911

every time i try to all the emergency machine
it is my father on the other side. the first 911
was just a hole dug into the earth & screamed into.
sometimes i take a shovel to the soil 
& look for calls for help. my father is not good
in emergencies. he turns into an angry man.
once, he turned me into broom bristles 
& swept the house with my face. i became
a disciple of the cob webs. a caretaker of dust.
that is what it means to be a poet. someone has
to tell the truth about how we came apart.
i sometimes wish i was a different kind
of cartographer. not one who wrote about 
hunger but one who wrote about wholeness.
about finding the foot you've been missing
& sewing it back on with beading thread. my father
drives a two-wheeled car. carries a gun without bullets.
i ask him on the phone, "what are you going 
to do?" masculinity is about hands & femininity 
is also, kind of, about hands. i tell him,
"can you put someone else one the phone."
he replies, "it is only me." unsealing the chimneys.
teaching the house how to breathe again.
the air fills with gnats. if he was going to pick up
i wish he would do something. i wish he would
take off his face finally & weep. we could
harvest his tears. turn them into glass. 
a panacea. the reminder that in the terror hours
we are all nothing more than lovely water. 
he does not have a plan. i tell him what to do,
"get into your car & just sing to me." 

sunflower seeds

i make a house of sunflower seeds.
zebra in the pit of
of my running.
enough salt to keep us heavy
through the worst parts.
i don't mean to be
so small. i never realized
that a whole fist fits
in the shell.
the year we grew sunflowers
i lied & told everyone 
that they were sisters of mine.
we held hands. went to confession.
pleaded guilty. 
we plucked our petals.
fed them to the stray cats.
the mountain was always
a threat. if you are not
swallowed enough, you might
have to climb over
& to the other side.
now, my neighbors often offer water.
they say, "did you know
if you drink you will inevitably turn
into a fish?"
they say it like it's such a good thing.
i like to be a mammal.
at least i like it as much 
as anyone does. i don't want
to relearn how to talk to trees. i don't want to
wake up in a baseball field 
with a bat in my hands. 
the sunflowers bloom
even when i beg them not to. even when
i want to be the quiet dead place
with smoke coming from
my mouth. a fire is always 
a dream of meeting someone else.
someone brighter 
than yourself.
i blink & my eyes are seeds too.
i bite my lip. try my best
not to weep but i do
& there goes my head. all the flowers.
all the fire. 
i cannot see anything
but yellow. i walk around
in a busy street looking
for the little house so that i 
can crawl back inside. 
plug my ears with nettle 
& keep the baseballs 
where they belong 
down down deep in my throat. 

white peach

the bruise is a sugar trap.
needs to be eaten quickly 
& without protest. 
where did you fall & who harvested
your dazzling pit? i have been searching
for mine for years. sometimes
with a lover
i will ask them to open their mouth
wider
so i can see if it is just beyond
their teeth.
when it rains i melt like dandelions. 
my flesh is a sick palace.
a boy removes his hand
from my back.
he's left an imprint there.
i assure him, "by morning it will be gone."
that is not true. i will have to take
a paring knife & eat it by
candlelight. 
how close have you gotten
to confessing everything?
i used to be paranoid that people
could read my thoughts
but maybe i wish it were true.
they would have seen 
a candy shop. 
the bones i still suck on & the ones
that have turned into glass.
what i am most worried about
is that someone took the pit
& is going to plant it 
without me knowing.
that one day
i will find a tree
& start weeping. they will 
have done it wrong. too far
from other trees to bear fruit. 
when the moon comes my lonely plant
will feel a yearning for a holy place
when we were one. when we were
as small as we can get.
tell me, do you still believe
that you decide who gets to mark you?
it is what i tell myself but
my love, that is like saying
a bruise is a limb
instead of just old
plum-laden blood. 
the spoons are full tonight. 
we can tell one truth to each other
before we kill the sun. 
what do you swallow
only in the dark? 

