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. 

neon walking stick

there is no way to tell what is a bug
& isn't a bug anymore. sometimes my
"open" sign will turn to stick bugs 
& i'll have to sell my eyes on ebay again
for a new chance at less panic.
someone pulls the fire alarm 
in the attic & all the horses climb
the stairs. the first time i was paranoid
i think was when i was eight.
the babysitter could hear my thoughts
about becoming a heron & so 
i filled my ears with legos. 
she screamed & i screamed & i hear
nothing for years. the buildings 
that have grown inside me like
little temples. i worship that space
between manias. the breaths of 
moss & yarrow. the "open" sign
walks until it pulses & says,
"goodbye." i know the bugs are
just playing with me. i count them 
in the bathroom & on my face
& in the bed. dear god, i plead with them
to just go & live in the wild green yard.
instead, they expand. street light bugs
& change purse bugs & even bugs
who know the truth about 
how i tried to run away 
& live beneath the roller-skating rink.
sometimes i am grateful that
i see everything & other times 
i want to just be like the paper moths:
flying & spitting dust on the walls. 
nothing is fair but especially
not insects. they come. march 
in a line. make a necklace on the wall.
please tell me you see them too. 

masked men

we used to watch bunkbed movies
on the portable DVD player.
i always wanted to watch the horror ones
& you always wanted to watch romance.
we agreed one night
on v for vendetta. it was december
which is too late in the year
for a revolution. i was falling
out of love with pretending to be
a hydrangea bush. you loved my hair 
as long as i could grow it. your fingers
in my knots. sometimes we talked
about getting married.
i watched the man on the screen.
on the portable player, he was
action figure sized. 
i wanted you to be him which is 
to say i wanted you to be someone else.
someone unknowable. i was in love
with v & evey. their names 
making little currents in my mouth.
i knew i was bisexual
but to see your desires 
kaleidoscoped in motion 
made it real in a way that terrified me.
i thought about standing in
a special kind of mirror
one that would cut us both in half.
not two genders but two runaway selves.
you teased me at the end.
you asked, "do you want me 
to wear a mask?" i flushed.
we turned the lights on in the basement.
i told you, "no." 
at home afterwards 
i showed until the hot water ran out. 
i hoped somehow i could be 
transformed so easily.
instead, i left in a room of clouds.
sometimes i would look in the mirror
& see you standing behind me
even when you weren't there.
i wanted the mask for myself. 

an ode to buffalo bill

they think our joy
must always be stolen. 
tell me you have not dug a hole
in the bottom of your sickness
to capture a scream?
i want to hold a little funeral
for what they say we are. 
for their imaginations
in which we are running in the night,
hunting their skin. instead
we hunt our own flesh. 
i will often look in a mirror
& ask, "where am i?"
oh sweet monster, let's
go where there are no more stories.
where we use sewing machines
to piece back together
the skies they've taken from us.
a broken window. shattered teeth. 
you can tell me 
all the dreams you have
for your body. the silks 
& the furs. i will tell you mine.
they are less extravagant.
i just want to walk on the roof
& sprout feathers.
i have always admired herons 
for their ability to observe.
we can escape if we start
running now. isn't that 
what we have in common?
we're always trying to escape 
from someone. 

car burial 

we hear the kings used to die 
with everything they owned.
when i slept in my car 
i collected small, brilliant joys.
counting the stars i could see
through the moon roof. my little hatch
into the sky. eating a sleeve 
of oreos & brushing the crumbs 
on the floor. every once in awhile 
a sheepman would come
& stare through the windows.
i would pretend to be a doll
until he left. holding as still
as i could. i know i am 
not a king but i have this hunger
to take my tiny delights with me.
it is like trying to walk
with a candle 
on your head.
i hold them like the wrangled necks
of plastic grocery bags.
here are my licorice ropes. here are
my frilled-edge socks 
& a lime green spoon from
the frozen yogurt place. i will
find a place i can just drive 
into the earth. somehow still
i think i will be able to peer
through the moon roof & see
stars in the dark & the soil.
there's no need for coffins
or boxes. i have my rust chariot.
i know i am not a king nor
do i want to be 
i just need to hold this glow. i just
need someone to know 
when they dig me up
that i was not always afraid.
sometimes i laughed 
by myself. i licked my fingers.
i locked the doors 
& never spoke my name 
into the dusk sky least 
it might come & take me. 

a new periodic table of elements 

i know there is something wrong with me
because i think i would make a good angel.
not one of the prophecy angels 
(i've never had great people skills)
but one of the builder angels 
who says things like "what if there was 
an element that sang but only in the dark."
i would take a sketch pad & sit on the moon.
dream all kinds of laughter to be dug
from a hole in the worried earth.
maybe it is arrogance or maybe it is 
a desire to be a painter. i just think
i could sew some delights that humans
would worship. a sweet lavender rock.
maybe bird creatures who were their own
element. in the end though i know i am prone 
to satanhood. i don't think i would
last long as an angel. my inevitable fall
might come from too much ambition
or maybe just being a brat. telling god,
"i don't care if think this is too much."
if i am a patron of anything it is of "too much."
but, i think it would all be worth it.
my new periodic table of trinkets
would remain even after all my feathers
were gone. a certain kind of breeze 
that smelled like cedar smoke. a mineral that
shines but only for queer people.
maybe it is better i am just a poet
with little dreams i spin into fishtanks. 
still, i can see my unfettered devil self.
he-she grants glorious wishes. makes everything
glow radiant & wild. invents enough elements 
to fill a dictionary. to feed every wing.
to stock the sky with pears. 

