ethical consumption

we all get together to feel sorry
for the beautiful birds we're about to eat.
my dad says, "they taste like lungs."
we make a circle & the television
plays an ad about freedom. you say,
"maybe we could have enough to replace
the windows." there is a crack in the one
on the second floor that i've never told 
you about. i just keep hoping it'll go away.
the hunger becomes a house guest
then becomes a room. 
i lived on nothing but ground onions
for a whole spring. my stomach turned
sprout green & all the neighborhood kids
came to watch. i don't want to fly.
i don't want to purchase the next pair
of wings. instead, i want to sell my teeth
like pokemon cards. open my mouth
as wide as it will go. let all the birds back out.
watch their flesh return to bone. 
when we ran out of food on year
my family drew straws to decide 
who hand we would eat. it was mine.
they all said, "don't worry it will grow back."
never believe anyone if they tell you this.
it will not grow back the same. i had watched
my mother's hand return like an early daffodil,
crumpled & loud. always tasting like
bitter herbs. an application for a passport.
my gender, a little light switch made.
i hardly ever eat until i've full. mostly,
i'm starving & then sick. in a pot 
i watch as my mom makes the hand.
we don't know whose it is tonight. the birds
are all gathered on the roof in protest.
i go outside to try to apologize. they are
playing a video game with a glowing god. 
a ghost passes by on the street wearing 
a shopping back on her back like a snail. 

through the sun 

i buy a football & take it down to where
you used to talk to me gentle. when we were
not hunched over & eating kindling
to stay alive. there were these caterpillars
who knew our names. they knit us socks
& we used them to walk on water. 
do you remember when it rained so hard
i lost all my hair? i was just a shiny
little thumb. i bought you flowers. i knew
how to love you. since i was a bulb in the dirt
i've been afraid of sleeping through the day.
pressing the sun like a silver dollar
into the soil. we have all tried to grow money trees.
we have all tried love spells. me & you  
& the smell of spring onions. their fingers
playing with the temperature dial.
i use the football to throw at the clouds until
they bruise. i want to see how purple it all can get.
i wish i still believed in half the things i did
when i met you. that survival had more
to do with blood than money. that a house
could hold everything you need it to.
you told me the neighbors used to have pigs.
i see their ghosts sometimes. i bring them
my teeth when they fall out. on our worst nights
i want to join them. get down on my hands
& knees & search for bones. i have watched
gold pouring from a man's mouth in
the brutal morning light. i thought i would
always want to take you with me. how do we
find each other on the other side of a perfect wound?
i keep my wants tucked behind the ear
of the oldest tree in the yard. she says,
"you have to tell him the truth." instead, i sleep
as long as the otherworld will have me.
suns spilling down the mountain's leg. 
tell me, my love, how do we keep each other?

the devil's sleep

i buy a time machine on facebook market place.
it is missing a footrest but i have never needed
to be comfortable. i'm surprised 
it fits in the corolla's trunk. i don't tell anyone.
i don't know what i even want 
to do with it. if i were left to my own devices
i would sleep so fucking long. i think i would sleep
until i turned into a patch of moss.
i know i am depressed so i lie on those questions
that doctors ask. they say like, "how often
have you believed in ghosts today" & i waive
my hand & say, "not really at all." there is
a ghost right there & another & another.
i could go back to dinosaur times. maybe there would
be some really sick fruit waiting to be eaten.
or i could go even further & tell the animals
never to come up on land. our first mistake.
since i was young i've had this problem where
i make myself get up earlier & earlier until
i don't sleep at all. i have sometimes believed i was
addicted to the night or else maybe i was, 
in another life, the vigil keeper. the one who
waits & watches to see just what kind of choices
all the teeth will make. the sofa is the best place
to sleep & i don't care what anyone says.
in the old apartment, the dogs would come
& sleep between my legs. the time machine 
should maybe stay a secret. i think people i love
would be upset with me for dreaming
of undoing everything. plucking myself 
with a pair of tweezers from between
the eyebrows of this little sleepy life. the ghosts
lay down next to me. they have melon breath
& we all melt together. when you wake me up
the windows are dark. i ask you, "what time is it?" 
the clocks are all made of stone. you admit, "it is late."

