self-portrait as a poppet

get the wax. get the rope.
i'll be your effigy
& tell the fire all your secrets. 
you doll-walk with me
into the secret basement.
who do you need?
i can stand in for a wound
as large as a crater. divers 
in the belly water. i can be
the knife that walks on four legs.
i can be the dancer without air.
i know what you need 
is a place to cut the guitar open
& find the foot. i know you are
just hoping that maybe 
one body can be another.
sometimes i will find a spider dead
in her own web. you hold me 
& tremble. the night without 
any swing sets. just the mirrors
marching all through the house.
i used to think i could save both
of us. be empty enough 
to let the fury gallop through me
& onward into some other crockpot house.
instead, you have me now.  you talk to me
like i am a bowl of mother-eyes.
my wax flesh. the heat. 
a tongue on a trapeze wire. 
i am not unsympathetic & maybe
that is a fault. i just know what it feels like
to have a rupture that demands to be fed. 
i can be that for you today
but in the night when i am gone
& the mirrors have grown wings,
you will have to see your mouth. 

lipstick

when i paint my lips they always
get ideas & become moths.
blue & wing-beating. 
i have to spend the night chasing them
through the streets of a mother city.
when i tell you "i miss the mountain"
i mean i miss the threat of bears
& watching the raccoons try on lipstick
in the trash can sanctuary.
i held a seance for trees once
& all they could talk about was
their desire to grow leaves of
impossible colors like indigo 
& teal. i think unnatural gets 
a bad rap. there's no fun in blooming
only when you are full. i come from
a long line of people who have tattooed 
skipped stones into our hands.
the planet left footprints once
& now we don't even look for them.
the only trouble is that i always 
draw on my lips too large. it isn't because
i'm looking for volume it's because
my hands are shakey. broken trails.
the deer path into the lemon village.
stone thrown into water. my ripple talking.
circling the walnut. a stained pair
of giant searchlights.
someone will find me in between
the sidewalk cracks. i will be dazzling
& they will ask me where
i got a mouth like this. i won't even
be able to speak. gesturing around me
to all the winged insects, maybe they will
understand that my lips are all around us. 

cat flowers

i love spelling mistakes.
i don't feel like english is a language
worth trying to speak properly.
instead, let's take the cat flowers
& have a party on our porch for dissidents
& tongue rejects. for those of us
with teeth carved from limestone. 
i'll invite the deer. i'll invite dear.
you once tried to say "i love you"
& you said, "i loathe you."
i felt relief to have the distances here
collapsed for all to see. if you have not
opened a window & waited for rain
then you are not really as winnowed
as you think. i put the car radio on 
& everyone was speaking pig latin.
i hope you do not say what you mean.
instead, i want to hear the night mash.
the half-gutted trout on the cutting board.
promise me we do not have a house in common. 
a toy room. a roaming dart board.
an unsteady hand. i shake the camera.
write a pastel history of the word, "go."
we all are just one kicked door
away from gods. in the attic 
we disagree about "invaluable." 
throw the family costume jewelry 
out of the open window. watch them
turn into crows on the way down.
a whole flock now as hungry as ever.
i hope we can agree there are too many consonants. 
i work my pocket knife around
your "quiet" until it is just a soft
"ohhhh," sound. the truth is
i do not know what i mean. i do not know
if the words do either. there have been
so many times you have said,
"say something" & nothing but grease
has come out. i type words into search engines
in the hopes they will know what i mean,
begin, "how do you know if"
& end "hurting you." 

aquarium 

our reflections stood in the shark tank.
we were divers wherever we went. 
you tried to climb into the water
so many times. i held your hand.
i preened your gills in the women's bathroom
where we were both lying. 
there was a someone pretending
to be a mermaid in the tall blue tank.
she waved at the crowd. you wept.
you asked me, "why aren't we gone?"
sometimes we use another person
as an escape. i did not mind being that
you for you. summer did not have
enough teeth to chew us & swallow.
my car died every time we tried to leave campus.
we gave in & took to walking the ugly creek.
ugly only because they had stolen
all the sharks & there was too much litter.
we harvested chip bags & twinkie wrappers
but they always returned. 
i don't remember how we got to
the aquarium but it felt urgent.
like if we didn't go our species would leave
without us. a tube of jelly fish worked
towards a prophecy. you & me relearned
how to swim. my name, like a murmuration
in the deep. here & then so gone.
i sometimes wonder what
would have happened to us if i would
have let you go. released your hand
& watched you lower yourself
into the shipwreck tank. would you
have grown back your gills?
would i have had no choice
but to follow you? scales & fins. breaths
coming as crystal balls. shoes by
the side of the creek. feet in the cool water.
did you want to love me?

