benches 

during the year we died five times
i watched the benches turn
into horses. they always wanted
more than just the apple core.
i started to bring dates & honey. ankles
& a hooved moon. i went there
to sit with my bouquet of teeth 
& my heaven pill bottle. the tourists came
& took pictures of the sky.
the sky covered her face & bruised.
sometimes a hand would emerge
& puppet talk until i acknowledged him/her.
if not for my spearmint bush
we would have all starved. my green guts
& my green face. i put the dogs in my lap.
they turned ragdoll & then into papayas.
my mom would call & ask, "what does it feel like
being dead?" i would shrug. 
describe the smell of centipedes.
i invited a date once & she only talked
about wanted to fly an airplane. i bought her
one & she wept. she said, "why would
you do this to me?" i know i have
honeymoon tendencies. nectar
from the faucet. bridle on the bench.
my favorite thing to do was to sit
with dead men. they told me
to try on their clothes. fashion shows
for the morning tangerine. a mountain god.
i helped roll them into little balls
of lint. the dryer caught fire
but i kept using it. turned each dress
into ash until my skin was bare.
the dead men bent down. begged to be
new benches. i explained, "that is not
how to die." so, i showed them.
you start with the hands. left & then right.
down your throat. then, you close your eyes
until they turn into pearl in their sockets.
the rest comes easy. the breading
& the frying. the cold bench back.
the headlights carving pumpkins
in my skulls. 

tactics for killing flies

don't get in the habit of making confessions
to them even if you are lonely
& even if the drain in the sink
is a mouth. this became my trouble.
i would reach my hand inside
& let each finger be an orphan. 
the flies welcome me as one of them
& i try to tell them this is a bad idea.
i have never placed a window on my back
nor have i perched in the mashed flesh
of a gone pear. they say,
"you do not need to know how
to be hungry." don't open the doors 
one day when you are trying not to die.
don't let the wind turn into horses 
& the closets, to landfills. it is best
if you do not learn their language.
when you start speaking to them
then you start wanting to keep them around.
never feed them. it is crucial you do not 
feed them. even if they offer
to sing you a song in exchange for a peach. 
even if you have not
spoken to another human in years.
even if the neighbors are turning
one by one becoming crows in the night. 
once you do, they will arrive & form
a buzzing beard on your face.
i have lived into private deadly hopes.
ate plums in the mirror. sugar waits 
just a spoon away. i took them up once
on the singing. ave maria. holy ghosts.
insect angels with the midday light
making ambrosia of my face.
i get a spoon. i still don't have
the guts to call you. instead, i sing
with the flies. they give me permission
to wallow in my lostness. you should
never let them in. crush each like periods.
the days' doorknockers. when we talk
again, i'll teach you how to say "please"
just like the flies do. 

declines in church attendance  

i fill the church with whales.
everyone is going to marvel at this feat. 
i invited them with a big pile
of shoes. anything can be communion
when you are an escapee. 
i do not remember what was 
the last time i went to mass. 
my soul is probably full of holes. my soul
is probably not even good for straining pasta.
i do not worry too much about it.
i think me and my family are purgatory 
kind of people. it is always better to wait
than to arrive. i'm sure the afterlife
is a big let down. the whales though,
the whales know exactly what to do
with the big belly space of the church.
tail in the sacristy. their bodies 
in the saltwater laughter. in a way
i have never really been baptized.
none of them ever stuck. my original sin
comes back, primordial & wise. 
the whales are baptism monsters.
i consider asking them for help 
but decide they should just enjoy getting
to be this holy. 
overflowing fountain. they feast. demand more.
i bring them hair & nails. i bring them
wafers & even the advent robes. 
i wonder if i want to become a whale
or if i want to worship one. they tangle.
swell until they break the chandeliers.
become priests in their hugeness. 
it is sunday & i consider giving the homily
myself. standing up at the podium
smashed between whales. 
my own baleen spirit, sifting
in the red velvet dark. i find nothing
but krill & bugs that have drowned
in the church's flood. no one hears me
but the whales. no one 
understands me but the whales.
no matter how much i beg though
they cannot let me be one of them. 
the stained glass is eventually
what will break but for tonight
we are flowered & folded. 
the moon ordains us & shines
in our dinner plate eyes. 

control room

i am building a button place.
one lever for the sweet water
& another for the milk room.
i keep my little beeping closet
where no one else can find it.
television monitors of the soup.
dear god i am out of thumbs.
if only there was a machine that could
count all the prongs on all the forks.
the air is too full of wings to breathe. 
i make sure that the red buttons 
always mean poppy fields & that 
the blue buttons mean we are
going to chew mint to death.
i trace the wires with my finger.
once, i had a lover who i brought here.
he was terrified. he covered his ears
& asked, "how do you survive 
with all this?" i pushed a button 
to release the eels. they took their journey
away from civilization & into
the honey ground. i was trying to say,
"i do not have a choice." 
he did not believe me. was disgusted.
saw that i was building onto the room.
everyone always thinks it is enough.
the room is never enough. bleeds
like a pomegranate. catacombs of jewel.
he did not understand. i will never be alone.
i have a nest of needles. a boat 
on which to sail right into 
the ghosts' wild face. no need 
to take the tongue from the oven.
smoke fills my voice. i take myself 
to the static edge. a flock of vultures. 
shut the door for the day. press my ear
to the husk to hear it hum.
i never saw him again but sometimes
i push a yellow button
& see just one of his eyes 
whale-like on my screen. 

