trash dusk

the beautiful tells me to go down
to where the flies are. put each of my fingers
in little gum wrappers & wait for the swarm
to have a love poem about it.
i used to sleep between two dumpsters.
one was full of mannequin heads & the other
was full of all the delicious that the grocery store
couldn't manage to sell. beetles & gnats 
& juice bugs would come & call it
a land of plenty. that is where we live
even if it doesn't always seem like it.
the land says, "i put on earrings for the elegy."
i collect eyes from a grove. new eyes to replace
my old ones which are starting to become
obsolete. you cannot see all the bullshit
with the old version. some people i've heard
opt to let their old eyes turn into lemons.
i do not mean to always be the bearer of bad news.
i want to just go to a sunset & not know
it's really decomposing. that it's really
a decommissioned god. so many people
have worshipped the sun. the sun feels guilty
about everything it cannot do. the smell
of garbage is the smell of running away.
the car window rolled down. a hand
reaching into the night as if to grab 
a holy place. if you carry a plastic shopping bag
odds are that you'll find a chance 
to fill it. do not believe what you are told
about the taste of roses. they are bitter
& they will make you sick as the last
threads of light. do you still tell yourself
"tomorrow will be better?" i do not.
instead, i unwrap just one finger. play a game
where i pray it is a thumb. when i get
a thumb i let myself pretend to be whole.
go into the dumpster & find all the little stars
that used to talk in languages only they knew.
they smell like worms & rotting strawberries.
i fall asleep like only leaves do. 

ai image of us as _____

our spit out machine gave us a wedding
in which there were no chairs. like the apparatus 
i am too characterized by my absences.
some will call us soulless when they hear
about what we have done. the coal 
pushed to the side in the mouth like a bit of chew
or sucked-dull wad of bubble gum. 
i am sick of talking about evil as if it is
something dug from between shoulder blades
& backyard sandboxes. as if it is as common as rain.
the device had makers
who scoured for faces to feed it. they said,
"here are the most delicious arms" &
"here is the dreamland park of your hunger."
shot trees with their favorite guns. 
stood on their porch, pouring water 
onto the asphalt & laughing.
did the device, like me, weep as it learned to eat?
i have devoured onion from the yard. i have
put a spoon in my mouth to quell the future
ringing in my teeth. we were not on the street
without a stop sign. we were not
the girls whose heads did not match.
the device says, "give me another chance
to skewer your limbs." it blinks. the gods do not
have ears or at least so i have found.
instead if find it best to take all your pictures
in the dark so that no one can steal them.
our faces, like two dinner plates held
in a garden of shadow. this one is of our honeymoon.
there are no hands, just blur. a second arm for you.
what we will make with this runaway dog
i do not know. for now we have the story
of how the morning was dragged 
from beneath a thumb nail. 
we can ask one another, "do you remember
when we were made of leaves?"

shaving cream

i start with the hair
& move to flesh. my skin rests
like a table cloth on top 
of a dinner. i am a roasted chicken
& a trifle. i am the grandmother of 
all sweet forests. i go past flesh
& arrive at muscle. i have always been one
to pick at my face like a graffiti artist.
here is the secret to the universe. here is
the prophecy. why is it always written
in blood? underneath the wallpaper 
is the secret map to where all
the crows are plotting a fresh future 
for me. the muscle is tough. 
doesn't come apart easy. is the remainder 
of every time i didn't say, "help"
when that's what i meant. eventually
& after lots of tearing & lots of towels 
to soak up the mirrors, i arrive at the bone.
here is where i am told the gender
is stored. i find nothing but little rhinestones.
my teeth into bells. good god this is
what i wanted. to be the skeleton girlboy.
to run then, leaving the meat like
old magazine in a pile 
on the bathroom floor. wiping shaving cream
from my hands. i take my skull to 
the cedar tree. become a lantern
& a lighthouse. all the moth come 
to worship. i promise i'll come &
clean up the mess when i'm done.

