how to wear a mask

sometimes i customer-service voice myself
through a whole day. all the little telephones
growing like daffodils. i talk for hours
just to realize i haven't told a single truth.
have you ever looked at your hands & seen 
fire hydrants? a ghost cracks his knuckles.
let's get down to business. first, i would 
dip my bones one by one in chocolate. the rich
& beautiful kind. i spare no expense in my mask.
it's got to have feathers & gold. it's got
to make everyone think you are not 
a burning staircase. sit outside & think of
stock photos. think of women without 
doorways or living rooms. when you get
right down it there is no rope to climb.
there is no microwave to talk to. just a series
of zippers. here is the seal. here is the selkie.
here is the dream in which we are both 
talking our tongue languages. they will love
the chocolate. they will say, "you are so purple."
delightful & delicious. a paper plate to sleep on.
we are afforded so little chaos. i want
a feast of all my fury. no more pilots.
tell the planes "you are geese now."
i am re-learning how to walk with a face. i am
promising too much of every animal i see.
"i will love you," i tell a rabbit. "i love you,"
i tell a drawer of spoons. i just want to 
say what i mean but i don't know 
what i mean anymore. there is the distance
always between the self & the mediation.
let's not be idealistic. there is not one mask
but a bouquet. my finest work. where the salamanders
go to feel warm & ready. if you ever want
to meet me, you must come at night.
i will be eating egg shells by the crock pot sun. 

we burry the ocean

you might ask what calls for such
a drastic motion. i will tell you 
sometimes even the whales need
to keep a hold of their secrets.
haven't you ever destroyed something
to save it? this is what i did with 
the color blue. i carried it swaddled 
& close to my chest until i found a place
no one else could reach. the trees
had tongues & the birds spoke 
in the language of stones. there i let
the blue go & it thanked me. 
we started with just our hands. 
dirt into waves & water.
the whales swam into our wrinkles.
eels in under our tongues. we said,
"go to sleep." sometimes when i was too 
depressed to move i would sleep
& it would feel like slipping into 
the ocean. i'd wake up under water
with gills pleated like a ruffled skirt.
all the ways we preserve the softest fragments
of our selves. the ocean, oh the dear ocean.
how, on some nights, you fit into 
a drinking glass & others you lived
vibrant in my whole house. drowned me
again & again & asked, "are you new yet?"
when you live beneath the soil
just hold your breath. just remember
when the sun was a child. then, decades
from now, when it is safe, i promise
i will send everyone i know to dig.
they will not believe me at first.
they will say, "the ocean died 
along with my girlhood." but, 
we will dig & the waves will crash 
& we will laugh until our faces fall apart
as marbles. 

gold

in the town of my silver teeth
a train arrives at midnight full
of the coal miners
who once dug each day 
in the mountain's throat
for fire rocks. i am a fire rock
or else i am the mine or else
i am their hands. the hunger
that flames have for memory.
they ask "where were we human?"
lately i have been craving 
that loneliness. how on any given afternoon
i could decide to blow my heart up
like a balloon & dangle it on a string
above the lehigh river. 
the coal miners would work 
& ask, "would you like to join us?"
i always explained, "i am a poet
which means i am a witness." 
still, there were days i kneeled.
wielded the pix axe & cut my knuckles
on black rock. where should we go
when we have no more finger prints?
my favorite part of that year
living alone in the mountains 
was the afternoon. it arrive with nothing
at all in its mouth. i found 
so many bones. the night was 
painful though. waiting again
for the miners & the train. 
feeling the ghosts stir around me
& wondering if i was one of them.
wondering even deeper then
if i wanted to be 
one of them. then at least
i would have a vocation.
they know to come to the mountain
& the mountain aches 
to be undone by them in the way
we come to crave our own unraveling. 
i lost so many bones. boredom 
& wayward loves & plucked eye lashes.
some of them still 
at the bottom of the river.
headlight of the great steam engine 
rippling like a drowned moon
in the water. 

