt through me & all 
the not-girls, mouths open in the dark. the desire 
to be full always escaping us. just another handful 
of wings. just one more lemon taste.
the shadow of an iris tree. 

mouth in the yard

at first i would feed it hair.
a strand or two tied in a bow.
i didn't tell anyone. 
i discovered long ago that it is best to 
dismantle yourself alone. put on
the cantaloupe face & say, "nothing
is eating me alive." the mouth 
has followed me all my life.
it used to be just the size
of a tiny ant hill. i mistook it for
the home of some kind of small creature.
brought it sunflower seeds just like
i used to feed the mice who came
to my bedroom at night. 
then it grinned at me. my hunger
became its hunger. pressing bottle caps
into the soil. i hate to smile
with my teeth showing. they've
always been crooked. in yearbook pictures
i would color my mouth in with sharpie.
just a gaping hole. the hole becoming
my entire head. it got bigger. asked for
fruit. an apple. a peach. i made it promise
not to scream. i was so scared
of hearing whatever noise it might devise.
it listened or at least so i thought.
the hole is never really part of you.
it is just a hallway through which
you try to be real. the mouth. the door.
the chimney. in biology class i sat 
in rows & learned about the bodies
of sponges. one long passageway
through which priests walk dangling
their little incense cauldrons. laying 
with a lover he once asked,
"what is something you've never
told anyone?" i thought about 
telling him the truth. about showing him
the mouth that follows me.
we lived in the city so the mouth dwelled
at the corner of the nearest parking lot.
instead, i made up a story about
craving the moon. he asked,
"like an astronaut?" i said, at least somehow 
honestly, "no, like a great big gumball.
something to chew to death on."
today i bring the mouth rotten bananas.
they're slimy & sick. the mouth
accepts everything, but especially
the dead & decaying. the mouth has
never spoken but i think if it did 
it would say, "please keep me" as if i have
a choice. as if its hunger is not my own. 

ancient girlhood

we would shovel out the sun from behind
the wall of clay. 
at daybreak, i took off my fingernails
one by one. replaced them with tree cuttings.
laid down in the valley where 
no one else will go. i think to be a girl is
to be a specific kind of hungry. no one would
come with me. they all wanted
to sleep in & suck on sugar stones. 
i ate a bird whole. felt the wings beating.
i always arrive like this.
with an urge to find out all 
of what i might contain & what might 
contain me. the roots tear me like
bark pulled from the stomach. i worry that
one day my skin might get so thin
that all the stars start crawling out
& i am left like a sieve with nothing
else to catch. the bugs are girls & the tree
are girls & i am somehow not. do we always 
define ourselves through a lack? i am not
you & yet you are a thorn-sized hole
in the skirt i used to wear. all holes widen.
become deer paths. become genders.
little lights in the dark. like moths,
here we come. not the sun. not sure
exactly why or how we are supposed to
satiate ourselves in this kind of muck.
the trees bear fruit. i eat it until i am sick.
my gender gets real lost. loses her eyes.
i come back hollow. wind blows
through me easy as a winter ash. 
everyone else is painting their lips red 
so i join them. the sun burrows again
like a fat toad. all that's left are mouths 
& the ancestors still searching for
their skin too. their teeth ring. 

children's bible

i liked to feed goldfish crackers
to my bible. 
i watched the book's spine bend
& snap as it accepted them. i asked,
"can you tell me again the one about 
the loaves & the fishes?" the book,
always eager, spoke. i liked 
that story best because it was about hunger.
i would see all the mouths & the teeth
like stoop steps. 
the book would tell the same story
different every time. sometimes 
there was a knife. other times there was
a little boy who ate the scales. 
sometimes i was in the stories.
a little disciple or a donkey. other times
the whole thing was loud & full of birds.
i wished i could be inside one of
the book drawings. 
they were bright & bleeding. i didn't 
really want to be holy but i thought
i did. i prayed until screws fell from
my mouth. the book beat its wings.
flew & perched on the top
of my bookshelf, waiting for me
to call it down again.
no one knew where the children's bible
had come from. my mother or father
didn't buy it for me. maybe it had
wriggled free from the dirt
or maybe there was no bible
at all. just a tiny bird who 
believed he'd visited god. sometimes
you can get so in love with a story.
it becomes your body.
i have woken up with words
on my skin. poetry. the songs of 
dead bugs & pigeon iridescence. 
i told no one else about the bible
until years later when i went
looking for it in my childhood bedroom
& could not find it anywhere.
i found a mildew-smelling bible
but not the children's one.
sometimes when i eat bread 
it regenerates. i eat the same piece
again & again & i know 
the book is close by.
just beneath the skin. 

