blank canvas

my uncle collects canvasses.
i think we all do. what do you hold on to
in the hopes that you will be someone you are not?
on his half of the house i grew up in
the canvasses are not hung on the walls but
leaning askew & piled on one another.
he buys more of them. stacks them.
sings to them. i wonder what they do
when he is not there. do they make promises
to one another? one day i will be
the face that you need. my father used
to lament my uncle's lack of painting.
what is an artist that does not make art?
i used to join my father. it did not make sense to me.
what were the canvasses for if not to create?
sometimes we need a vessel for our wanting.
to make a portal even if we know it will
not open. sometimes i buy notebooks 
just to leave them empty. i visited again
a week or so ago. stepped through my uncle's side
to see the canvasses still there. still dormant.
i want to ask him if he has ideas for them
or if they are mirrors. if he ever takes one
& waltzes with it in the dark. when i was small
sometimes i would beg him to let me paint on one.
once, he tried to show me how to paint flowers.
they were too stiff. he got frustrated with me, saying,
"that is not what flowers look like."
did he talk that way to himself? did he kill ideas
before they left his fingers? before he could
open his little tackle box of paints?
some nights when everyone in the world
is asleep, i will find a canvas in the yard. 
i will know it is his & that if i walked through it
i would end up in his room. the smell of 
irish spring soap. a tray with paint hardened on it,
little colorful mountains. my uncle, the size
of a paint brush, ambling alone between them. 

sycamore(s)

we put our faces beneath our beds
& walked away. the heat rang like
dinner bells. there was no food in the house
but powered milk & flour. a spoonful of each.
you learn to eat without a mouth.
we wandered through the town
& the sycamores followed us. they pulled
little pranks. tying our shoes together.
putting gum in our hair. i blamed you
one of the times & you pointed to
the branches casting long shadows 
across the sidewalk. brothers always know
more about one another than we will
ever admit. i did not believe you when you said
the trees were pulling out your hair.
i saw you do it. i also know you witnessed
me as i took out my teeth. tried to plant teeth bushes,
hoping one would grow that  
i could use as a body instead
of my own. the august heat swelled. i coughed up
a thunder cloud which then spilled all
its rocking horses on our heads. the sycamores
lent their branches. they were always begging us
to go down to the playground. i didn't want to
see other kids. not while i didn't have
my face velcroed on. still, sometimes, we 
gave in. followed the lumpy sidewalk down
to the schoolyard. there, the trees 
fed us leaves. they tasted like bitter salad
but they filled us up. we were hungry. 
i think they wanted us to become sycamores with them.
there is a legend that lost children are turned into
the trees encircling the yard. their hands reaching
to grab on to an arm. a leg. the sycamores do not actually
want to be children again. they just want to 
play pretend. i wanted that too. i loved how
you never made me tell the truth. held my lies
like little birds. sometimes when we got home & 
put our faces back on, i would pick up yours
& you, mine. we would laugh & switch back.
the sycamores standing in the yard, watching. we would 
shoo them away, saying, "our dad will cut you down
if he sees you when he gets home."

several portraits of the dining room table

there is a head we are about to eat
as if it were a turkey. all of my poems
are about meals if you look hard enough.
you get to decide whose head it is. 
i am hoping it is someone evil though
i am told to devour is to become. maybe
it is too late for me anyway. i dream of cork. 
of floating museums. a chain link god. 
there are bills from before i turned into
an ugly crow to join the mountain. there is
a fork that has never once been cleaned.
it is a tuesday & no one is ready. the door
folds into a flower. we all bend down to sniff it
just to have our ears cut off. the chairs got out
& now we have to go & chase them 
with the lasso & the cow pokers. they 
are hungry for soybeans & corn. we are all
still hungry. in my house we never use
the table for dinner. i heard someone who
i don't respect once say, "families who eat 
together are less likely..." & i didn't listen
to the rest. she was trying to say we were bad
for watching television & having
nothing to talk about. sometimes you will say,
"tell me a story" & i want to talk
about the kitchen table. about the stains.
the wings it grows when you are the only one
awake. how i have slept beneath the table
when the house almost collapsed under
the weight of a particularly nasty star.
my father puts his shoes on the table. we eat
his shoes. they taste like the head which tastes
like the turkey. everything is free until it is not.
until there is a table. until the door returns 
& knocks on itself all night. i have always been
starving. the head is satisfying. is worth it. 
paper napkins. an overflowing trash can.
a letter from a neighbor that reads nothing but,
"can i please?" look at the window
to see them all perched in the tree. crows. 
i cover my face. i don't have time today.
we lock the doors. go to sleep beneath the table. 
everything is cold but we are dogs so it is expected. 