scrap wood

every dad builds a time machine at some point.
i knew my father was working on one when
he started leaving in the morning before everyone else woke up.
he'd return with his jeep full of highway wood.
nails in jars all around the house. he kept
the basement door shut & locked as he worked.
didn't let anyone see. if you asked him what he was 
working on, he'd say, "not until it is done." 
everyone got splinters. that is the problem 
with family. you become the same organism.
the same hungers & the same urgencies. 
i dreamed only of scrap wood. where & how
to retrieve it. our fathers are sites of self-ending devotion.
i wanted to make him proud. once, i woke up
even before home. the world was dark 
& all the houses weren't real yet. i took several apart.
they were the vacant houses where there
used to be farms. i carried all the bones 
down into the basement. that is when i saw it.
this grand impossible machine.
buttons & lights & yearning. i stepped inside.
saw the "on" button & considered leaving. 
disappearing into a time when no one could find me. 
dinosaur flowers. a fresh moon.
instead i curled up & went to sleep.
i wanted him to find me. i wanted him
to be furious that i knew his secret.
he was not. inside, he lifted me,
like scrap wood, & carried me back to bed.
there he said, "you will understand
when you're older." i wish i would have asked him
where he wanted to go back to.
his childhood? to prehistory when
no one yet took a hatchet to the sky. 
i am older now & i still don't what he wanted
or what he wants. he still is collecting wood.
i am still, to the best of my knowledge,
the only person who has seen the machine. 

saturn peach dream

we talk about the horrible horrible
but we get too seasick & end up 
just snapping bad pictures of the moon.
when i tell you that i am no longer
interested in a flying machine i mean
that i am sick of jupiter & all the gas 
it spins without telling us what's going on.
i want a letter or at least a 60 minutes interview.
if i had to survive on peach rings alone
if think i could live longer
than you might assume. i have always hoped
my body would be used for bad science.
test a rocket ship on me. clone my cells
& teach me in my new not-so life how
to sew the hems on pants. i used to 
collect chewing gum as a child. i hoarded it
beneath my pillow & reached there
in the threadless night. sometimes my telescope
makes everything smaller. i am left 
with a device full of ants. you can 
decide to not speak the fire poet aloud
but he will always be there. the smoke 
spills into the night sky like milk
into a mouth. i don't miss most people
who i have witnessed transform into ducks.
fly south for the winter. only, the winter
never ends & we become cartographers.
there is the border. watch its wings beat.
i am interested in carving myself a ring
from the dirt they keep trying to take,
up the street, they are building more dead people's houses
where there used to be meadows.
all the deer bite their tails & spin. 
i try to follow them but i do not have
a tail. i just have two arms & a phantom
who sometimes will buy groceries for me.
all fruit is best when it's sickly ripe.
i had a dream in which you did not eat
all the pawpaws. there was one left
& i devoured standing in the kitchen.
nectar up to my elbows. the bees 
in the walls folding me in. i call you frantic.
i ask, "can you hear me?" the voice
on the other side of the line 
your mouth is full of seeds. you manage
to ask, "who is this?"

wild yeast

we take our webbed feet 
& gill dresses to the heavy forest.
once my mom told me 
that she was never a child. i believe her.
instead, she was a star fruit 
& a bottle of blood. we get the car
to start again after holding a seance.
all we need is enough monsters 
to make a loaf of bread. we'll live there
all winter feeding each other catacombs.
i would steal the dough as it rose.
pinching the blubber of the lovely whale.
we are in the shower & the yeast
is all around us. yeast in the wood
& yeast in the marrow. i ask you,
"what kind of whale do you think i am?"
you joke, "sperm" & then agree with me
that i am a beluga. dough chariot. 
soft stomachs. resting my head
on my stolen cloud. the yeast talk
about an army of god. i tell them 
we are not that kind of people. we are
the spore shakers & the wood splitters.
i have never wanted 
to be holy. instead i have craved
the brief warmth of fresh bread. 
bleeding steam. i found my mother once
as a girl in the backyard. i braided her hair
just like she would one day try to braid mine.
she was covered with bugs. 
good bugs & useless bugs. the oven 
was growing. soon it would be the size
of a house. i made beds for every yeast
in the hopes that they would stay.
we banged pots & pans. we cried, 
"wake up." a staircase that leads 
only to an unused picture frame.
there is not enough time. we have 
to eat the bread. we have to call 
the milkmen. the yeast say, 
"better than nothing" & they could be
talking about their body as a feast
or they could be talking about
the family stories i have 
about how to survive. 

