nail gun crucifixion 

my father built our house from eyelashes.
there are pictures of him nailed to the frame.
head like a cantaloupe. 
the "can't" in cantaloupe repeats 
until we are all discouraged by the rain.
when i would say the "our father"
i always thought of my father. i used to
tell everyone in second grade that he was
in the beetles & that "nowhere man" was his song.
there are ways this is true. i remember him
showing me exactly how he did it.
nail gun to his hand. the fresh wood.
"exhale" he said & the nail went right through flesh.
then, he showed me how to pry it out
with the ugly hammer tooth.
i go out to the store & by my own nail gun.
tell everyone i know, "i am building 
a replica" & no one asks "of what"?
either they already know i am craving
smaller & smaller version of my parent's home
or else they don't want to know. 
it is better to leave your friends 
to their own rituals unless you are invited.
i discover my hands already have scars
where a nail would go. crucifixion is 
much more common than you would think.
my first lover had been crucified too.
i remember dipping my fingers 
in the still-bloodied well of their palms.
do not mistake your awe for worship.
i do not actually believe in god or jesus 
or even really my father. or even really
the house i grew up in. sometimes we are just
reenactors trying to find a seam.
i want to know if there is a divine 
in there somewhere. if i took a sledge hammer
to the walls of my childhood home,
how many versions of my father 
i would find there. 
 

you tell me night comes sooner on the east coast

i have tried so many times to remedy this. i have
set out bowls of sugar for the sky to lap up.
i have drilled holes in the sun so that light
keeps bleeding onto our faces. we are driving
& i know i am not going to see you again.
your foot on the dashboard. a siren losing its head
spits everything we want to say. go go go.
give me what you have. do you remember
how cold it would get in the city?
breathing on each other hands, the darkness 
had chocolate. had velvet & bone. standing 
shoulder to shoulder in a corner store. 
this is all i've ever known. i'm not traveled. 
i'm not a worldly person. i slip from bedroom
to bedroom. a shadow gardener. what if we 
just decided to chase the dark? would we always be
citizens of this nowhere place? i at least would not
have to figure out how to say goodbye.
to the day. to your open window. to my face
in your sunglasses. my taillights turn into fangs.
ride the snake. ride the bus. the plane.
please tell me about the water when you can.
tell me how the sun dissolves. let me know
when it is dark so i can be not alone again. 

phillies reruns

in the winter, the aunts played
the games over & over again. their little television boys
with red caps. the crowd cheering.
glinting housefly teeth. 
they gathered as if the game were happening
for the first time & not the tenth or sometimes
the hundredth. i imagine a room
of thousands of bodies repeating bat swings 
& pitches. there was a time when they would 
be part of the stadium swarm. 
the couches have become animals.
back worn from where mary & flo sit.
we drink diet cokes. focus on each movement.
our diorama. the boys sometimes escape
from the screen. dust the corners of the old family house.
communion photos & jersey beach vacations. 
angel figurines. in our family, everyone is 
a baseball player. even my great aunts.
even me as i sit eating stale crackers & listening
to the static roar of the crowd. a world series
is always happening. someone is glorious.
someone is resting a bat on their shoulder.
how many times can the haunting return?
after a game ends, i am now the one
who goes to wrangle the boys. there are always
one or two who do not return to screen.
i find them in aunt mary's drawer of money
& sometimes in the shed playing with
the broken lawn dart set.  television comes to life
in the morning & sometimes in the sugary
wine-grape night. a two-way portal.
i know this game well. i go to play
find the aunts there too. old as they are now. 
their recliners in the field. sun falling 
in veils around us. 

lifeguard 

there is no lifeguard at the lake.
i try to tell everyone that we will be fine
as long as we remember how to swim. 
i learned everything i know about water
from the minnows: break into a ribbon
& they cannot catch all of you.
the sun turns into a crowd of milkweed flowers. 
then, a sandpaper dusk. i run as far as i can from 
the legs of strangers. at a dinner 
between friends, we all talk about
how we want to be saved. one person wants
to be pulled from a shipwreck.
another wants to be saved from
a burning bedroom. i admit that i crave 
to be plucked from the water
by a passing spirit. i long 
for the water to speak & say,
"you were meant to survive." 
my partner tells me, "you are not worried enough
about drowning" just because i believe
i could always cut myself gills.
sometimes i am arrogant. sometimes,
even worse, i am certain of myself.
the minnows are the best teachers
to help me unravel this.
they say, "there is always a piece of the school
we can salvage." the limbs i have lost.
the fragments of my echo body. 
water, the first mirror. an uninvited guardian angel.
he hovers above the water 
& asks, "would you like a powdered donut?"
i decline. you should not eat & swim.
the minnows beg, "feed us. feed us." 

