potential museums

in my parent's bedroom
i label each artifact. here is
the only full-length mirror 
in the whole house. 
here is mom's makeup bag
that smells like roses. the dried
lipstick. the fractured blush pan.
everywhere is a museum
if you live like me, with history rot
in your mouth. i have gone there too.
labeled your tongue, "unknown artist."
no i don't believe in curators
or even really picture frames. 
let the penguins run wild. let them
talk to the pigeons &  conspire
to their heart's content.
my father was a builder of museums too.
he mad them in the basement. 
little replicas of us. he would say,
"here is my hungry daughter"
making the eyes blink at me. 
i am the patron saint of falling short.
of calling in the middle of the night
just to hang up. each telephone 
worthy of a plaque that reads,
"we missed our flight." let's not
forget about bathrooms.
the trashcan labeled "tell me more."
what about the gift shops though?
they are always about try
to take that which cannot
be taken. it is a museum after all
not a gender. once i had a boy
reach in my mouth & take one
of my teeth. or was that my father?
or do i have two teeth missing?
it is best not to worry too much
about the underground collection.
a museum is what you see. is what
you want to bury like a king.
the work of a museum is never done.
each room has the capacity 
for fracturing into a shrine.
i will not let this be a shrine.
this is for the greedy & the guiltless.
will you come with me just to look?

the last light bulb 

everyone is always saying "i remember when."
nostalgia demands butter & throats.
this is to say, i remember when
they grew on trees. when, in a moment
of darkness we would go out with 
our open palms & return with enough bulbs
to make a new sun. the problem with 
looking back is it's always a miniature lie. 
the trees sung during storms. threw their eyes
at the gravel driveway. begged us, "learn
to speak into the shadow."
i cry but only gumballs come out.
then, only little prizes wrapped in plastic. 
the gathering begins after dusk.
word passed from knuckle to knuckle
then tooth to tooth. 
there is one more bulb alight on a sycamore tree.
the shadows stretch the length
of every hunger we've ever had. we follow it.
like moths. like disasters. like fodder fish
to the angler's question. how will 
you use your light? this is something
no one ever asked me. so, i spent as much
as i could on windows. on pine sol & 
trumpets. there is a new religion 
for the final bulb. they worship without eyes.
fill their sockets with replicas of dim lightbulbs.
i am told if you are not careful
you will begin to worship the past.
i hold up my hand in the glow 
of the bulb. see the shadow, an unfettered spider
reaching for a breath of absent gold. 

city on my face

there is a stoplight
between every one of my teeth.
i expect to see you in the morning
when the pigeons turn into police.
you will pass me & take a bite
out of my skull. all the balloons
will pour out & make a threat.
there is a camera we can wear
as a necklace. it blinks like
an eye & captures your every move.
i am going to a museum to become
the relic people want to worship.
no one likes a living monument.
i have had purses hung on my tongue.
shouldering through a crowd 
of mimes. here is the wall. here is
the box we're in. if you take 
a black light to my neck
you'd see all the footprints &
not in a sexy way. if you
took a thumb to my lips
you'd become a new street preacher.
the end is coming or else 
it will be laminated & in brochure form.
i define a city as anywhere 
we go to be ravenous. to be thirsty.
there are no where cities & everywhere cities.
that means you are always there
& you are always gone. sometimes
i would, arrogantly worry 
about running into you
as if the ocean doesn't have bigger 
destinies to align. as if the ghosts 
don't have enough chess to play
at the park. a street eats its own legs
& then eats me. my phone rings
& it is not you. it is a rat that
crawls out & onward 
into a hole in the atmosphere. 

