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here are the worms. here are
their children. here is my father
buying a gun. here is your name
plugged into a god machine.
everyone else with that name
standing in a room 
that smells like iron. i clear
my search history often. 
i don't know what i think i'm doing.
goodbye past. goodbye present.
it feels like telling the birds to 
have a feast from my bread crumb trail.
there is a witch in the woods.
i am the witch in the woods. 
my fbi agent takes notes. goes for a walk.
considers what it would be like
to lay beside me on a really really
big bed. not in a sexual way
but in the same way people lay
beside their dogs. he drinks coffee
too late. i drink coffee too late.
i stare into a camera that i shouldn't know
is a camera. i am being watched. 
i am being hidden. i am searching
for crock pot recipes. a bear wanders
down from the mountain.
he has not been able to sleep. 
we stay up in the yard watching
bad old youtube videos. he thinks
that humans should try hibernating.
birds fall from the sky. the bear
is angry & turns against me. i swipe
the laptop from him. i can't live
without my little shark cage.
the water is full of coupons. i grab one.
buy on get one coffin free. 
ordered. they come in the mail
& they are the size of thumbs. 
finger coffins. i did not read 
the measurements. to be safe,
i order three more in case
the bear returns & deforests 
one of my hands. you never know
exactly what you're going to lose.

meadow 

in the field where we used to 
talk to deer, they are growing houses.
tiny as corn kernels. each with a little
hopeful family inside. the father
does not sleep. the mother stands
on the roof & shakes her fist 
at the sun. each year they take
another field nearby & turn it into
suburbia. streets with names like
"meadow" & "honey locust." we live
on a snake's neck turn where
the fields are thrumming with
winter geese. i go & pluck just one house
to take home. i know in the coming days
it will swell & i will no longer 
be able to carry it. i don't know
why i do this but i have to see what 
the tiny people want. i hear them talk
about a new car. i hear them talk about
central air & shoe laces. the children
climb out & around my house.
they eat turkish delight & bananas. they
finger paint on the ceiling. their lines
look like bird footprints. 
i have to keep sucking them up
with the vacuum & pushing them back
inside the house. they say,
"will you adopt us?" i shake my head.
i do not know how to help these
children. the house grows.
to the size of a watermelon 
& then an old tire. i ask my partner
to help me roll it back out
to where they are cutting the earth
like a sheet cake. happy birthday
to someone. we manage to return the house.
the walls are angry. we hear them keening like
freshly lit wood. the children wave
out the windows. the mother, now 
asleep on the roof. the father 
walking back & forth in the living room.
he puts up a sign for a security company
& another that reads, "no trespassing." 

the creek after the storm

i know what it is like
to be rushed with voices.
the old blood & the older blood.
we take leaves & send them
like ambulances into the water.
there are fish with more home
than yesterday. their memories
of the pounding deluge.
their knowledge that soon again
it will be gone. the drought 
last year that left them gasping
in the mud. why must the world
take us one such orbits?
when i am closest to the dunk tank
i consider what it would be like
to lay on my back & follow 
this bursting river? would we finally
find the creatures with our
backward faces? would the shadows
have hair? i know less
& less about escape these days.
i am more familiar with the process
of wading in. kiss the bark
on the trees. thank them for
their arms that burn in the guts
of the wood stove. i ask if the creek
prefers to be full like this or
to be parched? the water babbles
& laughs. as if it is even a question.
as if there is anyone who doesn't want
to wake up to find a head of hair
when you didn't have one. 
i do not go into the water because
i know if i did i would never come out.
would become a crayfish or,
maybe if the world was extra generous,
just a smoothing stone 
for the water to play with
on her fat beautiful tongue. 