charm bracelet 

i have a habit of turning grief 
into tiny horses & frogs &
sometimes even a ferris wheel. 
my first ex bought me a charm bracelet
& filled it as quickly as he could.
he bought me teeth & shovels. he bought
me wedding rings that we walked through
to reach his backyard.
you can take a thumb & smooth
over any pain you like. i have written
my life in pastels. sunset sunset sunset. 
a river started in the bathroom
& i cried because i did not know
who i could tell & who would even
believe me. my favorite charm
was a crown. i could pretend i was 
waiting for my coronation. queen of the attic.
queer of miniature halos. 
he cut off my feet to make charms.
then moved on to take
each of my windows.
he was obsessed with making memories
which is to say he was a historian
of the present. once, in an emptying mall,
he caught a pigeon to eat whole.
the chinese restaurant glowing red
was the only other store open.
i considered running inside & begging
to be a worker there. let me chop cabbage 
& answer phone calls from the sea of lips. 
he held me, same as the pigeon,
& asked how many more charms 
i could fit around my neck. 
he counted before i could answer.
"one the size of a house," he said,
thumb across the chain. 
i would take years for me to remove
the bracelet. even now sometimes
i will find a window. pull it out
& watch as it swells again to normal size.
outside there is a tree of feet. 
autumn comes & they fall it pairs 
eager to run away. 

medicine cabinet 

i don't have enough money 
for the good remedy. instead i look in the mirror
& wait for geese to fly out. 
i have had to put my eyes
back into my head with nothing
but a pair of tweezers. to be sick
is to be an oracle whether
you like it or not. i have been told,
"you are very brave" as if i am the neck
of a rosary. as a kid, i was just as much of
a medicine cabinet connoisseur. 
my favorite was at my great aunt's house.
it was a huge & chrome framed with a mirror.
inside there were nothing but little ghosts.
men in a long line. dirt on their hands.
sometimes though i would open it
& find a shredded wedding dress.
once & only once i found a tiny jar
of eyelashes. a secret is a place you go
to be real. a sickness is the opposite.
today is a good day. today is a day
i would not take the cure if
i opened my cabinet & found it 
perched there waiting for me. there are
other kinds of days where i would 
gladly take the life of one of those ghosts.
drink the blood of an angel. put the eyelashes 
on my tongue & wait for them to fix me.
another time i was at a lover's house.
i knew i would not see him again.
i wanted to know something else
about him. something true. i opened
his cabinet to find a little trumpet,
sitting bell to the ground. i imagined 
him playing there, tiny instrument 
to his lips. i shut the door. left feeling guilty
that i knew more than he meant me to.

my brother's wife

he calls to tell me
"i'm married now."
we are urgent people.
runaway wedding kind
of people. i get in the car.
drive over a heavy orange moon.
i know something is wrong.
when i get to his house
the door is a ring of fire.
i duck to pass through.
standing on the neck
of the kitchen sink faucet
is a bird. 
he says, "this is my wife."
she is a wren i think 
or else some other kind 
of escaped star.
i am worried for him.
the little bird makes us
pancakes. the door flames swell
& i dab sweat from my face.
he says, "we are so happy."
the fridge door makes
a kissing sound as it opens.
she eats worms from
the palm of his hand while 
our forks scrap across
the syrup-drenched plates.
i want to ask him what he means
by all of this. she is 
a bird. how did they meet?
does he plan to become
a bird too? i do not ask
any of these questions.
we are also people of 
the most laden silences. 
skipped stones. she whistles 
from her perch. i feel panicked.
i open all the windows 
in the house. he says,
"what are you doing?"
i shout to her. i say,
"go! get out!" she takes
the first opening. lingers
on the sill for a moment 
& then break into flight.
my brother is furious. 
the fire enters the kitchen.
smoke stampedes. i get out
the window too. i tell him
over & over that i am sorry
even though i'm not sure
if i am. i am worried that
i do not know him anymore.
his little captured wife.
he laments, "it's going to take forever
for me to get her back."
how do you to tell someone,
"i want you to be happy."
i should not have opened
the windows. fed the fire
the world's air. i see her singing everywhere.
my brother's wife, with her brown feathers
& her penny-colored mouth. 
he looks for her. i see him too.
standing in a tree. perched 
on the orange moon. hand full
of writhing worms. 

