giant squid

i have had to take care of 
the giant squid for as long as i can remember.
fill the bucket with stars 
& carry it down the basement stairs,
sloshing all the way. i tasted them myself
only once. dipped my finger into
the cool & brilliant liquid. 
it vibrated with a pineapple loudness.
i tell no one about my creature.
sometimes, i see his eyes on the ceiling
of our bedroom
like peepholes into the void. 
i try not to look into them. it is too much
& i am too tired these days to see the universe.
every once in awhile i try to quit him.
try to see if maybe i just
stop bringing him food if maybe he will
find another disciple. it never works.
when he hungers, so do i.
i'll wake up weeping. search for the ladel
in the dark so that i can go & tend him.
i have apologized, saying, "please 
forgive me." he always does. 
never is a grudge-holding beast. instead,
he takes me back. wraps me in his 
enormous arms. shuts his eyes 
as i shut mine & we float in the wild dark
of the cellar. if anyone else found him
i don't think they would understand
why i do this. i think they would see
a sick girl with a ghost on her shoulders. 
i know the truth. we need each other.
once & only once he broke out.
it was the angry middle of summer.
daylight. our soft skin. i had 
to chase him through the brambles.
squid blood & spilled planets. 
i gathered him like a beach umbrella.
stroked his head & said,
"let me keep you. let me keep you."
he's done the same for me. plucked me
with his monstrous hands from
a parking lot at the world's edge.
he said, "i am your hunger. let us eat." 

loose moon

my dog's teeth are starting to come loose.
i tell her, "bite down." that is what i do.
no one else is allowed to get older. 
i find celebrity deaths upsetting even when
i don't know who the person was because they
come & go so fast. i'm like damn is 
that as long as we get? even if they put
our face in a worship caldron? 
the moon wiggles when i fuss with it.
you scold me, "leave it alone."
if i were a tree i'd be the first to spit out
my fingers in the fall. i buy some gorilla glue
& twine. get the step stool out
to go & try to help the moon. it covers
its face & whines. my uncle still has
all of his baby teeth. stalactites (& mites).
i always wondered what it would take
for the new ones to come in. is there
a new moon beneath the old? 
in some early legends of the moon 
people believed it grew like a fruit,
ripening just to be eaten over & over
bite by bite. i have a nail gun. i have a mirror.
i know i can get the moon to stay full 
of salmon & wings. a rainstorm is rolling in.
there are not enough hours to sleep.
i cut myself down the middle. send one half
to make sure the moon does not come loose
& the other to burrow in the ground.
i taste soil between my teeth.
a bruise the size of my father's fist
lives on the moon's cheek. i stroke its head.
feed it bread & butter pickles. i tell it,
"hold your breath" but not "exhale." 

debate team

we meet in the middle of the night
to try to argue with a new planet 
who just arrived. he is loud as a smacked drum.
won't stop calling everyone he sees,
"a flute master." we don't know
what that means but we assume
it's derogatory. when i am feeling really hopeless
& all my arguments lead back to a hole
in the dirt. i start tearing words apart like fruit leather.
i am too used to arguing about 
my body & my teeth & my blood. 
in this country we are all a christ figure
at some point whether we like it or not.
i would prefer to be a flock of geese bound
for a different place. the planet doesn't budge.
crouches down & pees in the dead leaves.
when i need to rest my dread i get all dreamy
& think about the other life forms
in other galaxies who will never know 
we existed. it is nice to get to feel
some relief from the pressure to find
the right words to prove you are,
just like all other cells, just trying to breathe.
the planet scrambles on & we are left with
a stinky yard & arguments made of glass.
from them, we construct mirrors.
i admit to a room full of strangers that
i am happier the less i look at myself.
this is what i have. a little ghost on a leash.
i tug the leash. tell him to heel. we finish
the dark by losing each other. shadows thick
as lentil soup. the smell of cumin. 
a cookie-cutter hole in the sky where
they have been saying the new planet will
get to live as a king. i do not sleep for weeks.

