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. 

you ask me what animal i'd like to live as

i answer, "an animal without a god."
i have woken up with hooves & gills. i have
run into traffic like a deer trying to return.
sat on the telephone pole, talking
to angels that are not there. let my feathers 
turn into red cedars. my body,
the plot of earth where my parents
built us a house from ribs. did you know
how long it takes for a skeleton to surface
from the skin? we have little burials
in our yard & i have yet to see anything
but obsidian. the little underworlds i keep.
i have crawled into holes in the wall.
thrived in the damp under-tongue
of the house. i do not think any of these
ventures were born from desire.
you change as much as you need to 
in order to survive. this is why some of us
do not remember what species we're
supposed to be. yesterday i woke up
& was hunted by wolves. the next day
i was the wolves. i wept when 
i saw my face in a darkened dead television
on the side of the road. i'd like to be lonely.
i'd like to be a herded heart. i'd like to be
with you in the afterlife. i'd like strangers
to gather & stare at my guts 
like a beached sea monster, thinking,
"what on earth was that?" maybe what
i really mean is, "will you be my god?"
i ask that of you one night when
all we have are our knees. the little 
mockingbird that flies out of my mouth.
you kill her after asking her permission
to be devoured. she says,
"anything for this." she ends up
tasting like mulberries. 

orchid maker

so badly i want to be delicate.
i talked to the feathers to hear
how they found their bodies. they answered,
"a rip in the old tongue where
all the sorrow spilled out." the teeth
i traded for velvet. in the outside forest,
everyone is always scrambling for fingers
but i managed to dig up five. a hand. a fist.
i never planned to tell anyone 
of what i was making.
i thought the orchid could be a secret
between me & the wood demons. 
i could watch her grow. close my eyes
& pretend she was a ghost like me.
instead, she could not stop. her faces,
multiplied under the sapphire moon.
i snipped every head i could find. i begged,
"let it be me. let it be me." the last time
i was delicate i found a knife 
in my cheek. the flavor of golden blood.
we run for the legs that love us.
chickens screaming in the yard.
i ran until i did not have a head. then,
i was hovering above the ground 
like a hummingbird.  i used to believe
in angels. now, i know they are not interested in
the dirt or the softness. there were so many orchids.
i had to run from them. still, in almost
every room i find myself, i encounter one
mocking me. they say,
"i know how badly 
you want this." my skin peels away
like a clementine rind & i am left
as a little root system. the orchids 
are not the worst children though.
every once in a while, they will kiss
my forehead & in those moments 
i will believe their skin
is my own. i am unmarred. i am soft.
i am a daughter of the first wound,
pink & blaring. 

millipede 

i give myself a new leg 
every time i'm lost.
it started with just ten
& then i was running away
from a family house.
the mailbox full of hair. & then
i was eating breakfast
at a window everyone in the world
could see through.
my legs grow legs. my legs grow 
hunger to be herd animals.
there is safety in numbers
or so i am told. i imagine standing
in a room of legs.
the legs i need to get out of here 
& the legs i need to get back. 
i have moved at least
once a year since i was seventeen
& this year is the year i will break it.
it terrifies me. what if i am 
in a portrait no one told me
they were painting? what if
my father apologizes &
i have to love him in a new way. 
what if i am not capable 
& instead i wake up & my legs
are taking me somewhere new.
somewhere damp & covered
in moss. i try to be gentle
to the new limbs but sometimes
i'm angry. i see them as 
just another impulse to get out.
to cross the country. to burrow
in the veins of a dying city.
the truth is none of my legs
are good for running. not the ones
on my body or the ones to come.
my legs fold & ache. my legs tell me
i am going to regret something
in the morning. in the end 
they are agents of orbit. 
someone will come & ask,
"where are you from?" & i will
admit, "right here." i point
to my eye. there is, like a snow globe
a perfect replica of the house
where i learned terror
& comfort eat from each other's hands. 
these are the bread crumbs
of my little lineage. a rapunzel rope
out a window. another leg
to reach the sky's collarbone. 

funeral w/o gender

they will say [     ] was a good [     ].
we tape obituaries to our foreheads
& walk around trying to guess
the causes of night. how
one day there was a [     ]
standing in a father's mouth
& now there is just a body.
i want to be remembered 
by whatever my bones will say. 
i want scientists & historians & 
girls with portals in their hands
to argue about what my flesh means.
some people would be distraught by this
& i understand that but i love to be
the troubled gender. the one without
a mouth. follow in the traditions
of an illegible lineage. was [     ]
really a [     ]? or was [     ] a [     ]?
as if there are enough holes 
in the sky to find an answer.
the dead cut out their own tongues.
it is the last ritual before 
departing one life to begin the next.
i am told by the worms 
that there is time for a verdant rest.
someone holding just my skull.
my jaw as rusted as the back screen door. 
tell me what you think you know.

the man upstairs

he says he misses you when you are gone.
sometimes you pretend he is your father.
other times, a toothless dog. he walks
with a huge stick. keeps his teeth 
in a cloud. shows you a scar
on his arm where they, "took him apart."
sometimes you believe he is a ghost.
other times you can hear the radio
through the walls & you can tell he is
listening to a sharpening knife.
you bake him bread one night. 
the hallway smells like rotten wood
& mice. he eat it in front of you
like he's never seen a meal before.
another day he knocks on your door
until the door becomes a pie tin.
you never have enough sugar. he needs
a haircut so you do it on the porch
with nothing but your hands. you pull out
nests & salamanders. overturn rocks.
once you catch him laying in the river
& you think he might be dead. 
he is not. instead, he is trying
to become a bird. isn't that 
what all men upstairs want? you would
not believe how many times i have
lived beneath a man. on broadway 
& then on union & then again
in the licorice dark of a jump rope room.
my father is just about as heavy
as the man upstairs. when i decide to leave
i do not tell him. i am broken hearted 
as if i am him. he plants his spare teeth
between the floor boards. there, on the second floor
of the rowhouse, a tree grows & just laughs. 

escape plans for the dead 

at the old jailhouse
children climb out from between
the bars. there is a lantern man
telling the same story 
of a prisoner who greased himself 
with butter to escape. 
he ran home, unsure of where else
to go. shivered like a gutted windchime
beneath his own bed.
sometimes the rocks will become
an avalanche & sometimes they will
become kissing stones. the roots 
are the veins of a great angry man.
i can never catch my breath
up the hill. bodies of sleeping bears.
they toss & turn at night 
& make the mushroom dogs furious. 
i exist in opposition
to stillness. 
i have paid money to see a cage
full of hands. inside the old jail
there is a replica of the gallows.
a goat hovers either as a sacrifice 
or a promise. what i want to know
is if the roots play cards at night.
if they make bets on who will
lay down in the basement
& who will kiss the warden's daughter
until she turns into a mourning dove.
goodbyes are best made
of glass. a little portal back
into the fog. let's not forget
our penance. the bears are hungry.
i know what we need to do
to keep them asleep. 
the roots twist. handfuls of peaches.
i know you want 
to cover your eyes too.