partial sonnet (you decide which part)

i get on a plane without any wings.
it is really just a flock of pins. plant me 
in the ugly place. i wish i could fix the world
for you. isn't that what love is?
the sewing bags from goodwill complete
with thimbles. i fill one with honey & milk
& we go bury our beautifuls underneath
the long neck tree. i don't need a car.
i don't need a gun. i just need a finger's length
of licorice & a sliver of moon. they say that
if you want to be a poet you need to have
a command of language. i would disagree.
i think you need to bend over & let the
consonants do what they want. i used to make
money by being a pilot for empty planes.
we would fly over the hole in the map 
where all the unfulfilled milkshake orders go.
get wild on heavy cream & gas station roses.
maybe one day i'll try to get real formal.
apply to all the poet things & take professional
faces to show the world. for right now
all i have is a favorite spoon & the birds
who come to pay their respects. i tell them,
"i'm not dead you know?" they reply, "yet."

look-away rooms

you tell me there is a man in the mailbox again.
i go out there & find a television. 
there is never a man but there is always a talisman. 
carry it to the compost & ask it, "please go easy." 
ants spill from its mouth. a sputtering video 
about the lives we lived before we 
had fingers. on my phone someone is
asking their friend if shrimp have brains.
i want to shake them. of course they do.
we are all always thinking about who
will love us & who will eat us. if we were shrimp
i would compliment the length of your antennae. 
how you clean the mouths of gods. 
we drive home & the car grows millipede legs.
you close your eyes & say,
"the man is back." you are driving.
there is no man. nothing. just a road full
of optional deaths. the billboard that advertises 
plastic surgery & the billboard that tells us,
"it is time for money." i want to tell you
to pull over but i know you like you drive
when you're feeling impossible. i find another tv
on the porch when we get home
& this time i take it to the look-away room.
the long closet with all the skeletons & all the bills
& all the clothes we don't know what to do with. 
i wonder about putting myself 
in the room. if it would eat me or if i would
learn how to live there. sometimes life
closes around you like a drawstring bag.
other times you really feel like the meadows
are eternal & not always under threat
of being transformed into warehouses.
i pet your head. your eyes are like hard boiled eggs.
i wish there was a man. something real i could
wrestle to the ground. who i could feed
to the look-away room with the broken chairs.
instead, your fears are like mine. standing right
there. full of blood. gone in the flashlight.
standing always jut over an arm's length away. 

lovespoon

you fell the echo tree.
axes & worms. 
the spoon, a little rib. the roots
still clenched in the ground.
what heads have you cut off? what hands?
as a lover, i want all the gifts. 
i want bones with our names
cut into them. i want a rocking horse
for our future ghosts to play with.
i want a lovespoon with a chain 
around its neck. who taught us
to want to keep each other
both like birds & like bulbs?
hold me not in the mouth
but in the woodwork. i want to be
shaped by your hands. breathe only
when you cut the heart, an eye
in the middle of the wood
for us to look at each other through.
i see a tiny snow globe place. a house
without gods. a knife. the one you used
to make me from. all the shavings.
the eyelids of the tree still blinking
away in the cellar. a gift
sometimes lives longer than the love.
not this one. the spoon is bound
for a tired museum. behind the glass.
a little placard that reads, "lovespoon,
they fell asleep on its tongue
until they both turned into stag & ran."

spray paint

the sky is feeling really sick. i get orders
from a political flyer to paint it blue
so no one notices. i can't tell if the flyer
is handwritten & meant just for me
or if it came from a little machine
with hands like my father's. i'm ready
to do anything if it would mean we were
happy again. we see crows on the fence
of one of the nearby farms & you tell me,
"those aren't actually crows, those are
blackbirds." the blackbirds are looking
for any wedding rings they can steal
to make portals out of this world. 
they slither through & end up somewhere
with candy in the water. i do a bad job
of painting the sky. i have a can of spray paint
& i write my name & my lover's name.
at least this way every time i look up
& i see my mistake i'll remember i love someone
enough to want to pretend i am okay.
the blue i picked is too bright. we are cartoon
living. we & sitting on the half-grin of 
the waning moon. soon we'll fall into
the ocean & have to watch daytime television
with the sharks. i tell the sky i am sorry
she is so sick. the politicians have a meeting
about how sorry they are. they are 
always so sorry. then, they dress in nice clothes
& kiss each other under the sky they
made sick. i don't want to talk about bills.
i don't want to be protected by my overlords
i want to be protected by the blackbirds
& the crows & even the sky. i want to paint
my body blue & crawl up there. let the clouds
lay down like big dogs around me. my lover with me, 
the sun tasting citrus & sweet on my tongue 
when i open my mouth to laugh. 

