how to breathe

i am sorry. i can only tell you
what i've done to breathe.
this will not work for everyone. 
i knit gills from the stray threads
of my mother's knitting.
one follicle at a time. blue & purple
& speckled brown. all the while
trying to fill my lungs with coins.
what will you take with you
when you turn back to the water?
this is how i think of memory:
the fish in me that craves the deepest
depth the ocean can offer. cave or chasm
or trench. there, trading in our eyes
for prophecies, i will rest. i have always been
hungry for what i cannot breathe.
give me ghost knots & smoke. give me
the piano wire hair of angels. 
i could never understand why
everyone else was alive on the playground
& i was so dead. i'd walk down 
to the creek where there floated 
all the bodies of not-girls. i would
talk to them & they would tell me
all i needed was water. cattails & tall grass.
the gills now like a pleated skirt
which i wear to hear everyone talking.
tell me, what organs have you made
to stay alive? i have one single wing,
a third eye, & the gills. the other children
with their big lungs full of gnats.
they don't even know how loud
their throats are. we know though.
we hear every breath. the snakes in the grass
tell me, "do not dream of being like them."
i lie & tell the snakes, "i don't."
of course i do. who doesn't want
to inhale & have the whole world 
bent to our tongue? that has never been
what i've known. though, lately,
my teeth have been piano keys. 
i invite the minnows to come & play. 

costume jewelry

tell me it's okay
to miss my sickness sometimes. 
how a mania can form a burrow
where everything glints in the light.
we go to the flea market where each stand
is a little graveyard. whose pearls around
skipping around my neck? whose heads
rolled out of their felt hats? the dead birds
circling overhead waiting to take back
their feathers. i sometimes like to believe
in false gods. i prefer costume jewelry
over the real stuff. i like a diamond
without a tongue. a ruby that would
snap under foot. maybe it is because
they are so much more like me.
i have a set of teeth i use just to say,
"i am doing well how about you?"
sometimes my crazy is my favorite
little worm field. look at the chandeliers.
look at the centipedes. i'm not afraid
of worshipping vacancies. i catch
our reflection in the sapphire. my warped
water balloon face. running into a furnace
of glass eyes. let's not pretend 
there wasn't a wound in the ground
where the bones came out. i am promising
that once you get over the fact
that the necklace is not going
to talk back to you, you can say anything.
i pray for trees to grow pearls. i pray
for platinum nights & to loose my feet
to the escape. sliding along a collar bone 
of a dead girl. me, the dead girl
dressed to the nines in costume jewels.
this is what i mean when i talk about
my other life. there she was & also
there she never ever was. 
now, let me go off & be delusional.
i do not want to know these are made
of glass. tell me we are the gold children.
tell me the bugs on the walls 
are not bugs at all, but gems. 

vacuum gut 

i breathe in the dust 
in an attempt to find gold.
or else i am kidding myself.
i know i look for trouble. 
run my tongue across the floor.
here are the paper clip funerals.
then, the eye lash speakeasies.
everyone is hiding something
& i love to clean because
you can find clues on the ground.
once i found a runaway note
from my father
when i was vacuuming 
my parents' house. he said,
"i am a crow now." i put the letter
in my mouth & chewed. 
the body is great at making sense
of debris. i cough whenever
i smell bleach. it is the scent of
"i do not want you to know
what was done here." i have lived
a crime scene life. weeks ago
opening the guts of the vacuum
to find a single tooth. it was 
not my tooth. i know someone
was here gnawing on
the stairs. it has made me
an expert at hiding the seam.
the key must be swallowed 
as a limb. goodbye nighttime.
cloth moved across a greasy stove.
we have been doing nothing
but roasting lamb. by lamb
i mean a child. by a child
i mean myself as a child. 
she sleeps in the oven. peers
out of the door. asks me,
"is it time yet?" i keep working.
wipe down the toilet. the walls.
my own face. once i found
tangles of tinsel. i plucked them
from the innards of the machine.
braided them together. joy is best
kept like this. small & unexpected.
i get on my knees &
continue to worship. 