the park

a man wanders in circle & feeds the geese
who are not there. once, i turned into a pigeon
just to get out of a date i didn't want to go on.
i saw the person arrive at the park.
he looked around but found someone else
to kiss. relief that i had not caused too much sadness.
a park is one of those almost places.
the deer that come are confused as to
whether or not they are in the future
or the past. a child runs so wild
he turns into a red tail hawk. haven't you ever
blinked & found yourself at the highest point
in one of the grandfather trees? i have
& up there i have heard angels gossip about us.
they are saying, "they think they're happy."
i do think i am happy at least for the most part.
as happy as you can be at park in the middle
of an empire of ammunition worship & jesus puppets.
i do not argue with the angels though. 
instead i go down the creek because at a park
there is always a creek. the water that sings 
about earrings & fingers. dip my own in there.
remember turning into a goldfish as a child
& dying just to get it over with.
at the park everyone is a family & no one is.
it is a reunion or else a collision. i want
to call everyone to a pavilion & say,
"let's celebrate my birthday." it is not 
my birthday but it could be if we all
wanted another confetti reason to celebrate.
the best parts of the park are where
you can pretend it is not a park. that you are
deep in the forest of wings. that no one
is going to find you for days. then, you glance
& accidentally there is a stoplight & there
is a man running away from the ghost
of his father. i would like to find
one of those perfect places & spit on the earth.
then wait for a dream house to grow.
it would not have to be large or even purple. 
just a little place to put my heart
in a jar by the bed. a tiny door to close
to block out the celestial chatter. 
i never want to leave the park. i transform 
back into a human. the man still wanders
in circles only now the geese are real 
& they have shopping bags they fill with silver. 

directions to my tongue

you make a left where all the birds fall 
from the sky. where the ghost of a fox
hunts daffodils. where all the children go
to stare as if an angel will appear.
you walk over the bridge of lizards.
i have never been there so it might be
a bridge of actual lizards or it might
be just a euphemism for men on their bellies.
haven't we all been a brick in a bridge?
i have used my bones to welcome 
animals into the wind chime season.
once you have crossed the bridge
you are going to have to talk to your father.
not the kind of talking you usually do
but the kind that involves blood.
the truth with all its grease & butter. 
then, he will remove a key from his mouth.
you will have to find the lock.
some people have had to search for years
but i will give you a secret, it is
usually at the back of your own throat. 
i believe gravity exists to remind us 
we are always pulling each other in.
my body to yours & yours to mine.
have you ever loved someone so much
you open your mouth & they're talking.
this is what it will mean to arrive
at my tongue. the last step is to hitchhike.
you will stick out your thumb
& wave it on the side of the highway.
no one will stop for hours. only get
into a truck if it is purple. ride for days.
watch home videos out the window.
a swing set on fire. a planet washed down
the drain. when you get here take off 
your shoes. lay down as if my tongue
is a bed of moss. i asked you here
so i could tell you what i always wanted
to tell you. about the blackberries
& about the bone you broke as we 
were running away from your father. 
his eyes like jupiter beetles. angry as ever.
i hope you know i mean to swallow you.
it is only right. do you remember making me
into a pill? rolled between your forefinger
& thumb until i was round. 
you know as well as anyone that our skin bends but 
does not forget. here is my tongue.
tell me, did you think you would be
this small when you returned?  

glow prophecies 

the pool hall was only open for a month.
we went there to kiss & make our eyes
into cue balls. blue chalk on my fingers
from rubbing the end of the stick.
in the corner, they had a pinball 
& mortal kombat machine. i liked to be the monsters
when we fought. it was the only time i really felt
like i could beat him. i smashed the buttons
as if each blow were crashing into his body
& not the little radiant avatar on the screen.
i used to wish for life in two dimensions.
in the game, there were so many less direction 
to hide. instead, i was paralyzed 
in the three dimensional world. all the pockets
on all sides of the pool table. so many places
to lose track of the truth. that is what
they do to you, shoot your eyes
into shadows & leave you chasing them.
the worst part is i would not describe him
as a terrible man. maybe careless or hunger 
is a better description. but then again
maybe i am too enamored with
the mortal kombat life. the thrust forward.
die backwards. i think of him in the dark of the pool hall.
glow of the neon wall signs casting pinks
& blues & greens across his face.
his smile was always off-kilter. 
in the game, i listened for the raspy voice
that would tell me "finish him." 
i took so much pleasure in that.
a pixel body severed or crushed. 
he always beat me at pool. cocky, sometimes
he would shoot behind him own back.
when the place closed 
we arrived to find the whole hall emptied.
black windows. it was as if
those nights had never happened.
he pulled by my belt
into the alley beside the hall. 
it smelled like flat soda & garbage. 
two dimensions, forward & back. 
he kissed me like a wad of gum. 
shadows cast around us. my eyes
somewhere else. in the pockets 
of a pool table who knows where. 