pink

the geese have started carrying guns
to protect against the threat 
of another war. i found a doll in my mailbox.
it did not have a head. i did not know
if it was a threat or a cry for help. 
my neighbors turn into piles of salt.
my father talks of retiring & the politicians
wear pink & call it a protest. 
i find pink everywhere i look. on the sidewalk
& in my mouth. even in the fresh sun death.
i find a scorpion in my shoe.
i ask my doctor, "where will i get hormones
if this all goes down." he nods 
a few moments & tells me, "i don't know."
sometimes i dream of a slightly larger house.
one without cracked windows 
& without mold that blooms frequently
across all the walls, making maps
of planets i will never reach. i try to find
pink to hold onto. the tongue of the turtle.
the back of my own throat. i work hard
to not turn into a pile of salt.
the rain comes & soaks the firewood. 
i turn on the television to see a commercial
for berry dr pepper. a fridge full of cans.
a man drinks & drinks. his tongue is pink too.
i think of everything pink has given for us. 
switching genders & then getting called 
a deadly little moon. what an insult that was
to the color to put it on & do nothing.
there are ghost trees wandering in the ash 
of a terrible wind. i paint a single wall
in my house pink. let it hum. press
my ear to it & hear its lovely & vibrant scream.
the politicians have never listened
to something like this. i call their office 
& get a voicemail. leave a message,
press my phone into the wall. the empire 
is full of trap doors & hidden staircases.
none of them are for me. i have a spoon
& smell of wet earth after a storm. 

making an ikea lamp alone

i always put furniture together backward. 
chair legs up as if in praise. a shoulder-less sofa. 
i get the lamp in its little cardboard coffin. my dark
apartment. i feed the shadows 
spoonfuls of honey. tell them to wait.
get on my knees. remember worship.
all the cathedrals i have turned into rocks.
the stained-glass scab spitting confetti light
onto sunday faces. day buries herself.
moon in the window. still, the pieces
of the lamp like bones on the hardwood floor.
if i am being honest, i do not really read
the directions. i prefer the trial & error
until i don't & i am weeping in the skeleton
of a future light. the lamp was a gift from my father. 
i feel like he was trying to say, "i know
you keep the curtains closed. i know you 
sleep in a pile on the floor." once i got obsessed
with floor beds. saved dozens in an online shopping cart
but never bought them. instead, settled on
a bedframe that took me a year to assemble.
it galloped around my apartment all night
leaving hoof prints for me to clean up.
it is midnight when i finish the lamp. 
we both pant from exhaustion. three bulbs 
glowing white. my triad shadow, a triptych
that follows me all the way to bed. 
i leave the light on all night. the ships don't
hit shore. the gods pull out their hair to make trees.
in a dream, arrives on the porch
with a screwdriver in his hand. he asks,
"did you want my help?" he is just like me.
always puts the ghosts together lungs first.
in the dream i let him in. he takes apart 
all my chairs & leaves the screws on the ground. 
i beg him to stop. he says, "i am helping you
because you never ask for help." i retort,
"neither do you." wake up to the lamp 
standing at the foot my bed. 
bright & terrifying. a fresh almost angel. 

portal

sometimes i uploaded my green teeth
using the library wifi. that summer
was the longest of my life. i used a pairing knife.
to dissect myself on camera. sometimes
it felt good. the skin & the muscle.
other times it felt like
being the butcher's cow diagram.
i pinned a blue bedsheet against the wall
& called it a studio. we filmed dinosaur movies
& flicks about love. once in the middle
of pulling my hair out one strand
at a time, i found a tick on my flesh.
he was drinking greedily. it is a little easier
when there is a portal between you 
& the sucker. i met in parking lots & behind
the fresh moon. once at a man's house 
where he had no chairs. we hovered
above the ground. the next day, he bought
all my videos. i ate from his hands. i was
a snake in deer's clothing. once someone left
a comment that read, "i love it when
it feels like she's waiting for me."
i do not know who is watching from
another solar system & if they have ever
used a spoon like this. i bought a table
using his good money. filled my mailbox with
birds. they just kept coming. the nights started
to get colder. gooseflesh. a knock on a hollow door.
the portal, always threatening to collapse 
& then there would be a room filled
with my flesh. a smokehouse. the round sun 
on his knees. i stuck my hand through 
a hole in the wall & reached. 

march

the toads have been waiting
like frozen hamburgers in the dirt. all winter
my father used to talk to them with me.
then i would go barefoot in the yard on the first day
the frost broke. heard the toads
unthawing. showed my father
my best karate moves i had. he closed his eyes
& fell asleep. when it rained
they wriggled from the soil. we were/are
amphibians too. it is a hereditary kind of indecision. 
on the radio a man was blowing up
a giant balloon. i would buy dollar-store 
helium balloons just to let them go
with notes around their necks.
one reading, "i don't want to be a girl."
the balloon asked me, "are you sure
you want to send that?" the toads answered
for me, backing me up, saying, "yes." 
i never included a return address
& still hoped someone would find
a way to answer. i admit it. i have littered.
or, worse, i have taken a squirrel skull
from the body. there is a headless squirrel ghost
because of me. the beast i fed it to adored it. 
my partner says, "i don't actually know what you do."
it is true. the only beings who know
what i do are the toads & sometimes my father.
i have gone out into my yard & found him
coming up from the soil with them. 
against nature, i have helped them. 
march is our season. the almost time
to breathe through your damp skin. 

