birthday cards

i cannot buy enough chandeliers.
i tell you, "i know i don't need another"
but then i'm clicking "order"
& committing several atrocities 
to get one. hang them in the closet.
in the bathroom. inches
from the ground & tight up to the ceiling.
once i saw a transphobe on a forum say,
"if we can identify as anything,
i identify as a twenty-year-old."
i thought, "kind of valid." i have
thankfully never studied metaphysics.
the birthday cards have been coming
every day since i was thirteen
& tried to become a jump rope.
they are never from the same people
though most of them have no signatures at all. 
empty little congratulations. 
the ones with senders are always family
who are dead. they switch up whether 
or not they misgender me. i wish
i was still angry about stuff like that
but i am just glad they remember
i am alive & trying not to die.
they sent me a chandelier once
& it was made from my father's beer bottles.
i put that one in the crawl space 
for the rats to dance with. 
i do worry what would happen to me
if the cards ever stop. i've gotten them
from exes too & wanted to tear 
their wings off & compost them.
then i remember their birthdays
& something in me fills with geese. 
it's the tether. the little foothold we keep
in each other's lives. i am not sure if
i am sending cards too. maybe it is
like breathing. everyone walking around
with thousands upon thousands
of birthday cards. i wonder who burns them
& who keeps them? who buries them
& if anyone shares them, saying,
"i am somehow alive." the light from
chandeliers is always mosaic. 
still life of a river. all the cards take flight. 

house in the woods

my hair is growing wild.
i ask you, "have you seen the little black house
in the middle of the woods?"
it is nighttime & all the deer are 
standing on their hind legs & walking
like people through the forest.
you tell me never to talk about that,
especially in the dark. what i do not tell you
is that i have woken up there. 
a bed the size of a welcome mat. fire going
in the hearth. i had to crawl through the brush
& follow the two-throated trees until
i reached our front door. i do not have a razor.
i'm afraid of my hair growing.
terrified of what it might mean 
to become a hollow where voles come
to say their prayers. i take myself as close to 
the skin as possible. i think someone lives there
or else it is my little black house in the woods.
always meant for me to return. i do not want
to know what i'll find if i stay. 
maybe you have one where you also wake up.
we talk too much about secrets
as if they are a bad thing. without secrets
i do not think i would be a self. 
each like an acorn. the future unborn trees
rocking, tongues curled. 
maybe though we also talk to much about a self
as if it is a good thing. 
there was a moment this last time
that i wondered what would happen
if i never left. if, instead, i went out to get firewood.
fed the flames. watched the chimney 
pour ghosts into the mountain's stubble. 
invited the deer over to talk about death.
birds, delivering me seeds to my windows. 

gasoline girl

fire tastes like birthday cake 
when it starts between your teeth.
an open window. the sticker on the outside reads,
"save us too." it is a message to the firemen 
to harvest our eyes if nothing else survives.
i would like to see what they do
with the bones. 
i have been a diamond. i have been
a gutter pilot. you have been driving & i have thought,
"we are going to crash & turn into wooden crosses
on the shriveled moon." a purple bruise.
your book of matches. there is nothing 
as rainbow as petroleum in the water supply.
we drink the fire or the fire drinks us.
the dinosaurs warned us of all of this.
they said, "go extinct in a way that makes
the next species excited." when the meteor comes
i will be juggling skulls. one for every year
we have eaten. i do not have 
enough arms. i do not have enough tongues.
there is a letter in the mail with all the secrets
to a beautiful life. i will read it 
& then consume the stamp. ship myself
to a facility where no one needs
my blood. i want to be useless. i want to be
the sleeping mountain. nothing to do with
all the ribbons. a cassette tape 
with the sounds of girls making
& breaking promises
to one another. it begins,
"i will never turn into a jeep." here i am.
headlights like melon ballers. nectar 
on the bed. you take me by the chin 
to the old canal locks. a tree falls. the fossils
have a circus & do not invite us. 

in the backyard of our lives i bought a shiny grille 

i knew we didn't need the grille but i wanted
to show everyone that we would survive the next meteor. 
that we weren't dead yet. 
i painted pictures of dinosaurs
on the side of the house. 
the grille was the size of the coffin we used
to bury our father's hands when the machines
cut them off the last time.
usually, we are regenerating people
but something went wrong. 
chain & conveyor belt. he came home  
with his hands inside a takeout bag. 
we helped him. he said, "if only we had a grille."
we did not know what he meant 
& worried that he meant he wanted us
to consume them. for most of us, our
limbs grow back though we always feel
like something has been lost. i thought maybe
i would invite neighbors over to feast 
around the grille. we could make hamburgers
& not talk about loss. 
we knocked on the neighbors' doors
& found the houses empty. they left a lot.
photographs & canned corn. we gathered them up.
our father asked us to feed him. we started
with the photographs. rolled them. chewed them
like sinew. we ate with our father. 
he told us how to start the grille up.
handfuls of coal. the dinosaurs twitched,
sensing their ancient fires. i just wanted
to make a hearth in the middle 
of our little immortality. i asked our father
why it is that we want to live for forever.
he did not know. he told us to get more coal.
to cook as much as we could find. 
i cooked his hands. i cooked the oak tree. 
the grille shined & shined. 
almost a gleaming new car. not a getaway 
but a return device. the portal back
to the throat. a tail of smoke 
thrown into the clouds like an escape.