bone makers

in the fallow time 
we ate from each other's tangerines.
i gathered the fat of an ancient animal
to make a fading balm. rubbed
over & over into flesh & then it was
all gone & we had to find bones
for one another. i made yours
& you made mine. i carved each
from a different precious voice.
the birds & the water & the wind.
i have seen people sometimes claim
they have made themselves. this is always
a lie. everyone knows that 
you cannot make your own bones.
they have to be gifted. one by one.
i sometimes wish you hadn't made
all of mine. i did not make all of yours.
there was the collar bone from the mouth
of a megalodon. you had that when
i met you. i always wanted to ask 
who had given it to you but i never have. 
just traced it with my finger. felt
the fossilized teeth. i guess i had a bone too.
a little hammer. the ear bone.
my father crafted it on a whim from a match stick.
he said, "never listen too closely."
it is my little waiting fire. 
i want you to love me like you did
when you found me. when nectar
ran down my face & we ate as much
as we could. when we went one bone
at a time. i gave you & you gave me
until we were skeletons & the stars 
had eyelashes & they all wept. rain on
my car roof. your fingers without any hair.
the last bones were the teeth. mouths open.
then closed. tongues like oars 
of an urgent ship. god i miss you. 

wisdom teeth

sometimes my face is a radio.
i open my mouth & all the airplanes 
are talking about when & how they can land.
i don't think i would last
up in the space station. i like gravity 
too much. pin me to the ground.
i used to like to lay on my back 
& look up at the clouds & then i learned
about bugs. they always come 
to plant their little flags in my hair.
i tell them, "i'm already taken."
we are done kissing & i point to my 
wisdom teeth all the way at the back
of my mouth. i explain, "i stopped going
to the dentist in high school."
you look at them. see the little citadels.
the tiny creatures who live there
writing books no one will read. 
i think the teeth are going to be the only
wise part about me. it's probably overrated anyway.
who wants to know more than their
little pizza slice of horrors? not me.
i want to be ancient. i want someone 
to find my skull & title it something like,
"average transexual." all my teeth, including
my wise ones & my dog ones & the ones
that were supposed to fall out but never did.
i find a helicopter on the roof. 
lock the windows in case they are
trying to get inside. you can a lot about someone
based on how they bite down
on something delicious. my brother & i
used to try to eat donuts in one mouthful
when we finally got a hold of one. 
our bursting cheeks. the sweetness 
like a fist to the tongue. some people,
i am told, never feel this hungry.
my teeth rattle at night like bell acolytes. 
i clench my jaw to make them stop.
still, they try to ring. i have read they might be
trying to talk to the moon. i would understand.
they are kindred spirits, dull white
& pock marked. ready to eat the sun. 

flickering bathroom light

i want to be less desperate
but i always come to the bathroom without hands.
the bulbs fill with moths
hungry for a bit of god. they take pictures.
spit the film into the air. our faces the size
of fingernails. 
once i followed the moths inside.
the light bulb was huge
like a gymnasium. i asked the moths,
"how long can we survive here?"
they said, "until you have to sleep."
my eyes became tunnels. the train ran through
them with her horn loud & wild. 
i walked to the very edge of the bulb.
looked out at the bathroom. it was like
seeing earth from space. me, the suiteless
astronaut. the moths left without me.
i had to break the bulb. glass in my hair.
glass on the floor. i picked shards from
my hands. cleaned up quiet as i could.
washed the wounds in the shower.
the mold had a voice it said,
"look at your teeth." crooked as ever.
the graveyard in my mouth. 
i felt embarrassed that i had, like the moths,
followed my stomach so far from 
my bones. then again, there must be 
a reason they always return. the bulbs go out
one by one. crowded train stations
or waiting rooms or maybe colosseums.
then the bathroom is dark & the mirror is 
a portal into the blue place.  i am the one
who replaces the lights. reaches to screw in
each new star. the room, drenched again
in white glow. the moths, waiting patiently 
like highwaymen on the crown of the room.  