conditioning the thread

i find you in the beeswax model
of our house. soon it will melt in the sun's
devil belly but for now, the world
is sweet & gold. you tell me,
"i want you to love me like 
when we first met. like a wave
ready to swallow me whole."
can you forget how to beg? i run
my fingers through your hair. 
we pinch off handfuls of wax. pull
our thread through the soft tacky masses. 
i love to condition the thread. 
we can teach the strands not to fray 
just by showing them our bones. 
then, the soft scent of honey on
my fingers. honey on my skin. 
the bees in their coffins. the bees
in the walls. all autumn you begged me
to let you eat them. there was a nest.
their larva like quotations. words passed
between us in the dark. with the thread
we stitch beads to our fingers. i try to remember
what i used to say to you when our love
was fresh & un-wintered.  the figs 
i grew from my ears. i tell you,
"in another life we made the wax. we
found each other as bees on a flower.
escaped the hive. died full & rested 
in the mouth of a fat hydrangea's skull. 

eggs

i told you "do not worry"
when you asked why i took 
all the chicken eggs out to the edge
of the field. love is about what we bear
for one another in the dark. 
you tell me that is wrong.
that it is about what we share. i have never
known this. still, my father does not
look at the family bank account.
all my life i've overheard him
say, "please tell me there's money."
then, once, my father helped me
burry a rib i lost. we said nothing but i knew
he was promising not to tell mom.
i had cracked an egg in the pan
& a toy car had fallen out. sizzled in
the hot oil. i opened another & found
a tiny rubber chicken. another, a key.
none of them with the sweet golden yolks
we're used to. each a panic room.
i dispose of the eggs. i do not know
what i'll tell you happened to them.
i visit the chickens & ask what is wrong.
they stare at me as if i am the one
who laid a dozen knickknacks. 
i admit to them, "i have found myself 
doing the same." i don't want to give
the same little glowing pieces of my body
anymore. i want to be useless. 
i want to sleep for a year & wake up
inside one of the eggs. no egg tooth to help me.
waiting for the flick of a wrist. the side
of a bowl. of course, you ask me
"where did you go?" i tell you the truth
about the trinkets. about the flock. 
we go out to the field together. 
you see a pile of broken eggs. their yolks
sticky in the dead corn stalks, earth still waiting
for the spring till. you ask, "what was wrong
with them?" i search. no toy car. 
no mini rubber chicken. no key.  

ant number

why can't you just let me be crazy?
on the television a man is saying,
"soon virtual reality will be in every house.
they'll be like toasters." i stick my head
in the toaster & i see a virtual reality whale
who is trying to escape the land of make believe.
when i used to have math tests
sometimes all the numbers would turn
into ants. i would start squishing them
with my thumb until the time was up
& i hadn't answered any questions. the ants
returned stronger than before. they came
with their new numbers. ones we are
supposed to explain how much
more time we need to sleep. my alarm is
a little buzzard. she wears a bow she stole
from a road-side memorial. i want to go rogue.
i want to drive the car into the clouds.
park it there. see them try & give me a ticket then.
sometimes i believe if i could just
see an ant number again i might have
a solution to all my problems. my mirrors
spit me out. my blood is full of race cars.
the virtual reality whale tries to swallow me
but spits me out right away. i'm sadly not 
a little krill. i'm just a man who is not
really a man but sometimes might as well be.
gender is such a terrible thing to talk about.
no one likes it, don't believe what 
they tell you. i do one of those ridiculous
street interviews. i hold up a paint swatch
& ask everyone what color it is. no one knows.
some people get creative. "dried blood."
"broken finger." so so close. the worst is when
the ant number are inside your phone.
i try to brush them off the screen but they're
deep deep in the wild now. you tell me,
"i don't know what you mean" so i take
a needle & thread & sew a shoe to the wall.
there. i'm not going anywhere unless
the house goes belly-up again. the fish tank
has eyes. watches a television. i never finish 
the math test. sometimes i find it, still blank
waiting for me on the kitchen table.