we should have gone to the carnival 

it's good to bury as many fingers 
as you can. i return like daddy long legs.
the thumb slowly returning after being
plucked off. i have a mouth the size 
of a doorbell. outside, the bats are returning to 
play telephone in the dark. i get
a phone call from the dead. they want to know
where i'm from. i point to the closet 
& they think it's a joke. the mail truck 
now drives itself without a person in it.
i get empty envelops every day.
i know i'm supposed to be waiting for something
but i don't remember what. the carnival
comes to town with enough lights
to save us. i have a daughter made of
glass & light. she breaks & we sweep her up
with the dust pan & broom. i used to have 
a magic tunnel where i could pass through
& change my sex. there is clear evidence
of trans dinosaurs. i try to tell someone this
& they think i'm joking. when i say
we're ancient i mean to be alive is to
want to change. to shed skin. to dig 
until your hands are nothing. to turn
your body to syrup & emerge with
a pair of wings. sometimes the moon
gets drunk & texts me. she says,
"i really really think it could work."
i don't know what she's talking about
but i try to be a good friend. i tell her
"we should have gone to the carnival.
i know that's what you wanted." it rains heavy.
i got upstairs where the stink bugs live
to hear the drops fall against the roof. 

ruminants

i sewed my second stomach the first time
i ran out of money. it is a horrible feeling
to know there is an empty hole you are supposed
to pull your life from. i made the stomach 
out of plastic shopping bags 
& floss. it smelled like mint. at first, the second stomach
did not work. i tried to eat leaves like the deer.
i ended up sick. i ended up watching my antlers
fall off & turn into snakes. i thinned to
the width of a lamppost & feed my face to boys
with nothing but hands. i returned to the stomach though.
i mended the holes with socks & then with candy wrappers.
next i caught a fish & used its scales to strengthen 
the sides. the stomach came alive: a living room for that which 
could not be turned into lights. i grew up thinking 
of money almost like deer. they will come 
& they will go & you will not feel very different.
always a worry about catching them. turning them
into meat. turning their stomachs back into clouds.
the word for animals like deer is ruminant which
also means, a person who holds on. who mulls over
every detail of the past. i do not forget anything 
that had to do with fear. each time money
ran out again, i build more stomachs.
more places to harbor a few dollars or a song. 
there is a room of stomachs. some of them reek
& others are soft & bright. no one has seen them.
they are mine to keep. on my walk this morning
i find deer tracks that bisect the early spring field. 
hooves in the wet earth. i steal some of the dirt they touched.
decide not to check my bank account today
& build another stomach instead. this one maybe
from clay & dew. stitch with the early march wild onions. 

bullet with 

we kept a drawer full of rocket ships.
you never wanted to come with me
when i climbed into one. we always talked
at night when i got home & the stars were playing 
their little keyboards. lately i have been thinking
a lot about endings. the song "bullet with
butterfly wings" climbs out of my mouth.
it was/is one of my father's favorites. when you are
a teenager, angry music feels prophetic.
when i hear it now, all i can see is him.
his guitars changing into crows. the rats
who we were trying to poison in the basement.
there is a duality to escape. within it is
an ending like the mouse in a trap. a television
dangling by the cord from a tree. i wish
we would have broken more rules. i do not know
if there is still time. the rules are different now.
the night has our baby teeth. sometimes
i want to call you & ask you what you remember.
if i imagined the hornets in the walls &
the ants who ate out my eyes. the broom handles 
& texture of our father's hands. i also want to ask you
what we will do with the house when we
are old? should we keep it? turn it into
a haunted house attraction? these are the trap doors
that only you know how to fall into. i am sorry
i am always the sibling with the questions. but,
have you ever used a rocket without me?
where did you go & who did you meet there?
in our lives, all our beloveds hold pieces of us. 
i come to you when i want to remind myself
that i am full of blood. when i almost forget
the smell of a struck match. there you are,
standing in the dark of the red-floored kitchen. 
i am home & i am not.