burn

i use biscuits to lure a rain cloud
into my backpack for you.
we want to be sad. we want to be
really sad. i just burned my finger
on a candle & your boyfriend just turned
into a giraffe. i try to find the positives.
i tell you, "i hear they like to eat lettuce."
the blister comes. the rain cloud whimpers
in the bag until i let him out.
he likes your bedroom. he especially like
the little-kid stuff that's still here.
he asks how old we are & neither of us remember.
we ask him to do what he came for
which is to rain. he is embarrassed & so 
one of those frog disasters happens.
amphibians falling from his throat 
where the rain is supposed to come. 
soon we are the caretakers of dozens
of little creatures. you say, "happy mistakes."
i train the frogs to be like their mother,
an arsonist. they play with lighters.
the ground is wet as the cloud finds his footing.
starts to pour & i think "thank god."
that was all we wanted. to be soaked
& sad & cold like the frogs. you remind me
of the burn on my finger which is now 
a welcome mat. front door. bell. 
we let all the clouds in. apparently ours
was texting the rest. they say,
"we never met humans like you."
you cover you face & cry, "i do not know how
to be a zookeeper." we all pet your back.
we leave the room to help you 
walk your boyfriend to the safari 
where he can be happy. he eats lettuce
the whole way there. back in your room
we get sick of being sad. our shoes by the door
turn into lakes. ducks arrive & we have no room.
i ask you if you've ever considered 
getting a ghost. you shake your head.
you kick out the clouds & then me.
i want to feel better. i want so badly to feel better.
that was what the clouds were supposed to do.
i look at the burn, turning into a snow globe
on my flesh. i got it by snuffing out a candle 
by pinching it. not the brightest thing 
to do. i  buy biscuit dough
on the way home & hope ghosts like them
as much as clouds do. 

pawpaw skin

in the spoon graveyard there are not enough
gravediggers. i take a shift every monday
because that's when the most birds fall
from the sky. more than hald of them have a human tooth
lodged in their core. it is debated whether or not
gravediggers are owed the tooth or if it should
be laid to rest along with the remaining bones.
i go back & forth. a pocket full of teeth.
sometimes it bites me when i go looking
for a tissue. there is a pawpaw tree that hangs her head.
i pick the rotten ones from her feet. they feel
like livers & lungs. i suppose if you were in
a pinch, you could use them that way.
each of their seeds, a tooth. there is a legend 
that if you swallow one you will hear the earth weep
& it will turn you into a pawpaw tree too.
i am careful when i eat their honey flesh.
finger through skin. soft & prone to bruising
just like mine. the trees sometimes ask me
"why do you come here to the spoon graveyard?
aren't you in love?" i never answer because i don't know
what to tell them. we all find our own ways
to try & escape ourselves. 
the work goes quick. sun turning dolphin.
up & down. the graves broadcasting television static
into the air. i get five political phone calls.
i call one back to tell them, "it is monday
have some respect for the dead." i do this just
to shake them up. everyone knows that the dead own
every day same as the living. the shovel 
removes dirt. splits a pawpaw in half. all the teeth.
the hungry birds. one, too hurried, 
consumes a seed. i step back & cover my face.
the destruction is alarming. to watch the feathers
burst & the organs turn into fruit. 
i have seen it once & that was enough of me.
a new tree. a new grave. walking the grounds
to find each organ. planting them too. bird trees
& people trees. tomorrow i will go back
to answering emails from god & microwaving 
my eyes until they're ready. for now though
the sun is caramel. the pawpaw trees are ripe.
there are still birds. 

snakeweed

when they ask you to be a birthday cake
just go ahead & do it. 
i've started to learn that putting up a fight
is worth it only if there's someone 
with a video camera. upload me to cloud.
make me a future rain storm.
i want the corn to say, "yes yes yes."
there is an alarm clock
ringing that i can never seem to find.
when i do i'm going to take its head off.
i'm going to put it in the mailbox 
with a label sending it to my father.
he hoards alarm clocks. he has one incase 
the power goes out & one in case
the sun dies & the factory still needs blood
to keep singing. i am here to admit it.
i was a coin collector. i had 
a little state quarter book. the united states is
a mythology of ownership. this is mine.
this is mine. my little idaho. my little new york.
my favorite quarter was always georgia 
with the big peach ready to be stolen. 
ready to be eaten alone inside a closet
while i waited for the world to be safe again.
what they will never admit to is 
building the coffins. they will say,
"these are televisions" or "these are 
organic love poems." i think i have
purchased a flashlight from an infomercial 
that promised to light a way out.
it's like trying to find an onion's heart.
tender nothing. walking away with nothing
but a cast iron pan. i could have been 
a married bowl of pop corn shrimp, you know?
i could have had a husband who treated me
like a spoon which is at least better 
than a fork. don't ask me how i know.
my mother buys another car & this one
is not a lemon, it's a whale. she pets its head.
she will not listen to anyone if we try to say
that it is not going to take her to work.
she says, "a few more hours." that's how i feel
when i wake up in the morning. 
we have a ghost now & she/he is standing
right outside the bedroom when i rise.
i make coffee for the both of us. 
she/he asks for army men. once i asked her/him
how he/she died. all he/she could do was weep.
all flowers are made of frosting. all ancestors
use windows as televisions. i hear them talking.
they say, "happy birthday" or at least maybe
that's the closest they came get 
to what they mean to say.