unripe banana

at the grocery store 
i always search for the largest bunch
i can find. no, this is not an innuendo
this is just me saying i don't just want
one bite. on the television 
there is a man talking about 
how he was healed by punching
his shiny new car. when i was younger
sometimes we would watch mass
on the catholic channel. i wondered if 
i put my face to the screen if i could
become eucharist. the body the body.
the blood. i wish the body were
something better than wafers.
we could all be eating bananas
& thinking about jesus. instead 
it's the cheap wine from the tinny metal chalice.
we talk about trying to form
some kind of religion in the wake
of leaving the church. i tell everyone
"i am a disciple of the unripe banana."
they laugh but what i mean is
when i get bananas i always 
get three green ones. the ones that
we will wait on. the gods i know
are never ready to eat. instead, they hover
in their green. a sweetness on the other side
of some war, holy or otherwise.
i try to find places to shop that 
don't support genocides. i end up
at a stand at the end of a gravel road.
there a dead man is selling bananas.
they are the wildest bananas i have
ever seen. every color you could imagine.
i don't know why but i panic. 
like they can't possibly be for me.
the starchy skin. the snap of the urgent flesh.
on the television they say,
"hold your breath when you go outside today."
the sky is red. the sky is gutted. 
one banana never ripens. i hide it
from everyone i now. leave it offerings
of eyelash hairs & stray salt. 

octopus shirt 

i plan to wear this into the afterlife.
barefoot & threadbare. 
i found the shirt on a june evening.
all summer i lived in the guts of
my vacant college dorm. the shirt, like
a snakeskin, lay in the middle 
of the common room the day after
everyone else had left. blue & soft. 
the image of an octopus 
printed across the chest. 
when i put it on i went all ocean.
my eyes, brimming with schools of fish.
i felt the tentacles & the beak. i believed
in depths greater than the drain.
i have slept in the shirt for years now.
it is a ritual in meeting my ghosts.
slipping it on is a tether
into the skin i have lost & the skin
i have grown. soft as spring magnolia fingers.
all the buds christmas-lighting.
i used to wonder if i might be able
to find the shirt's old owner. if maybe
i could fly it like a flag above
my head until its mother returned.
would she weep? if she wore the shirt
could she feel all my grottos 
& my deep night hungers? i think it is
too late now. now the shirt is mine.
still, each night i crawl inside the octopus.
we swim. trade species. draw pictures 
of god. mine is a broken window.
the octopus just draws the sun. 

mall

everyone is going to the new sugar.
first just a shoe house & then a television garden.
the stores grow on one another's backs.
we get lost & food court ourselves all night.
drink slushies & hide in the potted ferns.
the sky becomes a sky light. our clothes 
new & new & newer. tiles like the scales
of a great monster. we know somehow
that all our friends are here & yet
we cannot find them. there are maps
but all of them are different. one just reads,
"we are asleep." i follow the footprints
on the ground to the as-seen-on-tv store.
there we can buy a non-stick pan. hold it 
as a weapon or an offering. there are more ghosts
than we can handle. there are more windows
than we can look into. the smell of butter.
a holy tea sample. i start to think "if i ever 
get out i'm going to go to the woods. 
i'm going to evaporate & they will write
some kind of a paranormal show about
my disappearance." a santa is begging us
to get on his lap & take a picture.
he says, "your mother will love it."
finger guns that fire. a salesman is
not accepting credit cards. he asks
for all debts paid in bone. a femur.
a nose. he says an ear will do.
if i find you in this labyrinth i want
to split a soft pretzel. i want to hold hands 
& climb the escalators as high as they
can go. there is an unfinished floor.
a worker says, "don't wait for heaven." 
vacant storefronts. i want to get out
& swallow a handful of dirt. 
find you & weep. confess, "i spent it all.
i do not even remember on what." 

prayer for living alone

once in the rain all of us met 
on the porch. it was spring &
i was leaving soon. the man who smelled
like pond muck & beef jerky
& the other man who sold guns.
he had short black hair & an infant daughter
who visited only occasionally.
we had never all stood together before.
the tenants of each floor of the 
tall white house on west broadway.
i don't remember what we talked about
but i imagined each of us 
holding our own little 'alone' 
in our hands. mine was always soft
as bubble gum & just as pink.
i spent nights tracing my outline
on the walls & waiting for them to come 
alive. you can get so alone you become
a terrarium. or, rather, maybe you just
discover what has already been there.
the isopods & the centipedes. the words 
hatching beneath rocks. i became 
so vast & so small. the older man smoked
& the smell lingered, captured by
the mist. the younger man ran his hand
through his hair. maybe we mentioned
the tourists coming soon or maybe
they asked to see my dog. maybe
none of us spoke aloud the word,
"alone" but it perched on our shoulders 
& laughed at the impending moon.
a car driving by with headlights 
like angels. i was the first to leave 
as i always am. i do remember that i told them,
"i will see you" which is another way 
of saying, "we are both mammals."
water ran down the street. a brief little river
carrying leaves like canoes. 
aloneness is one of those places you don't
escape. you can't wash it away
with a storm or even with the company
of fellow ghosts. it becomes a part of you.
feather or gills or hair. 