centipede / millipede 

i collect legs. to run.
to row the boat. to smash holes
in the doors of gutless bathrooms.
once, i found a leg in the river.
it belonged to a racing horse. 
legs in the basement collecting dust
from lack of use. legs in the pantry
to feast on when the running
has turned me into pie.
i do not think i could ever 
have enough legs. legs are always
folding. knees that turn into bottle caps.
here is my shaken heart. my escape hatch self.
i do not need a getaway car.
i just need you to pick up the phone
next time i call. i just need you
to love me like you did when we were
on our harvest together, plucking legs
from the bushes & legs from 
the dumpsters. people will get rid of 
perfectly nice legs but sometimes i worry
i will be walking & someone will start chasing me,
saying, "those are mine." do you remember
how i held still for you? i was a toad
in the middle of the headlight street.
you told me to extend out my thigh
& so i did. you caressed & found the seam.
you said, "i would love this." i said,
"please take it, i have so many."
that is not true. i do not have
so many. i had enough to last the night
or maybe less. i go through legs like popcorn.
you ran around the house with them
until they were useless. then & only then
did you return them to me. 
& dear god, i thanked you. 

free sofa

come & take my body 
from the side of the road.
i'm not interested in a temporary affair.
i want to become part of your basement.
where you come & lay your form 
when the world has too many telephones.
do you remember when you 
called the hotline & read the backs
of cereal boxes until you found the words
to say, "this is not my mouth."
hung up & walked across town to 
the lookout over the highway.
all the cars on their way to big sugary places.
you have springs in your gut too.
you have a story about a buried
time capsule which you do not remember
the contents of. that is me. i am your
time capsule. all the memories 
of being full exist in my springs. 
we can be someone else's "little party." 
someone else's root beer stain. 
we could be storytellers. we could be
video game lights. i might sound desperate here
but that is because tomorrow
when the rain comes i will become
a different almost. the way when 
a tree falls it is no longer a tree
to most people. i smell like fingers 
& the word "please." all day i count
the cars. each a little breath i could hold.
trust me when i tell you i will ask
for nothing from you. 
tell me everything that aches.
if you take me,
i will be everything need. 

i have a crush on a boy in a tiny house on the hill 

he is not a real boy
in the same way
that i am
no a real boy.
no i don't mean
because i'm trans i mean because
i was born 
in a stained glass window
& god choked 
on a turkey bone
while he was making 
my feet. 
i do not know 
how to run from
the sound 
of sirens. instead
that's just how
the flowers sound to me.
i do believe
i will ever meet the boy.
the hill is the size
of a sleeping giant.
i sometimes will
send carrier pigeons up there
with little blank scrolls.
can a poem be 
an absence?
where words could live?
you might ask
how i have a crush
on a boy i've never seen
but i think that is 
exactly what desire is.
the tangible absence.
besides, i did 
see him once. 
he walked out 
onto the porch. he chopped down
a tree which was also his father.
we could run away 
together. we could
build the cloud city.
eat plums from each other's 
throats. i think he plays
an instrument. 
a lute maybe or a mandolin.
i listen closely
on days like this 
when the window is 
a drinking glass. 
my thirst becomes
a sixth ocean.
i build a boat & wait.
he is not coming
or else i am not coming to him.
the hill is a thumb.
is a burial mound.
i think the boy is 
eating fruit without me. i think
it is overripe. i think
it drips nectar 
across his hands. 

latin mass

i prefer not know what god is saying.
my father talks longing about latin mass.
about being a morning altar boy
& pouring the first rays of light
from a cruet. sipping communion wine
in the sacristy all alone. i used to not understand this.
why would you want to worship 
without language? he did not speak latin
nor did most people in the congregation. 
in the church i grew up in
the priest was an ice hook of a man.
mass was said in english.
he was quiet. coughed often. spoke about
the essential differences between man 
& woman & sometimes about peace
& sometimes about greed. i learned little
from his words. i am still most curious
about his life. the rectory. what were his
holiday dinners? when he was sick 
did anyone come by his side
& let him feel soft & small? i have a hard time
believing there is anything god could say
to defend himself anyway. 
my phone screen is a portal
to all his burning people.
ants arrive to strip the remains. 
if this god could speak it would have to be
in a dead language. i find there are
several translations for "i'm sorry"
in latin. i do not know the differences.
doleo & aegre fero & paenitet me.
which one would this god say to us?
i do not want to go to mass. i want to go
to confession. now, let me speak my 
oldest tongue. no priest though,
just me & this ancient mouth. 
what are our rituals to you? our worship?
what will you do to repay us? 