butterflies

we have to talk about butterflies.
i feel like when i was a jump rope 
everyone was always talking
about butterflies. their life cycles
& their wings & nectar feasts.
now, i'm an adult
& all we talk about is how 
fucking hungry we are. 
i get it. i really do. you start to forget
what you're supposed to do 
with your teeth. 
we have butterflies though & sometimes
if the season is right they fill the window
& ask all the questions you want people
to ask but they don't like,
"if you could start over again
what kind of animal would you become?"
i give them answers in the form
of poems. i fold them into butterflies
& then my butterflies join their 
butterflies. once i saw a butterfly
crawl out of a lover's mouth while
they were sleeping. i caught it & considered
letting it die inside a mason jar.
then, i could keep the wings. i wept,
feeling sick that i even thought of this.
i let the creature go & begged her
to forgive me. in first grade we raised
butterflies. monarchs. then, as a class,
we went out to the schoolyard 
& watched our teacher let them go.
some of them lingered. i opened my mouth
& one flew inside. he has lived here
ever since. i feel him sometimes
moving from lung to lung.
we have to keep talking about butterflies.
i will be honest, i do not think
they will save us. i do not know
what will save us. still, when i feel
the thumb of that creature. my blood,
a hydrangea bush. i am reminded that 
we all come from endings. tongues broken.
migrations of color from one bone
to another. a butterfly asks me,
"do you want to sleep longer than
the day will allow?" 
i confess to her, "lately, i do."

anatomy of my grandmother's car

the smell of cigarettes. a burn on
the door. the two places where
she used to grip the steering wheel,
both of them smudged black.
i road with her only once 
in that car. we were going to 
a movie neither of us ended up liking.
i had stayed with her one weekend.
we did not know each other. me,
a round & tumbling creature, her
like a wrought iron gate. she was thin
& wore a deep red lipstick. we never
knew what to say to each other. 
they had to take her car from her.
she had started to forget the day
& then our names & then what year
we were all stuck inside of.
when she stopped driving, i got her car.
she was not gone but still, her ghost
would sit shotgun. 
i drove as much as i could. into 
the sun & back. parking lot
after parking lot. i would always discover
new bones. the cigarette lighter
in the dashboard. a notebook in
the bottom of the glove box. 
a bonnet folded in the pocket 
on the back of the seat. then, the guts.
i crashed the car only a block
from the dorms. the smoke &
the smell of oil. tubes & grit.
i sat on the curb looking at the car.
my grandmother, standing there
with me, cigarette in her mouth. 
her smoke mixing with that of the car. 
totaled. the parts now scattered
like lost freckles. she died a year
or so later. the world was cold.
the ghost car was idling outside. 
we both got in. i told her about my favorite
little town i used to ride to. we went
together & it was the best moments
we ever shared. 
her & the car, already gone. 

strip mall ode / elegy 

i don't want to get where i'm going.
i want to buy something useless
or fix my car in the sky.
i want to eat with my hands
in the folding chair world.
cross my fingers in my pockets.
tell a glorious lie
about where i'm from. 
dry clean my lungs & wait 
for them in my idling zombie car.
turn the moon inside out
& shake it for change. 
the glass eye shop windows 
& all their open secrets.
once, here was a place we came
to worship a hole in the earth. once,
here was a buffet where
no one left hungry.
teeth in a little mason jar.
a sea gull flock lost & without
an ocean in sight. these are
the places that i go 
to be fifteen again. where 
i make a boyfriend from 
the ditches & the farewell weeds.
a dandelion is always winking.
a secret not received.
i love to pull over. i love to
be where i don't belong
which is easy because
i don't really belong anywhere.
broken tongue 
of an old ice cream place.
a dog shitting 
on the one little patch
of grass. there are flies 
already. halos for fallen birds
& trash. i stay just
a little longer. the highway
outside is a piece of licorice.
the stoplights, cough drops.
i have driven this road
in my sleep. 