place

at valley forge the cannons wake up dazed.
roam alongside the deer that are eating 
each other's ribs.
the winter has enough sadness
for all of us. they look at their reflections
in the pools of half-frozen water. remember
the memory of a child turned
into ammunition. how they swallowed the skulls
& spat them out. though truly
they are just replicas or else grave markers.
massacre is this country's greatest love. 
the cannons saunter the woods & imagine themselves
living as animals. long deeply to die 
like the deer die. withering until
they are nothing but the sounds
of wind chimes. there was no battle
at valley forge. instead, there was 
a little nest of lost empires. they wrote letters
to their empty gods. fed them to one another.
mouths open. hungry as hunger 
would allow. the creases of the land.
the cannons now wondering if 
there is a story that could be told about them
in which they are not the ending. in which
they do not spit punctuations 
across the hillsides. they hear the snow coming
before anyone else. huddle together
pretending to be pack animals.
one cannon says to the other,
"i wish i was a house" & another asks,
"do you think it is too late 
for me to learn how to be the wind?" 

electronic universe

how little light do i need?
i sell all the bulbs in the house
for moss. spread it even as jam
across the floor. a new carpet
of meal worms & wood. 
did you know there are 
saints who run all night 
to make sure the sun hatches 
at dawn? i see them outside
on their motorcycles. use a butterfly net
to catch them. put them in little terrariums. 
i just need one day where the sun
stays curled & caterpillar. 
give me the black forest cake. give me
the ink velvet. 
i have tried to swallow 
as much dark as my body will hold.
spoons & kings. the basement smell
of mold & decaying halos. 
walking down there with 
a single candle. little planet.
i plug in my face & wait for it
to want to eat again. let's not confuse
terror with love. love with hunger.
i am in hunger with 
the ceiling grease. we try to scrub 
our chickens clean. they turn
into doves. they lay dove eggs
each of which bears 
the bad news. little notes
with nothing but dates inside.
what do you think they could mean?
i am not as hopeless as it might seem.
i have a night light. i have
a god i used to pray to. 
now, i huddle with the other tangerines.
we take turns eating each other's 
flashlight glow.
i am never quite full enough. 

how to get a mortgage 

bury your teeth in the front lawn
of an abandoned house.
in a city of vacant rooms,
you are the dog. we are all running from
the debris of the fiber glass moon.
you carry a bag on your back 
full of snow globes. each of them
are a place you died. you have
collected much more than nine lives.
the cats are not jealous of the ways
you keep coming back in search
of a place to chew your nails
like everyone else. to own the land
would mean to kill it.
to say, here is the blood i turned
into a landscape. into a rose bush.
instead, i want
to lay down & let the moss
build a house for me. 
give me a swimming pool full 
of rice. a cupboard of canned beans.
basement full of secret whales.
sometimes i swallow peach pits
in the hopes that one
will grow a house boat. 
little raft between my ribs.
i walk for years until i reach
a beach covered in tea pots.
there a shark washes up
on the shore to tell a prophecy.
"this will be water again," he says.
you blink your eyes & you see it.
the depths. your childhood home
in the bottom of a fishtank.
goldfish as neighbors.
they put a veil on your head
& tell you, "please be descent." 

men on fire

i've never learned how
to run away from god
but the men who race motors bikes
in the city seem to know how.
a police siren spits its teeth
at the asphalt. i wonder 
who its going to eat
& if the men know how
they plant to evade the color red. 
i am headed to a cemetery 
in my head where i can go & be
five years ago. i don't know
what i was then but i am 
a nostalgia sick creature.
i wear mice in my brain 
& feed them every coin i can find.
when we drive & you sing to me
i become something else.
be sweet like we used to be.
be a cup of heavy cream.
sometimes i want to join them.
buy a motorized bike
& try to catch up. discover
all the men are angels on their way
to make their heaven mischief.
we give the immortal too much credit.
all they want is a hoagie 
& a diet coke. somewhere a building
gets its neck broken 
from too many hungers.
people evacuate & stand 
on the street corner,
looking up at it. the cemetery i visit
does not allow flowers or men.
i tell the stones,
"i am neither" & they wink at me.
a dragon dies in a front lawn.
the world is not deep enough
to bury it. i hear the bikes again
as they go around the block
for the second time. the police car 
is running without eyes.
you park the car
at the look out & the city 
is one big siren. i tell you,
"i am on my way" &
i am talking into a tin can.
you are not on the other line
or else you are & just 
don't know what to say.