full moon

when the full moon comes
everyone loses their eyes.
it is just a matter of 
whether you notice it or not.
we go outside to try to help others
before we help ourselves.
that leads to a quarry of eyes.
eyes in strawberry patches 
& eyes in the pockets of greedy men
who want to see more than they were given.
when i used to work the crisis hotline
calls always increased around
the full moon. 
people would say, "i need my eyes.
i need my eyes."
i would say, "i am here for you."
by which i meant. "i am here
for you in the dark." 
the trouble is that they mistake eyes 
for light. eyes for waking up.
once, my mother called & i pretended
not to know her. she said,
"i was eating the ceiling again
& then the planets started to blink."
what you see & what is there
is not always the same thing.
sometimes i see centipedes 
& they are really just seams where
one world bunches up against
the next. let's reject the blindness metaphor.
this is not about sight
but about control. if i can see
the hole in the ozone i can 
keep walking away from it. if i can see
my neighbors i can remind myself
i am not them & they are not me. 
eyes in the cupboard. eyes in the cereal box. 
the big secret is that the moon
is just one big eye. it always blinks
the exact same time as you
& thus we miss it. i didn't want to end
the call with my mother.
i told her, "we are alright"
& "tomorrow the moon will shrink."
deflating balloon. the stolen eye
with a little green halo for an iris. 
i pick up the phone & talk to anyone
i can find. i ask,
"whose runaway do you see?" 

telephone

we talk about skin & the boys 
we no longer want to be in love with.
i lay on my stomach, girlhood style,
while we talk for hours on an after in august.
we decide we hate fireworks
& that sex is actually better without completion.
for years you have lived only inside my phone.
i hate the phrase "long distance"
& i replace it with "last distance."
without our flesh, what do we become
to each other? shadows? banana leaves? 
suite cases? you are chasing a boy 
to boston. i am chasing a burning house. outside,
the sky is orange from forest fires in canada.
i become increasingly aware
i will probably never see you again.
there was a chance earlier this year.
i was in your town. i was sitting
at a bus stop eating my own hair. i could
have called you. instead, i kept running.
i hate the word "adult" because it is always 
handcuffed to "being an" adult which i think
is just what the world uses 
to steal us from each other. i talk
about all my friends like lovers because
we are. not like candle-lit mouths
but like running from the furnace. 
when we hang up, i walk from room to room.
log on to my computer to 
be an ouroboros for the night,
scrolling until i see a picture of you.
the film reel blanket. i hope you follow him
to the city & i hope it is everything you crave.
call me after & tell me what
the sky smelled like where you are.
mine in still a bonfire. my lungs 
like two shoes kicked off at the front door. 

goat mother

we could be the television repair men. 
i hold up a tape recorder to ask
"is your tongue loose?" i have a cupboard
just for lungs. breathe soot. breathe boots.
the goat mother is a place you go when 
you need to make something useless.
tell me i am not the cow you wanted. i am
a goat on the roof. i am the mother of all horns.
i am the architect of underworlds. we knock
on doors hoping one will open to reveal a whale. 
the town sometimes catches fire 
& we have to cover our eyes & pretend it was 
no one's fault. sometimes a person just
dies by murder. the passive voice says,
"look at the goldfish." i look at the goldfish
& they are all skeletons. when the television is broken
there's no use in running around & looking
for manna where there is none. this is what i mean
when i say i want to be a repair man. i want
to come in through the window & say,
"we don't have to look at the mail box anymore,
let's turn our thoughts into stratus clouds."
every once in awhile after seeing something happen
i will put my eye in gum wrappers.
unplug the television just to find it is 
so well maintained that it just keeps going.
i sometimes wonder if i have been conditioned 
to fav or untruths. they are generally more
comfortable. tell me i am good. tell me
i am the goat mother or else at least
that there is one looking out for me. i make
a plate of feathers & ring a bell calling, "dinner!"
you haven't lived until you've spent a year
only eating air. eyes like back doors. sneak out with me.

giant

have you ever become so huge
there's nothing big enough 
for you to eat? i crouch beside the red cedar. 
my body bigger than our house. i do not know
how i ended up in the bones of a mammoth
but my fingers make earthquakes 
when they touch the soil. this is what
i've always feared most. that i will become
so capacious there will be nowhere to rest. 
this is the giant's fate. to always keep
one eye open so as to not crush everything he loves.
the planet, like a gumball. blue flavor. quick night.
trying to find a pasture without cows
to sleep. i have dealt with my head as a balloon
& having frog skin for a whole summer
but nothing is as terrible as being a giant. 
when other humans see me they put on 
sunglasses. they hold their breath 
like they are going through a tunnel.
i wish someone would come & be a giant
with me. that we could maybe take care
of a little flock of cows. tend them. 
dress ourselves in moss & strings of lilac & hyacinth. 
then, in the dark, tell stories of our smallest selves.
whispering, "thimble" & "needle eye."
you then replying, "robin's egg" &
"strawberry seed." i've heard you have to wait
for transformation. that it is both of you
& around you. i am waiting to be
small enough to feast again. i am waiting
for a bed that will hold all my teeth 
as they fall like rain from a cloud that follows me.
when i am manageable-sized the first thing
i'm going to eat is an entire watermelon.
you see, i am prone to hugeness. 
there is not a house big enough. a ceiling
that doesn't strain under the sound
of my longing. would you come though
& be hungry with me? i want to dream flavors.
conjure our violet escapes. 

olive oil

my great grandmother feeds me spoonfuls
from where she rests as a hugeness.
the ghosts become larger before
they shrink to the size of strawberries.
little bells rung only when you wander
too far from the blood zoo. 
i have been told there are too many
& not enough geese. when i say "light as 
a feather" i mean this is how we walk
with the dead. careful not to ask too many questions
or else the haunting might become
our sleep lily. i have never known enough
about where i come from. instead i am
the walking chair. here are the limbs.
here is the island. the jump rope without jumpers.
in a dream we are all running from 
dinosaurs. only, one is a man in the family
& we all have to pretend we love him.
the thing about olive oil is that it is
both gold & green. my great grandmother loved
to use it for everything. floated in a glass of water
for divination. rubbed on the back of a fish
to bring it back to life. 
an olive tree grows sometimes in the yard.
no one else can see it & it speaks 
in riddles that lead nowhere.
"who is red & also translucent?"
"what is a hand without a bird?" in the end
i just eat what i can. put my tongue out
when she asks. let the olive oil turn me
into a chicken heart. a strawberry.
the open window where we let 
the dead in. they crack their knuckles.
play cards with moth corpses. 
i lock the door some nights 
then hear them scratching 
like stray cats. "go home," i say.
"you are our home," they whisper. 

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?