backstroke 

i do not want to learn how to swim anymore.
instead, i would like to learn
to swallow every lake i find myself in.
once, in the angry summer,
we drove through the head of a needle
to a house in the middle of a birthday cake.  
there was a bear standing in the yard
like a car salesman. he did not leave
the whole time we were there. together
at the mucky bottom lake, i drowned
a few times before anyone noticed. 
i know i know, i just wanted attention.
we all did. we were boneless & barbeque. 
all my angels hovering above the ground.
in the water's reflection, the mountain checked
to make sure she was still beautiful. 
when was the last time you stared into a mirror
so long that you were no longer sure
it was yourself being spat out at you?
i remember the kneecap bathroom. 
it smelled deliciously of wood 
& weathered conversations. old shoes 
growing wings. i told you i do not want 
to learn how to swim but the truth is
i do. i do so badly. i went out to the woods
in the morning while everyone else
was still cave cricket sleep singing.
there, i found a pool of water full
of mosquitos & frogs. i waded into the water
up to my neck. i almost went further
but i got too afraid. when we drove home
i was nothing but a ribbon. you held
the steering wheel like a pie tin.
it wasn't enough. it couldn't have been
to get the motion right. in my fantasies 
i lay on my back. reach arms up. the grain mill.
the greeting card. stomach to the sky. 
already finished. legs kicking the butterflies
out of their sugar. in the driveway 
i caught a storm cloud & shoved it
in my mouth. you were too agreeable 
to say anything. you smiled like someone does
when the person on the other end 
of the line is clearly not in a swimming pool. 

96 degrees

we hang our skin on the clothesline 
& go take turns as skeletons on the swing set.
this is the only way to feel cool again.
swelter & melting birds. 
i remember when i was a girl
sometimes the summer nights would feel cold.
as if autumn had a foot
in summer's hair. now, all i know is wax.
the candle flame, our laughing heads.
i try to find a field to bury my teeth 
but they fly out of my head
as jupiter beetles. "let's not be too hasty,"
they say. "it's just how we die wait wait i mean
just how we change," says a television man
with a cooler the size of heaven. 
he freezes his children & unthaws them
one by one so that he can always have
a baby to use in photographs. 
i have walked barefoot down main street
& lost all my hair to a strong wind.
i have laid out beneath the stars
on a lover's roof. neither of us admitted
to being lovers. now we turn into fried eggs.
my golden brown edges. her brilliant strawberry hair.
each degree is like a dog year. faster than
it ever should be. i drink as much water
as i can. it's never enough. i turn into
a pool noodle. i turn into a honey comb.
swarm. laugh. licorice. this is all to say
it's getting cauldron today. if we are soup,
i am the little meatballs & you the pasta pearls. 
i hope the new animals 
know how to breathe. 

calling the weeds

"i do not know where my legs are,"
i tell the weeds in the yard. they put their tongues 
to the ground. wallow in their old flowers. 
i ask them for advice when i know
i am gone. when there is no salvaging 
my fingers from the finger trap
i have placed them in. the weeds understand
what it feels like to be hopeless. 
they do not say platitudes. instead, they are
grief machines. they say, "why is there
no ice cream cone god?" & "how could we 
become this hungry?" i feed them sugar
until they die. this is the only version 
of love that i know. when it's dandelion time
sometimes i find my face turning lion. 
i find myself yellow as yellow can be. my teeth
like staircases. roots in my throat. the weeds
tangled in bundles. cordage for climbing
out of the window. i get my cheekbones 
carved from stone. i always end up wanting
to pull up all the weeds but not like other people.
i want to bring them inside & lay them out on the floor.
count their fingers. find enough numbers
to make a neighbor or if i'm lucky,
a self. i do not let my hands go. i close the screen door.
weep for the weeds. wish i could grow
like they do. from the other side of the door
they whisper, "you can, you can, and you can."
there are things they don't understand
but for a moment i pretend they are right. 