fallen trees at switchback trail

i go to the dead & ask what they have seen.
the switchback trail follows the old coal car route 
that used to haul earth guts to every fire
they could. cities blazed with these organs.
holes in the mountain. 
the storm took down so many limbs.
arms & fingers on the crooked path.
oak leaves like eyelids. 
one tree answers me, "all the smoke." i reply,
"what sound did the sky used to make?"
the trees answer with a soft whistle. 
now heaven is a static tv. i plug my ears 
when i'm out for too long. another tree explains,
"we used to be children." i tell him,
"i used to be children too." remember the day
my brother & i saw a tree topple over
in a late autumn storm. we told her,
"no! please no!" roots & all. in the roots
i saw we saw wedding rings & maybe even
a telephone. what we didn't know
is that all the trees are always talking
to each other & to the old gods & to 
the dead. i don't remember what we did
after the collapse. i should have talked
to the tree though. i should have asked,
"did you decide to fall or did your body
know it was time?" i ask because i am 
a little storm spirit. we live in a time
of endless feet. the underworld sitting
on park benches. i want to collect the pieces.
bring the dead trees home & make my own
frankenstein's tree. birch gills & oak heart.
instead i try to just sit with them.
i rest on the torso of a great maple. 
i ask, "do you mind that i sit here?"
he replies, "we're all wood here." 

water bottle baby

i put the seed in the bottom 
of the bottle & carry it all day. 
it could be any seed but i choose an apple one. 
small & brown-black. 
i have learned that life begins 
when we start weeping.
i squeeze the seed until it sobs. 
remember when someone did that to me. 
i was in the basement. i thought,
"if only there was a mirror." 
the willow trees understand. the goats 
understand. i am growing a child
the size of my thumb. they will stay that size
forever if i can help it. the fire 
in the museum. a window without glass.
i walk through & discover where 
teeth are born. i teach my friends
how to do this too. make your hope
small enough to live
in your water bottle. refill. peer inside
to watch it swim. feed it little bites.
a chocolate chip. a spoonful 
of peanut butter. i have lived on less.
you could really use any vessel
but i think the water bottle is best.
a little terrarium. no one asks why someone
is speaking into their water bottle.
to lose touch with reality is a blessing. 
thank god for the blinking tree & for the child
who does not know life outside
of the water bottle. she has no gender.
she whistles like a dying star. i won't ever
tell anyone her name. she will be here.
upside down. fresh teeth. 
one day, if i have to, i'll swallow her whole. 

the dog

i am home alone when the dog first comes
to the back door with a mouth full of meat.
it has not rained for weeks & i do not have
a finger left to feed her. she wants a television
& a secret. i offer her one of mine. 
it is not enough because it is never enough.
she eat all of our left shoes. she says, 
"this is for your own good." when you come home
you blame me for letting her in. you throw
the shoes at the ugly moon.
i want to ask you, "but has the dog
ever come when you were alone?" you are furious.
we eat plain rice until we're sick. when the dog returns.
the house is full of worms. i am plucking them out
one by one. the dog tells me to stop. she says,
"we need them." i gesture to the damp & rotting house.
i try to explain that we have to survive.
that we have to make mac & cheese & turn
the television on & even sometimes smile
even though there are gnats in the fridge. 
the dog is angry just like you. i don't understand
why everyone is always angry & then i feel like
a little kid again in the kitchen with my mouth full
of meat. you cannot run away from hunger.
you cannot run away from anger even though
i have been trying. 
the dog will come. the dog will find you & howl.
pawing at the back door. you say to me,
"why would you let them in?" i whimper. 
i try to explain how hard it is to watch
an animal beg. haven't you ever been a crying beast?
the dog needs a nail trim & a box of donuts.
she needs a window to watch the cars go by
& a servant to give her whatever she can dream of. 
i whisper to you in the deepest pit of night,
"what if we keep her?" you roll over, having been
asleep & ask, "who?" 
"the dog," i say. "i need to keep the dog."