proportions of a crucifix 

you didn't grow up catholic
if you didn't think that maybe
the adults gathered at night
& sometimes chose someone new
to crucify. i would check my own hands
& my father's for stigmata or scars.
i was fascinated by the gore. 
once, when no one else was home,
took the crucifix down
from above the living room
& traced the tributaries 
of jesus's blood. the gash on his side.
tiny gems of blood forming
a second halo. wondered if salvation
was something i should be able
to feel. almost like a wound.
every year i was the altar boy
for the stations of the cross 
at our church. it was the only time 
i was really interested in god. 
his head was always too big
on the crosses we had. i held one.
a hot air balloon. tears. the weight in my arms.
his hands contorted like pinned spiders.
the heft little queer not-boys bear. 
candles. incense. 
i am not that enticed 
by the question "why would god
sacrifice his only son?" i know
what a father is. i know what it means
to be a gender. to always fall short.
i am however drawn to blood.
this is the one thing i take away
from being catholic. the blood.
the milk. the body. how the cross is
always too big for jesus 
or always too small. it is as if
he is trying to fit into a mythology
or a mythology is trying
to fit into him & i know 
exactly what that feels like.
i really did think that. that maybe
the adults got together
& sometimes selected a new god.
tied them down to planks
of wood maybe out behind
the rectory. i always wondered
if this was an honor or a curse.
i feared at every gathering
a ritual like this might begin. 
planned several escapes. a dash 
into the cornfield. hiding beneath
the blue station wagon. 
a queer not-boy trying to out run
the blood that would come from being a son. 

we talk about the weather but really we're talking about the distance between us

i am so glad to go outside again.
the daffodils have tongues out 
& eyes blinking at the ardent light. 
yesterday it snowed in april
& i almost called you 
to ask if you remember when we 
built a house from the snow. 
you would not have been home then.
we talk in the driveway. i wonder if
you still call me "niece" 
when i am not around. it is almost always better
to not know how others speak of you. 
they can conjure all the ghosts they want.
you tell me soon it will be 
baseball season. baseball season is
always just around the corner.
the sun is getting bigger they say.
a thunderstorm is coming. a blizzard
is in the pillowcase. i love to wake up
to the fog, you say & i imagine
you walking the dirt paths 
that weave between the corn fields.
in the fog i disperse. i become a silk scarf,
or, worse, a veil. winds are picking up.
pull leaves from the oak trees.
hands slapping the pavement.
it will be time to remove the storm windows.
then it will be time to turn off the heat.
put the jackets back in the foyer. 
those itchy red gloves. you tell me
you look forward to the heat. 
i tell you that i put in my air conditioners
this morning. stood in front of the cool air.
hurricane season is no longer a season,
it is a way of life. naming the children
who will tear the shingles from the roof.
i wonder if, in the back of your freezer,
there's still a sphere of hail 
from the time they fell the size of golf balls.
we harvested them like the seeds 
of future faces. if it is there, i think 
i want it back. i do not call you though.
it rains. nothing grand or extravagant.
the kind of rain not worth talking about.

community guidelines 

do not speak the name of the devil fish. 
instead, call him "father." do not look
off camera at the ghost. do not ever
insinuate that the world is ending.
the world is not ending, it is just
a permanent temporary fire.  instead of
"grief" say "guts." instead of "guts"
say "gills." are you breathing? good.
you are not allowed to die here. instead,
if you feel like you need to, you can
be unalive in the garden of thumbs.
do not talk about who is killing the bees.
instead, make a diorama of the dead bees.
make them beautiful. do not name
the person who chased you with 
a kitchen knife. instead, call him, 
"television" or, if you must, call him,
"nowhere." instead of "nowhere" say
"a place in which nothing exists."
if a hole opens in the universe
while you are filming, you should
pretend it is not happening. we would
not like to upset the future generations
who will look to you like a god. gods
defining quality is that they are not afraid. 
instead, pretend it is just a swarm
of butterflies. instead of "love"
say, "butter." instead of "hungry"
say, "elevator." there are so many words,
why be vulgar? why not be clean?
if you are clean everyone will see you
& even if only for moment they might
just think, "that is a prophet."
but, do not ever say "prophet"
instead say, "neighbor." most of all though
do not say you are witnessing 
a massacre. "massacre" is not advertiser friendly.
you want to be advertiser friendly.
instead, turn your tongue over like
a bedsheet. invite your followers to rest there.
then, in the dark, without the camera on,
you can talk to them if you must.
instead of "massacre" you can say, "country." 