canned pineapple 

we would eat the crushed god.
fist of sweet echo. plastic fork 
& the concrete steps outside the beer store.
bottle caps & bottled birch. 
when i return to my hometown
i make postcards of our femurs.
i cut down trees. i fill my pockets
with walnuts. the graffiti doesn't change
so the prophecies age. turn into scripture.
"don't be a machine" on the shoulders
of the stop sign leading out of town.
all the afternoons we spent trying
to cull a gender from the wreck.
the downed plane in the quarry.
your backpack can opener. we felt like
escapees. camping in our own lives.
none of us really know where we are.
i keep trying to find a statement about childhood
that doesn't still apply to me today.
i was a ghost. i am a ghost.
i was a girl. i am a girl.  i was a boy.
i am a boy. i do not want to share 
my little cool morsel on a hot day
but there you are, my elsewhere body.
juice dripping down your chin. we could 
keep walking. live in the woods. eat nothing
but skunk cabbage & mulberries until
we turn to sound. the desire to escape
never goes away. where i am from 
a gravity pulls us to soil. tells you,
"we could make bread of your bones." 
 

several face washes

i am told everyone can be clean.
sometimes i scrub so hard
my face comes off & i have to go
on ebay & buy another. 
i'm not in the financial position
to buy a new face. there is a part of me
that enjoys the used ones more. 
i can be hungry in fresh & exciting ways.
standing in the grocery store
like a pillar of salt. have you ever
choked on a peach pit?
died & became a tree?
my fantasies are not advisable. 
i should keep them to myself.
instead, there are amateur scientists 
on my shoulders who say things like,
"what if you just tried a little harder
to become a heron?" the best face washes
are the ones with deadly beads.
it's nice to be sandpapered & raw.
the foam can be nice too. like becoming
ocean skirt hems. i am convinced one
will have the right concoction
to turn me into the little egg
i want to be. something round 
& unopened. put you lovely
rock candy dream down my throat.
i want to be a purple sugar. i want
to be the smoothest asteroid
you've ever been hit by. i often imagine 
my father finding me on the sidewalk
in the form of a real robin.
i am eating his sandwich. he is trying
to shoo me away. dermatologists 
have looked at my skin & said,
"not too bad." a thumb on my cheek.
the meanings of touch are all
about context. in the bathtub
we are both just persimmons
waiting to be mushy & ripe. 
when it's time to eat me
i don't know if anyone would
be able to recognize me. that's what
i want the face wash to do.
make me an epiphany. make me
the one thing everyone is looking for:
a bright buttery release. 
 

frozen bananas 

the neighbors have an apple tree 
that they let drop its fruit each year.
never once have i seen
them eat from it. 
i watch, knowing they would
never let me cross their field to pick
the fruit up off the ground.
lawn mower afternoon. the gossip
of the foxes. 
instead of apples, i keep my bowl of bananas
like haphazard grins. the kind of smile
you put on when you need
to lean your chair back into a bowl of sugar.
when you know that bananas 
are little death fruit. 
i never want to waste them.
instead, i freeze the bananas when
they're close being too far gone.
this is what my mother did too.
always a little school of frozen bananas
waiting for us to make a frostbite bread 
& take out their guts. unlike her,
i never get around to using them. 
i keep the brown bananas like 
spare mouths. sealed shut. sometimes 
i look at the apple tree & wonder if
a great gust of wind 
would shake the branches enough
to make one fist roll to me.
i would take that apple & make it 
my son. plant the seeds & stand there
until a tree grew.
sometimes i beg my partner 
to let me try & grow a banana tree.
he says, "we live in pennsylvania?"
as if that is a reason to stop.
my secret i keep from him
is that i already buried a banana once.
no tree grew but still if you put
your ear to the dirt you can hear 
soft laughter & sometimes 
a gun going off. the echo. 
the following quiet. 
the apple tree weeping.