mirage boy

gender is the world of almost.
let's almost fall in lust. let's almost
make palindromes with the lights on.
i once found a skeleton 
in the back yard. i thought it was
a tiny boy but instead my father
told me it was just a chicken. 
the chicken whispered, "i am a boy."
how are we supposed to trust
what the world tells us we are 
when we know it is wrong about 
so much? gender is 
that unearned trust. most days
only the spiders know who i am.
they tell each other, "that is a traitor."
don't get me wrong, i want to be liked.
dear god, i would do anything
to be liked. eaten with a tuning fork.
threaded through the eye 
of a chicken skull. get rid of the glass.
get rid of a mirror. live off nothing
but mirages of animals. the flesh
& the fury. come & get me.
i am the grape vine's blinking eye.
i no longer know if i want a gender.
instead, i think i want a lake
to sink my troubles in. a harvest ground
where no one can tell me what i look like.
instead, i'll cherry tree my self 
into a story about a terrible nation.
a gender is never an idea. it is a physical place
where either you are the mirage boy
or you are the wheel barrow
full of broken stained glass windows. 

i'm jealous of poets who use real people's names in their poems

my "you" is a pie crust & sometimes
your body that day when we were both pigeons. 
do not try to tell me the truth is easy. 
sometimes when i say "father" i mean
"lover." sometimes when i say "stop sign"
i mean "crush." but every time i say "broom"
i mean "father." he held it over my head
& then said, "i'm so sorry." that was more
than i meant to say. i prefer to think 
of us as sting rays at the aquarium. i prefer
to pretend we are a colony of clovers just trying to
talk to the sun enough to survive to the next day.
under foot. under hoof. the metaphor 
is a place you go when the world has
too much to say. i used to name you 
in my poetry. i used to say [                  ]
as if we were gods. you loved to claim me.
i felt like earth. like soil. you made me swallow
peach pits & wept when there was no
apricot tree for you to sit beneath.
i am talking about admitting to 
how much i loved the honeysuckle
that grew along the banks of the creek.
but i'm talking about you & never the honeysuckle.
tell me you remember yourself 
in my metaphor? i want to know
you felt yourself become a bite of nectar too.
then, my "you" is a dart board.
is myself. looking down a street of stained glass.
come & get me. come & get me.
i want everything that you have. 

2 mirrors

when i lived alone
shaving my head was like communion.
the apartment smelled of fried eggs 
despite the fact i'd never cooked
a single one. for the first month
or so i didn't have a pan. instead,
i had one holy plate that entered
& exited the microwave. it was plastic
& light. started to bear the stains
of my rituals. gashes of salsa & beans.
two forks. three spoons
& the green mug. you can be so alone
you start to see all of your fractures.
you think you are one human 
& then there is the self who begs
to walk the streets of your town at night.
the other self who looks at big houses
& craves to be a whole family.
the softest self who could sleep 
the whole day away. in the bathroom
i strategically positioned two mirrors
so that i could see the back of my head.
the art of getting an even shave.
i knew i had to do it my self after
i went to a barber & he asked,
"what made you move here?"
i didn't have a good answer
for him or myself. i fumbled with 
jelly bean words. i said the only
truth i could find. "it is beautiful here."
holding the clippers steady 
& tracing line after line. watching
the hair fall to the floor. coming apart
like a chorus. one & all. the mirror
i could look into, face-forward 
& the mirror revealing me from behind.
then, afterward, the elation of a hot shower. 
steam & skin. all of my ghosts
wearing their long hair & short hair 
& half-shaven heads. i curled up
afterwards on the floor towel 
i called my sofa. put one of the three spoons
in my mouth. ate ice cream in the quiet dark.