dustpan

i collect our butterflies when they are
banana-ripe. a television is saying,
"buy one get one half off." it is talking
about lips. a hailstorm comes
& puts craters in all the new cars.
i try to call my health insurance agent 
to talk about armageddon. "are you ready?"
i ask & then i clarify, "i am not here
to preach, i am here to learn about 
your chaos self." they hang up but i stay 
on the line fishing for an angel. 
none arrive. when i sweep the house i feel
like a clover. thank god for tools. 
the shovel & the rug beater. i sit
on the porch alone when i am angry. 
i try my best to turn all that anger 
into feathers. stuff a pillow. call my brother
to talk about everything except for 
how we feel about each other. two moons
orbiting a dead planet. the house is never clean enough.
one day when no one else was home
i came with my knuckles 
& a jar of salt. i rubbed & rubbed.
red & raw. there is still dirt 
on the baseboard that refuses to come free.
maybe the dirt is part of us. i look in the dustpan
& i see gold. glitter. a school of dead flies. 
i keep the dust in a little bowl beneath
the bed. i know if anyone found it
they would scream & toss the contents 
out into the yard where the rats held
their makeshift funerals. always i would shift
in the weeds to try to find what was left.
we lose a lot of skin. we lose a lot of hair.
enough to make duplicates. autumn selves 
to put into infomercials. i am not sure
if i am a product or a salesperson today.
which one is worse? that is what i am.
i stand & wait for the delivery truck
to bring me a toad. i am going to feed him
some of the flies & then maybe we will
be friends. i will carry him on my shoulder
& introduce him as my son. i mean he would be
my son after all. let's not get carried away.
the butterflies taste like iron. when my father 
finally arrive with his own broom
we will have a party of trying to make
one another clean. i remember even if 
he has forgotten. i have a dustpan 
full of hair to prove it. It's easier
not to tell the truth, that way no one is waiting
for a prophecy. i keep my oracles 
to myself. i spend years eating alone. 
today in the dust i find a beetle. she is holy. 
i promise her to keep her secrets.
she tells them to me & then becomes 
nothing more than a shining piece of flesh. 

anything could be cake

i am an increasingly distrusting person.
sometimes i will pick up my face from the mirror
& find it made of buttercream. smear my lips.
i lick my fingers. the sweet rotten mess.
i have grabbed doorknobs & found them
to be jelly donuts. i have fallen into angel food cake beds.
i know this is just because i am hungry
in the endless way. like how the stick men 
wander in search of a throat. i weep when
i find another lover made of sugar. it starts to rain
& i scramble. i try to find a tupperware big enough
to house my needs. by the time i do
they are gutter honey. i carry a fork & knife.
the knife is sharp & accidentally cuts holes
in the meadow. all the bees pouring
from my bedroom wall. if i could feed them enough.
if i could keep them then maybe we could
live off singing. i want to be the kind of person
who walks through a graveyard & doesn't wander
what stones are edible & which ones belong
to terrible people & which ones receive teeth
& which ones receive chocolate. it is so important
to feed the dead or else they come back like this.
like our ravenous nights. the hunting knee.
the arrow bush. a coyote screams like a woman.
i go out to help her. she is a cupcake platter.
each one with a little wasp inside. if i could be sure
that tonight everyone would be real 
i would go out. i would maybe even dance.
but i cannot even promise that of myself. 
i would love to meet someone who once was real.
to touch their hands. would they feel like marzipan 
or just like a soft furrow. moss & meat. 

resurrection of the family dog 

no one misses her more than me.
i am not home when she turns into 
a jar of bees. then, a silent thumb. 
i drive around the block for hours
because i am afraid to see her. 
all the bananas in the world
could not soothe me. my parents try to say,
"she is just an angel now."
i have met angels & i want nothing
to do with them. i buy gardening gloves
from a twenty-four-hour store. 
go out to the backyard while everyone
is dreaming of smoke. she used 
to eat my hands each night & in the morning
i would feel so much relief. we would walk
together into a hole in the forest.
there, we could speak the same sadnesses.
her desire to chew on a cloud. mine 
to be the daughter everyone wanted. 
the family dog is always a conduit. 
she would say, "they do not know what they want." 
i build a replica of her from broken plates
& loose screws. once she ran away &
i found her not far from the house at all.
she was standing & staring at a ghost
at the corner of the property.
i said, "it is best to ignore them."
she said, "that is not how you should treat
the dead." i do not know if this resurrection is
what she would want. i take the statue
out to the yard. bathe her in moon glow.
shake her & beg. i try all her the commands 
that i taught her which was only two.
"sit" & "come." "sit," i say. "come."
finally, she rattles to life. i forget
all the questions i want to ask her
& instead, we chase each other.
our midnight shadows, fresh children
in the cool grass. i climb the pine tree
to reach the clouds. manage to pull one down
for her to chew on. by dawn
she is just a pile of broken plates again. 
i do not clean her up. instead, i decide
this is the shrine for her brief return.
when the others find her, my father & my brothers
& my mother & my uncle i wonder if 
they will know this was her or if
they will just think i came urgent as always
& left a holy little mess.