mouthpiece

we never boiled the mouthpiece.
instead, the rubber jutted out from my lips.
a flash of blue whale. i put on my gloves.
two red planets. then my helmet.
we all smelled like teeth in the neon lights
of the strip mall dojo.
bare feet in the thick afternoon. 
i wanted to love fighting but i don't think
i ever did. i raise my gloves. waited for
the match to start. my father, bouncing
his knee from where he sat in a white 
plastic folding chair. i swallowed spit.
adjusted the ill-fitting mouthpiece.
i don't think i was meant to be a fighter
but in the heat of the match i could 
peel the world away like the lobes of 
an orange. find a fury & follow it.
the huge mirrors that hung on the wall
made twins of our fights. sometimes 
i would look at myself. i loved
seeming like a boy. i had my hair short.
the beast in my mouth. when i landed
a punch or a kick i always broke focus,
glanced to see if my father was watching.
he was. he always was. once a boy hit me
right in the mouth. the mouthpiece
came out. wet on the floor. i'd bitten my tongue.
taste of metal. blood on the blue mats.
i put the mouthpiece back in. kept fighting.
ended up winning somehow. we fought 
with points, counted by 
however many hits you could land.
afterward i went to the bathroom. 
a single stall with a flickering light. 
i opened my mouth. my teeth were each
framed red. my tongue, a river. 
i waited until it stopped to go back.
my dad was there. a whale in his mouth too.
he told me, "you got him. you got him
so good." i don't know what i felt. maybe
tired & proud & like the person who fought
was not me at all but a creature made of 
gloves & pads & a bulky helmet. 
i put my mouthpiece away in its case.

summer squash

i want to arrive yellow
with a duckling neck.
for the sun to feast me
while she sits on her hunches.
my seeds the used-up beads
of a great & marvelous face. 
nothing has taught me more
about abundance than summer squash.
the soil says, "there will be more."
you got sick of them last year.
i did not. i cut onions into eyelids.
fried them translucent as windows
& filled the pan with squash.
flecks of salt. i ate them standing.
carved them into boats. licked my fingers. 
when a downpour made a little river
in our yard, i climbed aboard.
flowed down the mountain
to where the frogs tell love stories.
their throats like little pocket watches.
we killed the afternoon together.
wiped its guts from between
our fingers. ate the boat. put squash flowers
on our heads & danced until you started
calling my cell phone. back at home,
you were worried about what we would do
when the summer was over. i did not
want to think about the future.
this is how i grew up. no promise of
a violet tomorrow. no sunset paintings.
hands in the dirt. eating what was ripe.
the squash are coming back. i want to 
come to the world like them. belly full
of sequins. a dress in the back of my throat.
i am already more than i need. 

what does not grow legs

i have watched whole cities walk away.
first the stop lights & then the mirrors.
sometimes on centipede knees & other times
with huge gangling thighs. calves bare & hairy. 
the neighbor girls shoving one last box 
into a beater car. rain coming soon. 
we all do what we must to get away.
the empty train rattled along in search
of feet. i remember once i was the only one
taking the line to the tip of the island's tongue.
you had already left. everyone had already left. 
i arrived just to hear the land beg, "don't go."
no one was there, just a few lost birds
& the ocean's cool breath. i replied,
"what do you want with me?" 
i see a video on tiktok about ways 
to leave the united states. you can pour yourself
into water bottles & throw them into the ocean.
you can bury yourself in a time capsule.
hope that when they dig you up
that the world is softer & less terrifying. 
i have seen this before in the city. the corner store
that turned into a bedroom. the windows 
who shut their eyes to sleep. i wish i was staying
out of conviction or strength. instead,
it is some vague sense of hunger. a desire
to keep something as the rest walks away.
i saw a streetlamp go yesterday. it had 
giraffe legs. walked slowly & with purpose,
as if it didn't want to leave. a light vanishing
just over the hill's forehead. 
darkness blooming wild in its wake.