ghost tornado 

my father told the story of death
& how he visited my grandfather
at the house on noble street.
shutters banging & turning into geese wings. 
the trees that bent into jaw bones.
chickens in the yard, running 
towards their red coop. the tornado touched down
& followed the railroad tracks in lyons.
plucked rooves from nearby houses.
angels' faces torn off & turned into grey clouds.
sometimes, as a child, i would watch
the house remember this. it came on dark nights
& when my blood poured out through
a memory on my tongue. each fissure
is a rope thrown down the throat
of a ghost. the phantom of the tornado 
visiting without any teeth. without any
of the rattling. just returning to say,
"you begged." i am often mistaken
for my father or my grandfather by spirits.
i do not correct them. i try to see if i can 
live in a way that heals the tributaries 
we share. once though, the tornado came
with all of her fury. all the pictures fell 
off the walls of my bedroom. i begged just like
my grandfather who thought death
was coming for him. who thought
the world was ending. maybe the world
was ending. has already ended. will end again.
i asked the tornado, "what have you come for?"
&, to my surprise, she spoke to me. she said,
"i have come for your genders 
i need all of them to rest." i told her
i do not know how to give something
written into me, away. 

we take turns saying aloud the names of small towns we pass

when was the last time you walked into a knuckle?
the cave behind a knee? sometimes i believe we are
traversing the body of a giant. her kneecaps, the mountains.
sleeping lips. cracked neck. night falls & every street is a television game.
you say, "east texas" & i say, "paradox." you say, "smicksburg"
& i say, "centralia." watching the hills name each other.
the land which asks, "who shall we eat tonight?"
we talk about teeth & where to plant new ones. the headlights,
like fresh eyes ready to see a destiny. instead, they take us
to gas station with catastrophe bathrooms. chewing pink gum
& drinking root beer. tell me love, if i were a town,
what would you call me? would you stop at my long-since-vacant
grocery store? coal fire in my throat. a row of houses,
all of which with their lights on all hours of the nights.
a lighthouse is not just a thumb by the sea. it is wherever 
you go to remember where you are from & where you are going.
i say, "harmony" & you say, "seven springs."

on the night the moon roof opened & let in a heron

you were always telling me that they
are good luck; the heron with dimes
for eyes. they are glinting in the headlight glow
on the highway leaving philadelphia. 
i am starving which is to say it has been
six years since i've eaten anything
of substance. i live mostly on the hair of stars.
the heron plays with the radio. 
i have a credit card the size of a catastrophe.
my bank has over drawn three times this month
& each time i reach into my pocket & find 
it full of vole skulls. sometimes maggots.
to hunt for treasure is to believe in god.
i do not believe in god. i believe in herons.
the heron does not speak. rolls down the window
to feel the wind in his feathers. he steals
my telephone & calls you & i beg him not to.
i tell him, "i am not ready to be in love."
for me, it is always like a disease. the moon's chin
in the moon roof. her cloud skirts & whiskers. 
i do not know where i am going
& i do not want to find out. the way home
becomes less & less a destination & more
a craving. the desire to have you here
instead of the heron. the heron's jealousy.
he asks, "do you not want the prophecy?"
i could drive into the river, grow feathers,
& become one of them. you do not pick up.
i am headed towards you. the apartments
are one fire or else they will be. the heron asks,
"have you ever seen two herons at once?"
i am not sure & so i do not answer.
i drive until, at a stop light, i open the door
& push him out. regret floods my bones.
i roll down the window to tell him,
"i am sorry." he shouts back, "you are not sorry
you are scared." moon roof still open,
the moon spits a me. i drive onto turnpike.

rejuvenation 

i am told there is a surgery
to turn us back into fish.
when the procedure is done
the doctor puts on a pair of waiters 
and walks out into the surf 
& throws you to the kelp mother.
is it always a mistake to return?
when i cut myself gills i feel
like i can breathe only
they close & then i am a person again
strolling through target 
with a credit card. i used to 
have this compulsion of trying
fit myself back into clothes i wore
as a child. breaking seams.
i said, "look i am still a daisy 
in the mouth of my mother."
there is nothing left but the fabric.
but the corn & the thread &
the taste of a ripe mango sun.
the first years i was back
in my hometown
i haunted every memory i could.
stood in the tree where 
i kissed boys in lighting storms.
took my body to the sewing machine.
here is my face without 
the scar. here is my chest
without the steering wheel.
i go & get a mirror. work on it 
until it gives in & finally says,
"here you can look at yourself
when you were a girl." i see 
nothing but a pair of hands.
do not believe anyone who says
return is about rejuvenating
the old flesh. instead, i believe
in flooding my museums 
with birds. i live somewhere between
memorial & dreamscape.
we are not gone. we were
never gone.