frozen section

i want to be snow in the heaven field.
the machines are empty of every 
little bright remedy. fingers cold.
i was promised a winter & instead 
we have the empty street. the car weeping.
when i first heard the world "pandemic"
i thought we were just window shopping.
all the good deaths are written in a list to be read
on a microphone only the rocks
are listening to. i call you. i beg 
for another place to go. i search the grocery store
frantic, as if a tub of ice cream is all we need.
drive to the other side of the island. 
everyone holding their heads like red balloons.
i watch so many people let go. join the clouds.
sirens. blue raspberry halos. finding 
the treat i was looking for. my mom
used to bribe us with ice cream sandwiches 
to try to get us to sit through all of mass.
everything becomes holy when you think
you are going to die. i buy them 
& hold them, letting them melt
in my hands. unsure of how to vanilla
our way out of this. picture all my loved ones
walking in frozen section. hands to glass.
fog to write our names in. the lines 
turn into spider legs. a man on the phone
saying, "no no no." a child taking off
his mask to find a pile of garnet hiding there.
i eat one ice cream sandwich in the car.
lick my fingers. consider what it would mean
to never return. turn the car into a whale
or at least a mango. my breath fogging the glass. 

the rock at garvey's point

we should never have left.
all the gulls were on their cell phones.
they were calling their insurance companies
& begging for help. i was doing the same
earlier that week. your sunglass 
were portals into the night world
where neither of us needed to sleep.
waves against the shore. each washed up 
boots & bridal gowns. veils & zippers. 
we stayed on our perch, sitting side-bye-side
on the largest rock in the sand. 
i would venue to call it an island. 
you talked about us buying an apartment
in brooklyn. i talked about the taste
of brine. the half-flat tire. i listened to hungry trees
telling each other nostalgia stories
of when there were more roots
& less catastrophe creatures like us.
after we left the little ocean park
we loved to drive the rich people lands
where everyone was shiny. 
old mansions & new mansions
& mansions at risk of falling
into the water. people who owned boats 
& boats who owned people.
i still crave the rock at garvey's point. 
its warmth. it's humming. if we would
have stayed i think i could have become
a glorious lichen. you could have seen me
all sea green & ruffled. instead,
we argued about mosquitos 
in a stop & shop parking lot.
a men ate his hot dog dinner, sitting
on his car's bumper only a few
feet away. i wanted to talk but little stones
kept coming out. they filled my pockets.
you had headlights for eyes.
all the rich people houses 
glowed as if harboring angels. 
we did not make it home until
everyone else in the world 
was asleep. the rock letting the waves 
kiss away her throat. if it is still there
we could go back. i hate that impulse i have.
the little insatiable mouth telling me,
"i think we were real there."

feminism 

in high school, my boyfriend had a car
full of beetles. the problem was 
only i could see them. they were the kind
that shone in the afternoon light
like alien diamonds. i would say things like
"i'm not a feminist, i just think everyone
should be equal." he would laugh.
the beetles would laugh. we would go & park
at an abandoned something or other,
roll down the windows & die just a little bit.
once, his parents were out of town 
& the house also filled with beetles. 
i had gotten good at ignoring them.
do not flinch when they march across your thighs. 
he grabbed me like a potato roll. he joked,
that he liked me best when i was inside out.
when no one else could see us.
we had matching pajamas. sometimes,
i mistook him in the dark for myself.
a shadow or else a reflection in an unknown mirror.
maybe that was the point. i cooked for him all the time.
his favorite was fish. butter & lemon.
he said, "this is what you should do every day."
his fork like a new tongue. ceiling fan breeze. 
the beetles crowded the counters.
glinted in perfect lines across the glass table.
often i wonder how many ways
i let him hate me. i lead by example. i want you 
to cover your ears. i am telling you 
the deep-bellied self-blame thoughts.
instead, what i should tell you is that
i still see the beetles. they were not the problem.
they were the harbingers. they said,
"you are a feminism." i hated when they tried
to tell me that. i wept. i crushed them. i said,
"i am not beautiful. i am not a..." i didn't finish the sentence. 
driving down the highway twenty miles
over the speed limit, he said, "i am going 
to make a ghost out of you." not hearing him
i asked, "what?" & he replied, "i meant a girl."