tree removal 

we watch the men cut limbs away 
from aunt flo's house. fingers & knuckles
in the yard. i try to reason with the tree.
i have climbed her many times to escape
family gatherings where everyone had a face.
i tell her, "you need to not grab
the wires." she does not understand. 
i have never learned to speak the language
of the trees well. she says, "sometimes all the water 
is heavy." i sigh. our lost words. it is too late.
is it true that some unraveling cannot be avoided? 
that sometimes we grow in terrible places?
it would be easier i think if it were our faults.
instead, we were just roots searching. limbs
reaching for a lick of the burning sun. 
the men are methodical. they have
taken apart bodies before & they will again.
scale the torso. reach for shoulders. my aunt watches.
she's wearing her light pink lipstick, slightly smudged.
we are older than we used to be. us & the tree.
the tree becomes frantic. rips at the telephone poles.
i tell her she is going to keep her teeth. i do not know
when they are stopping. i panic too.
i ask my aunt, "are they taking the whole tree?"
she says, "i don't know." i go outside.
i'm ready to wrestle the men to the ground.
ready to tell them to take me apart instead.
they have stopped though. the tree is cactus-shaped.
no longer climbable. i tell her i am sorry but 
it comes out wrong. she says, "they told me
to grow in the blue place." i don't know 
who they are or where the blue place is. 
the men pick up her arms from the yard.
i take a fingernail. a little twig. a relic. 
she goes to sleep from the terror. on 
the car ride home i do too. we went outside
all together before i left. my aunt said, 
"now it's too small," about the tree. i try not
to be angry at her. i know the wires are important.
that they open the lights in the rec wreck room
& the fridge's little beacon. we all do what
we think we should. scattered leaves. eyelids. a hole in the sky. 

colander poem 

i want to know what is seeping through
& where it is going. i wash the fish 
in the steel colander. they shrink to the size
of grains of rice to slip away. breathing again.
deadly water. aa secret ocean they have
been hiding from us down the drain. 
the fish arrive at a different planet
to be eaten by more grateful gods.
there is this edgar allen poe poem 
about sand spilling from between your fingers
& it's kind of cliche now but it never
stops being true. i'm sick of tracking cliches.
i want to talk about a big fat sunset. 
the fish were not fish they were television remotes. 
my lover says i ask too many questions that aren't
actually questions. i keep my organs
preemptively in canopic jars
just in case i happen to need an afterlife.
i've been happier since i decided
it was better to be the sieve than 
what is lost. i don't know if this is
authentic though. i think i am much more
akin to what is lost than what facilitates 
the losing. you could look at it another way 
i guess & then i am a vessel for remnants.
broken clocks & portraits of families 
that are not mine. 
the television is gone. is being used 
as a dinner table. i lived in an apartment
at one time without a single chair.
i laid on the floor. ate with my hands. 
it was great to be alone. i guess if
it comes down to it, i can spill enough rice
to make a fish. take a video of it
& send it to everyone in the world. 
they will be so happy that they 
will make me briefly famous. i will
win a made-up award for what i caught.
we will still have not had dinner. 
a clock will stop working but we'll 
keep using it. at least we'll be right twice a day.

ikea show room

i believed we could stay there.
live our little three-wall life.
i could bring home the groceries.
get the dinner started while people
passed through our living room
looking for the price tags. 
i am prone to building futures 
too soon & too urgently. 
we would go to ikea in conshohocken after
you got off work & my classes were done.
sometimes we would spend hours there
maybe avoiding the chaos of both
of our homes. my tiny dorm 
& your cacophonous apartment. 
but also looking at lamps.
i did not know that we were pretending.
i thought that when you told me,
"i love this lamp" that you meant,
"one day we will live together
& we will have a place to put this lamp."
i was so lost. once, i actually considered 
trying to take a nap on the show room sofa.
you shook me & laughed, "come on."
bodies between white walls. 
the show room's maze was delightful
until it was not. until you just wanted
a new bowl & a set of spoon & we 
needed to get home. get to sleep.
start the car. walk up your block
with all the trees wrapped in colorful string
trying to crack the pavement
with their beautiful legs. i knew it wouldn't work
but i wanted you to give in for 
just one night. to mean it. to stay over
in the dark of the show room. turn on the faucet
& watch the water pour. the room,
suddenly real from our hungers. the fourth wall
growing & suddenly the space so small. 
a held breath. a racing moon. 
the couch on which i sleep. the window now
looking out at the parking light. 
the yellow signs holy glow
against our skin. i really believed
we could have stayed. maybe 
for a brief moment, you did too. 

on the floor of our childhood bedrooms tonight

these rooms do not exist. we have since 
stripped the walls. moved into the attic
& the basement & the closet. we do not live
where we used to. but tonight, i am having
a seance. we are holding hands. two brothers 
& the husks of corn. the open windows.
an emptied house. i think of the darknesses
we shared. how, for years, you were the one
i would wake up when i was alone in 
the middle of the night. me, the older brother
who should have never been afraid. we told
terror stories. all of them were about our father.
the forest of my room. the ocean of yours.
we held our breath. swam deeper. found the
angler fish. her light pulling us back to sleep.
i lay down. see the sky open. the same clouds
that have always roosted above me. i ask you,
"where should we take this place." there are 
no burials for rooms. for the times they held.
our parents are asleep. our parents are ghost walking
upside down on the ceiling. our parents
do not recognize us in the dark. you are me
& i am you. our faces like clay. i reach for yours/mine.
there is always the journey back. the citrus 
of the coming sun. i ask you, "how should
we keep each other?" you do not know
& the night is ending. the stars are returning
to the bag of sugar next to the coffee machine.
i want to ask you if you think this place
we've been was holy or at least sacred. &, if so,
were we the only ones who saw it? the return
of a crooked closet door. my ribs on the carpet.
the stain from a nail polish sleep over. 
sometimes we were both girls. sometimes
we were both boys. other times, we slid
back into our skin. me the top bunk
& you the bottom. the mice ate our sunflower
seed offerings. the moon cracked open wide. 