botanical cure for all despair 

the doctor fills my mouth with dirt.
i try to talk & say, "i want a cherry blossom"
but he cannot hear me
& so he plants a pear tree.
i am a child of pear trees.
the one outside my aunt's house.
how she never harvested the fruit 
until instead of pears, eyes grew.
then mouths. the mouths said,
"why are you not hungry for me?"
the doctor is not a doctor 
but a boyfriend. haven't you ever
believed in love as a panacea?
well, not quite love. when i say love here
i me desire. when i say desire i mean
he took everything he could from me.
i have stuck shovels in my flesh.
lied & said, "i have playdough lungs."
breathed in the noise of an unlocking door.
the taste of soil. how it stings
& sooths. how it carries
the bone shards of the first mammals
who ran, terrified from a ball of fire
in the sky. why are we not worshipping
the sun? why are we not having secret
rendezvous with the ghost of the moon?
the pear tree grows & grows
& like all promises, is abandoned
by the planter. the roots. the branches.
the children who come to climb there
& carve their initials into my throat.
i tell them, "it is not love if it means
you must destroy." then again
here i am with a stomach full
of ancestors. each of them a pear.
each of them fallen in the yard,
rotting like a pile of shoes. 
then, the flesh is sweet. then i weep
in the form of fledglings. 
then the doctor says, "it is a miracle."
cure is a synonym for 
"i want to forget you."

potential museums

in my parent's bedroom
i label each artifact. here is
the only full-length mirror 
in the whole house. 
here is mom's makeup bag
that smells like roses. the dried
lipstick. the fractured blush pan.
everywhere is a museum
if you live like me, with history rot
in your mouth. i have gone there too.
labeled your tongue, "unknown artist."
no i don't believe in curators
or even really picture frames. 
let the penguins run wild. let them
talk to the pigeons &  conspire
to their heart's content.
my father was a builder of museums too.
he mad them in the basement. 
little replicas of us. he would say,
"here is my hungry daughter"
making the eyes blink at me. 
i am the patron saint of falling short.
of calling in the middle of the night
just to hang up. each telephone 
worthy of a plaque that reads,
"we missed our flight." let's not
forget about bathrooms.
the trashcan labeled "tell me more."
what about the gift shops though?
they are always about try
to take that which cannot
be taken. it is a museum after all
not a gender. once i had a boy
reach in my mouth & take one
of my teeth. or was that my father?
or do i have two teeth missing?
it is best not to worry too much
about the underground collection.
a museum is what you see. is what
you want to bury like a king.
the work of a museum is never done.
each room has the capacity 
for fracturing into a shrine.
i will not let this be a shrine.
this is for the greedy & the guiltless.
will you come with me just to look?

the last light bulb 

everyone is always saying "i remember when."
nostalgia demands butter & throats.
this is to say, i remember when
they grew on trees. when, in a moment
of darkness we would go out with 
our open palms & return with enough bulbs
to make a new sun. the problem with 
looking back is it's always a miniature lie. 
the trees sung during storms. threw their eyes
at the gravel driveway. begged us, "learn
to speak into the shadow."
i cry but only gumballs come out.
then, only little prizes wrapped in plastic. 
the gathering begins after dusk.
word passed from knuckle to knuckle
then tooth to tooth. 
there is one more bulb alight on a sycamore tree.
the shadows stretch the length
of every hunger we've ever had. we follow it.
like moths. like disasters. like fodder fish
to the angler's question. how will 
you use your light? this is something
no one ever asked me. so, i spent as much
as i could on windows. on pine sol & 
trumpets. there is a new religion 
for the final bulb. they worship without eyes.
fill their sockets with replicas of dim lightbulbs.
i am told if you are not careful
you will begin to worship the past.
i hold up my hand in the glow 
of the bulb. see the shadow, an unfettered spider
reaching for a breath of absent gold. 

city on my face

there is a stoplight
between every one of my teeth.
i expect to see you in the morning
when the pigeons turn into police.
you will pass me & take a bite
out of my skull. all the balloons
will pour out & make a threat.
there is a camera we can wear
as a necklace. it blinks like
an eye & captures your every move.
i am going to a museum to become
the relic people want to worship.
no one likes a living monument.
i have had purses hung on my tongue.
shouldering through a crowd 
of mimes. here is the wall. here is
the box we're in. if you take 
a black light to my neck
you'd see all the footprints &
not in a sexy way. if you
took a thumb to my lips
you'd become a new street preacher.
the end is coming or else 
it will be laminated & in brochure form.
i define a city as anywhere 
we go to be ravenous. to be thirsty.
there are no where cities & everywhere cities.
that means you are always there
& you are always gone. sometimes
i would, arrogantly worry 
about running into you
as if the ocean doesn't have bigger 
destinies to align. as if the ghosts 
don't have enough chess to play
at the park. a street eats its own legs
& then eats me. my phone rings
& it is not you. it is a rat that
crawls out & onward 
into a hole in the atmosphere. 