hives

my body is a cartographer
of secret planets i will never see.
each morning,
a mountain ridge.
the path to a dead city.
i love that the word "hives"
for the rashes on my skin
is the same as that 
of a thrumming hornet body.
i run my fingers
across the raised flesh.
never the same. sometimes
a bracelet. sometimes 
just one like an angry lonely star.
my body rejects this world
so it maps others.
says, "here is where 
our treasure is buried."
i take a too-hot shower 
until i am ringing. steam 
filling the room. one map
wiped clean for another.
the flesh, settling back
into its present assignment.
i stake pictures on my more 
curious days.
a book of maps. i have tried
to follow them & i always end up
in parking lots
for places that no longer exist.
i know it is serious
& of course i have
an ointment & of course
i weep when the hives hurt
more than i can bear.
but i am a poet so it 
has to mean something more 
than just skin. there has to be
a symbol beneath 
the flesh or else just a deer path
to a rush of wineberries 
red as my bees 
in the morning dark. 

well water

my favorite place in the house
is not in the house at all
but in the little cellar
where the well lives.
the spiders there speak 
a different language than house spiders.
we all worship blood. i ask them 
what it takes to be a creature 
of their water & they say,
"years of questions." if anything
i aim to be a disciple of questions. 
the well is always 
in the neck of the question mark.
that soft & urgent curve. 
water's flow from tongue to tongue.
laying in bed last night 
we tried our best not to talk
about this country that has 
never been ours. i thought 
of the well & the water
that always finds its way
back to our bodies. little rain clouds
in the upstairs that i keep as pets.
the well froze this morning 
& i sat there in the cellar 
with the spiders. it's the coldest 
it's been all year. blue words.
a handprint on the sun.
i plea with the water. "i need
something." the spiders 
teach me their word for hunger.
it is something like "lemon"
but softer & without all the buzz.
they assure me that we will drink soon.
that they have seen the water
stop before. i look up at 
their webs. a private constellation
garden. i want to stay here
all day. drown every bank account
& every phone call. every terrible man.
drink until i am the well.
until i speak the spider's language 
& all i hear is the unbruising
of a plum in the sky. 

i join the stink bugs because i'm sick of this

i follow them back into the wall.
bend my body into their little pentagons.
they don't talk much. my kind of people.
i believe i could stay here. forget about 
cars & radio call-in shows.
that is until i start thinking about 
blue snow cones in the summer.
no matter how badly you want to leave
your nesting brain will always say,
"do you remember how sweet it was?"
the stink bugs are all business. a culture
of quiet legs. when they do talk, it is always
about finding a warmer place to die.
it's morbid to me but to them, it is
just crumb chatter. i suggest the roof
& they all look at me like i am unwell.
one of them discusses the space heater
saying, "right there is my crooked sun."
you can know factually that things 
were not as beautiful as you remember them
but our minds are candy yarn places.
i think my favorite part of being human
was windows. how, for a moment, 
you could fill one. become a television.
a private little movie. watch the snow.
watch the rain. watch a deer rise 
from the dead. i return to the upstairs
defeated & no longer a stink bug. 
they wave goodbye as i put my skin
back into place. i want to be done with
so many things. with lungs & how heavy
they get. with bones & how they turn
into oars. escaping becomes a way of life.
i remember the stink bugs & still crave 
that warmth they worshipped.
their debates over the best places 
to bloom. to burry. the dead are all 
around. insect ghosts & the deer 
tapping his antlers on the window glass.
i ask the stink bugs, "please tell me
i am good enough at being human."
they do not answer because they 
do not know enough to say. 

monastery 

we could take our butter knives 
to the hills. cut a face for living.
i watch dozens of videos
about monks of all religions.
buddhists & catholics & jains.
i am trying to answer if a monk's life
is an escape or a journey 
further into blood. 
i wonder what i would be most equipped
to be a disciple of. maybe we already are 
the order of yearners. 
keepers of all kinds of longing. 
in the forest we measure a path
that is the length between
the sun & the moon. we practice their
sapphic dance. to be queer is not just
to hold a sliver of the unknown
but to be ravenous for it. i want to know
if we will always be hungry
or if one day the earth
will crack open & we will find
manna. chew sugar until
we are mountains. breaking teeth.
breaking vows. i think there is joy
in certain tensions & pain from others.
when we are done walking
our legs ache with achievement. 
we lay in our beds of moss. 
observe the silent hours. 
fold our words into private poems
& swallow them each until
night comes to pull all language 
from our bones.