lanternfly winter

it would be so nice to have
a disappearing time. to shrink again
to the size of a grain of salt.
i do not remember how the lanternflies winter.
maybe as eggs or maybe as thoughts
in our heads when we lay & dream of
the coming wild ugly summer. i want it to downpour.
for heat to flap its wings against my skin.
each year it is hotter. we should savor 
the cold or we should savor the sun or
we should live each year like it will be 
the last. did dinosaurs talk to each other
about retirement? did they think they
were going to get old when they all
turned into museum fodder? 
i am told everything is ending. i don't know
how i am supposed to 
get the fire going. when we split wood
we often find little pockets of wintering bugs.
sleeping ants & centipedes. they wake up
when we place the wood beside the stove.
they scramble. i admit to them,
"i am sorry there is nowhere to go."
here is where our survivals bump up
against one another. i feed some of the ants
to the fire, unsure of where else i could
take them. when we are gone will we be
like wintered lanternflies? alive only
in the deepest veins of rotten wood? in
the cracked-egg thoughts of another creature
who is just as hurried & afraid? 
yes, despite all of that i want a least a few
more holy junes. to buy a house with you
away from everything. pretend there
that we are the last humans on earth.
watch the lanternflies emerge 
from our mouths & ears 
to scream at the swelling moon. 

storm dinner 

i tell you "i am making a plate for the storm."
one of the blue & white dishes. sliced apple.
fresh pasta. three leaves of basil. i smell
my fingers when i'm done picking it
from the stalwart plant on the windowsill. 
ice is falling from the purple sky. i do not know what
we should ask the spirit for. as time goes on
our wants become vaguer. pastel lungs
smudged along a leaking sunset.
i used to be able to pinpoint my yearning.
now, it is like a bruise. thumb placed
in the middle. soft pressure. here is where
the hurt comes from. blood & bumper cars.
one thing i know for sure is that the storm is ravenous.
has come without warning. without a day
of grey skey. has come on the back of 
a snow geese flock. the birds break & fall.
brew a cup of tea. spearmint. watch the steam
pour out into the sky as crystals fall. i step
slowly & carefully. i read posts that say,
"do not doom scroll." what if the doom scrolls you?
digs in your flesh, eager for some kind 
of pot of gold? i take down my hood.
let the ice bathe me. i had imagined going
with you. instead, you said, "will you take it out
for us?" i told you, "i will. i will." 
my phone confesses in my pocket that there are new wars 
& that this country has no more wheels.
that we will have to walk the rest of the way.
my kind has always had to walk. our footprints
with the deer & the wolves & even the rats. 
the storm devours. takes the plate from my hands.
already veiling it in heavy snow. i thank him or her
or it or them for receiving me. for putting
this food on their tongue. i make only one request,
"please, help us eat."

trench

my dad likes to tell me about
trench warfare whenever i call him
trying to be his son. he keeps a shovel 
beneath his tongue. we are a family
who digs. he puts on his world war one face
& slips between the folds of the earth.
i find trenches wherever i go.
some of them are full of sea monsters
& some of them are full of people
who want to kill me. i used to want
to tell him how scared i am 
of the world i'm living in. now,
i have mostly given up. i know
he can't save me. the whole thing
about trenches is you always need a new one.
they are an instrument of taking 
the land. here is my soil. here is the border
from which i end & you begin. 
curtains for gills. the smell of rotting birds.
he finds rats. names them after
his kids. puts them in tiny uniforms
& instructs them to fight alongside him.
there is no war & there is always a war.
both in our house & in this country.
i wish he could see the one i'm fighting.
the one where my friends disappear
& the one where my government wants eat me.  
the truth about my father is 
that he is too old to fight
most gods. he holds a gun like a spatula.
i remember how, once, in the middle
of winter we went out into the field.
i dug at the cold earth until i had 
a place to hide. there is nothing for me
in a trench. the ghosts there are hungry 
& have nothing to say. my father is
not my father there. on the phone he details
to me exactly how his men advanced.
how the bullets came. there are no bullets.
the clouds have taken to bullets. 
i do not want to be a man anymore
but i know i am. i have seen the soil turned.
the bone beneath flesh. the edge of a shovel
turn into the edge of a knife. then, also, i have been
my father in the shadows, dressing 
the rats. taking them to fight in order
to feed the trench its ghosts.