proportions of a crucifix 

you didn't grow up catholic
if you didn't think that maybe
the adults gathered at night
& sometimes chose someone new
to crucify. i would check my own hands
& my father's for stigmata or scars.
i was fascinated by the gore. 
once, when no one else was home,
took the crucifix down
from above the living room
& traced the tributaries 
of jesus's blood. the gash on his side.
tiny gems of blood forming
a second halo. wondered if salvation
was something i should be able
to feel. almost like a wound.
every year i was the altar boy
for the stations of the cross 
at our church. it was the only time 
i was really interested in god. 
his head was always too big
on the crosses we had. i held one.
a hot air balloon. tears. the weight in my arms.
his hands contorted like pinned spiders.
the heft little queer not-boys bear. 
candles. incense. 
i am not that enticed 
by the question "why would god
sacrifice his only son?" i know
what a father is. i know what it means
to be a gender. to always fall short.
i am however drawn to blood.
this is the one thing i take away
from being catholic. the blood.
the milk. the body. how the cross is
always too big for jesus 
or always too small. it is as if
he is trying to fit into a mythology
or a mythology is trying
to fit into him & i know 
exactly what that feels like.
i really did think that. that maybe
the adults got together
& sometimes selected a new god.
tied them down to planks
of wood maybe out behind
the rectory. i always wondered
if this was an honor or a curse.
i feared at every gathering
a ritual like this might begin. 
planned several escapes. a dash 
into the cornfield. hiding beneath
the blue station wagon. 
a queer not-boy trying to out run
the blood that would come from being a son. 

we talk about the weather but really we're talking about the distance between us

i am so glad to go outside again.
the daffodils have tongues out 
& eyes blinking at the ardent light. 
yesterday it snowed in april
& i almost called you 
to ask if you remember when we 
built a house from the snow. 
you would not have been home then.
we talk in the driveway. i wonder if
you still call me "niece" 
when i am not around. it is almost always better
to not know how others speak of you. 
they can conjure all the ghosts they want.
you tell me soon it will be 
baseball season. baseball season is
always just around the corner.
the sun is getting bigger they say.
a thunderstorm is coming. a blizzard
is in the pillowcase. i love to wake up
to the fog, you say & i imagine
you walking the dirt paths 
that weave between the corn fields.
in the fog i disperse. i become a silk scarf,
or, worse, a veil. winds are picking up.
pull leaves from the oak trees.
hands slapping the pavement.
it will be time to remove the storm windows.
then it will be time to turn off the heat.
put the jackets back in the foyer. 
those itchy red gloves. you tell me
you look forward to the heat. 
i tell you that i put in my air conditioners
this morning. stood in front of the cool air.
hurricane season is no longer a season,
it is a way of life. naming the children
who will tear the shingles from the roof.
i wonder if, in the back of your freezer,
there's still a sphere of hail 
from the time they fell the size of golf balls.
we harvested them like the seeds 
of future faces. if it is there, i think 
i want it back. i do not call you though.
it rains. nothing grand or extravagant.
the kind of rain not worth talking about.

community guidelines 

do not speak the name of the devil fish. 
instead, call him "father." do not look
off camera at the ghost. do not ever
insinuate that the world is ending.
the world is not ending, it is just
a permanent temporary fire.  instead of
"grief" say "guts." instead of "guts"
say "gills." are you breathing? good.
you are not allowed to die here. instead,
if you feel like you need to, you can
be unalive in the garden of thumbs.
do not talk about who is killing the bees.
instead, make a diorama of the dead bees.
make them beautiful. do not name
the person who chased you with 
a kitchen knife. instead, call him, 
"television" or, if you must, call him,
"nowhere." instead of "nowhere" say
"a place in which nothing exists."
if a hole opens in the universe
while you are filming, you should
pretend it is not happening. we would
not like to upset the future generations
who will look to you like a god. gods
defining quality is that they are not afraid. 
instead, pretend it is just a swarm
of butterflies. instead of "love"
say, "butter." instead of "hungry"
say, "elevator." there are so many words,
why be vulgar? why not be clean?
if you are clean everyone will see you
& even if only for moment they might
just think, "that is a prophet."
but, do not ever say "prophet"
instead say, "neighbor." most of all though
do not say you are witnessing 
a massacre. "massacre" is not advertiser friendly.
you want to be advertiser friendly.
instead, turn your tongue over like
a bedsheet. invite your followers to rest there.
then, in the dark, without the camera on,
you can talk to them if you must.
instead of "massacre" you can say, "country."