the coal miner ghosts are still digging

i go to join them. no pix axe or shovel
just our bloodied hands. the mountain
like a sick beast. she spits her eyes out
in bursts of color. i tell the other workers
that there is a flock of birds just beneath
the surface. we work to free them.
there are no birds. instead, there are
remains. pressed angels. wings of
old species. black pupil stones. i want 
to lie to them & tell them to rest.
tell them that we can just let the mountain
swallow us. glass candy people. sun outside 
soupy sky bobbing like a buoy.
they dream of an ending of the vein.
one last rock removed. curing the hills.
nothing left to take. i too have been
in the endless way. a rotten belief that
the work will save you. as if salvation 
has ever been about removal. they come 
& tell us, "just a little more." i think i hear
the birds singing. not the canary
but the blue bird with the peach-red chest.
the trees outside our heads. blossoms 
we give our lovers. i tell the miners
we could run away all together.
if we left together, what would they 
be able to do to us? they do not want
to leave. they are afraid even dead. 
even hundreds of years after the mine
has been closed. after bears have
made makeshift caves of the wounds.
then, still after they've been filled in
with rubble. a scar is a place of abandonment.
if you are lucky, of an escape.  

dehumidifier 

in the mountain house
i learned how to talk to centipedes.
put my ear to the wooden floor
& heard them in the basement 
summoning angels. sometimes 
i miss my old solitude there.
i felt all my seams. snipped them
when i could & watched beetles spill
from my guts. i loved to stay up late
putting on makeup in the smudged mirror.
pretty little prophet in a silk robe.
the chaos of becoming an anchor.
a place for god to bend down
& send pigeons. in the little library box
across the street, i watched the bugs go
to hold their midnight masses. 
a chapel is a place you go to lose a piece
of your body. i thought i needed
to rid the house of clouds so i bought
a dehumidifier. let it drink the sky.
fill its belly with sweat each day.
instead of helping though,
it draw the centipedes in. they congregated.
they said, "this is my new religion."
swarms beneath the tank. i told them,
"i am throwing this all
down the drain." they did not listen.
traveled from far & wide in search 
of a severed creek. we are all just looking
for water. i had to throw the machine away
but even after they kept coming.
i shouted at them, "this is not a lake."
but it was. it was always a lake.
fish skeletons in the air. all the legs
in the whole world, treading water.
the bottom not a question
of how deep but how long
you can last without using your teeth.
my words turned inside out.
there were days i could not speak
to anyone but the bugs. tuning fork tongue.
a ring of bodies where the machine was. 

giftwrap 

we make gifts of the mundane.
a toothbrush in a little red box. a dead bird
in a nest of tissue paper. 
come let's get older. let's eat nothing
but confetti until the cows have wings. 
i am hungry for a taste of luxury.
of velvet packages & mailmen in the sky.
we do not get rich enough or maybe
we get rich too often. i don't know
how to crave without betraying myself. 
i have enough. i have a little cruet 
of oil i use to bless the tangerines.
the deer come to lick the salt pillars
in our yard. i have run from gods before
but now i am safe here. 
it is better to just give them the show they want.
roll the rock. ride the horse.
rip the snakes from the soil. grow dragon beans
& eat them all on one wild night.
i have held my heart like a blue speckled quail egg.
tiny & rattling. let's not get too distracted
by the costume jewelry. there are people
who wear crowns of teeth. if you get
right down to it what i want is a surprise party.
i want every to jump out from behind 
an elephant & say, "you are not dead!"
the gift is the reminder. a kazoo in the pulpit.
chicken & wearing their glow feathers.
i find a block of gold & tell the fairies 
to come & eat it before i get
any ideas about who i am. 

beach house for snakes

let's take a get away. let's buy
the teeth they had in the window.
i have a suitcase full of mirrors,
all of the broken. a fractured moon.
let's bring the spare limbs tonight.
not to alarm you but there are
less & less summers every time you
go out to the tree house. the snakes
buried their legs to use later.
for when time comes apart
like the lips of an orange. lobe by lobe.
we stayed there once. sand in our mouths.
at night, the storms would 
shake every tree. fruit falling like fists.
i held my breath for the whole week.
a light house in the closet.
i sliced it cucumber-wise. no more fur.
no more fire, just the tongue
jumping rope in the hallway.
every draw was full of shed skins.
the snakes, somewhere else. 
always somewhere else. i covered my eyes.
drank nothing but cranberry juice.
we could get away. my mother was 
a disciple of the get away. she said,
"here is our sea shell life." my skin softer
than ever before. freckles farmed 
from breath & rain. i'm going to stay
the night if you promise to stay awake
until i fall asleep. nightlight. doorknob.
the snakes, drinking pina coladas
underneath a plastic palm tree.
we are in a new kind of folding.
the highways turn accordion. 
we miss our turn. end up at the dead end
where hope meets beet greens.
my fingers turn purple. i shave my head.
everyone goes back without me.