beef jerky

we are not tender. we come
from the toughest parts of the animal.
the sundried tongues & the windshield wiper tails. 
summer does not have enough fireflies for us.
their holy lights dot the july blue dark.
i sit shotgun while dad drives. his hands
are beef jerky. his teeth are beef jerky.
his eyes are beef jerky. we are going
to the beer store where the boy at the counter
will be a zoo keeper. his eyes like bees.
i climb the mountains of beer cases.
wonder briefly why they mean so much
to my father. he drinks like each bottle
is a lung. smashed on the driveway.
he told me once that beer is bread.
i thought of mass. the bread becoming body. 
our bodies in bottles. i would choose 
to live inside a green bottle if i had to. 
i love their emerald glow. 
by the cash register there is always a jar
of beef jerky. dad buys me the biggest piece.
i start eating it while he lugs 
just new skeleton into the jeep.
we have roof off even though 
it's going to rain. i chew flesh. my own
or my father's. our tongues, like jump rope.
he carries the cases of beer inside.
i linger on the porch. the fireflies float
like holy bottles in a great river of sweat. 
my father does not say anything else to me
all night. uses his lungs. the fabric walls of the house. 
smells like a drowned moon. all the while, i eat. 
sweet salt. the last bites of the jerky.
an animal running all through the night. 

one-way roads in allentown

i don't need to go home.
each pothole is full of gold.
i consider pulling over. becoming
a prophet & filling my hands
with ice cream. 
we become the needle's eye.
all the birds fly through. i am jealous 
of the paths of bikes. they scale
the skyscraper's legs. let's not pretend
we had a door. let's not try
to say we had anything to do
other than clean the windows again.
it is autumn which means one day soon
the heater will resurrect
& the building will become so hot
we all boil. chicken flesh
in the oiled sun. i take another 
wrong angel. the alley is blocked
by trash bins. every day is 
trash day in the holiest corners
of the knot. have you ever 
tied your fingers together?
stoplights like wedding rings. 
you call & ask if i am dead. i do not know
how to answer. talk to text,
"i am a hive." the city's wooden leg.
gutters full of muck leaves 
& eye blinking up. i find my way out.
the trunk is full of swan. 
i park on a different block. walk 
through a field of balloons
to reach the strangled lawn. 
we still don't have curtains.
i can see right inside
our first-floor apartment. ribs & all. 

(de)forest

return is a practice of loss.
i take you to quietest part of the forest 
where i used go to worship the moss
& plant my tongue.
i still feel my unsaid prophecies here. 
now though, it is no longer quiet. 
we walk past a tall chain-link fence 
where on the other side,
bodies are building a mausoleum. 
machines scream & beep. an alarm 
sounds like a box cutter through the air.
all around, the earth is torn.
deep scars in the soil. roots grab handfuls
of all the before. 
we walk farther than i ever walked
to try to escape the destruction zone. 
finally we come to a place where
all we can hear are the crows.
you ask me what i think they're saying.
i do not tell you i think they are 
talking about us. they do not remember me.
i want to tell them, "i have tried
to be gentle." they worry we are more people
charting hunger into the old growth.
we find oyster mushrooms blooming
like ancient ears on the shoulders
of an old tree. i like to point out to you
the smallest mushrooms. orange ones
& even blue ones. what i really want
is to walk until i become one.
until my gills stretch & my veil pulls back. 
this is a fantasy of escape. instead,
i apologize to the forest for leaving.
a romantic notion that i could
have somehow stopped the construction.
not alone, i remind myself, 
maybe a flock of us so lush they would
not be able to tell if we were skeletons or branches. 
out here the false divide between us 
& nature collapses gloriously. 
i am not a mushroom but i did come,
as my ancestors did, from a wild root
in the deep belly of the earth. 
drank the sun. worshipped the moss.