sweet teeth

my love of sweetness 
is hereditary. i crave it like 
a night car craves a parking lot moon.
we chew the gummy cow 
until our teeth are caramel dark.
catch blue sharks in the alleyway. 
my father hides in his secret drawer 
full of sugar. licks his fingers. 
biting the shell, the drip of nectar
down the chin. 
i have watched my family
become dragons. a stash above the fridge.
a box buried in the yard. the closet
with the dead light. 
this week as we cleaned out my aunt's house
we found three bags of licorice &
a cookie tin full of nonpareils. in her forgetting
i imagine her searching the home
for those morsels. fingers in the afternoon light.
i like to believe there are spots we didn't find
& when the house is owned by someone
less hungry than us that they find them
& turn all werewolf from our desire.
i hope it is contagious. the year my lover 
met me he ate more sugar than ever.
one night we spent inside a peach ring.
i woke up to nothing but the color pink.
another lover years ago bought me 
a chocolate house. we sat inside until
our bodies melted the place & all we had
was a warped doorframe. i would not change
my hungers if i could. it is sometimes 
a gift to be so wanting. to have a mouth
prone to fountain. opened wide so that
the kids can toss in pennies 
with their wishes. i used to buy my father
a pound of twizzler for his birthday
& watch him eat the whole thing.
he would always feed me a rib or two. 
 

written in stone

all the gravestones were blank
that morning when the bus didn't come.
had they been fading & we just
didn't notice? we were children on
the ghost hill that overlooked town.
winter, in the closet. summer dying 
like a road worm in the after-rain sun.
we went around looking for language.
evidence of our memories. all the shops
had empty open windows. i thought of
the cicadas who burst from their
own bodies. was the town molting or
were we lodged in her teeth? 
i wrote a poem once about foxes 
that the corn fields managed to eat.
they bit down & chewed all pop rocks 
on the tongue. you got the kitchen knives
& i watched as you tried to write
new names into the headstones. we took turns
deciding who was part of the soil.
someone rang the church bells. i do not know
who because we hadn't seen an adult 
in years. an ice cream truck sound played
but we could never catch the vehicle
to beg for something cool & sweet. 
the leaves changed. the dead remained dead
despite our attempts at necromancy. 
there were still landlords somewhere.
the people who owned the blank shops
who popped champagne bottles at night.
we never saw them either. sometimes though we
broke the law & slipped into the empty stores
to pretend to be a record store
or a cookie shop. a bell hung above the door. 
sometimes it would ring & we would hide
just to find no one else there. 

stenography

be quiet. the fresh cut flowers are talking
they'll tell us where the killer is.
in a closet without a door we are
recording each other's voices
with the machine. everything is
a shadow puppet if it is dark enough.
i chase the tails of weird men.
dig in the basement in the hopes
of finding hell. i tap my notetaker. i say,
"write mitch mcconnell is dead." 
the note taker does not think. becomes
whatever i give him. a process of reality making.
i am not above celebrating the deaths
of oligarchs. in fact, on my worst days
i stay alive to outlive them. i have dreams
that their dust is destroyed. not allowed
to re-enter to big soup. i can think of
no fate worse than no being permitted
to get into the soil. i want a farmer
with leather hands to lift a handful of me.
the notetaker suggests we are running late.
recently, i am late to everything. i don't know
where my obsession with time went.
i break clocks. i take a hammer to my car's
dashboard so that the little "check engine"
light goes out. i can't remember
what it was like before i had the notetaker.
did i just forget each day? was i alive?
i love that there are scientists 
working on time travel. thank goodness.
someone need to unwind the big slinky
& see what dinosaurs smelled like. my partner
thinks they smelled metallic. i think they smelled
like my turtle when she's been sitting in
the plastic pool for the afternoon.
when the day starts i ask the notetaker 
for just a few hours when we can lie
to one another without the threat of permanence. 
he puts his machine down & we go for
a walk in the fields. he asks me,
"is he really dead?" i say,
"if we don't check, he is." 

king nuada's hand

build me back silver. 
do i want to be whole?
i have been losing
limbs since i was a sunflower seed. 
in the myth of the tuatha dé danann,
nuada is the first king of the gods. to be a king
means to be whole & thus 
when he loses his arm he loses 
everything. i am thinking of 
my crashed car on the side 
of the highway. the new york city streets
in the morning wet with fire. 
the year without teeth where 
all i ate were phone calls & 
the light from the walmart parking lot.
my arm in buried in the cemetery
by the house in fleetwood. 
i was never nuada though. 
my absences, more knotted than 
an arm. how do you build back
when so much is lost? is it lost
or transformed? i am thinking
of the parable of the ship. if you
replace the whole body, is it the same ship?
talking to my sibling, they tell me again
how they have not come out to their best friend
from grade school. two ships in the creek. 
i try to tell them that they have
both changed. i wonder if it is 
the silver selves or the severed selves 
who talk to one another.
if you forage a new arm, are you
still the king? the story says, "yes."
from silver, dian cécht & credne
heal nuada's wounds & forge his new hand. 
i want to know though, does nuada 
remove his arm at night? in those brief moments
is he no longer king? does a leader always
need to be whole? the older i get the less
i am hungry for it myself. i keep
closets of arms & legs & hair.
none of them silver. nuada's arm
eventually grows back as flesh.
maybe it is a story of sewing. of how
our parts return changed too. 
not two ships or one. a thousand 
in the clouds where the gods still sleep. 

a better ending

i love to rewrite the back door. 
lock the mice in the bread box
just to join them. your plane turns 
into a heron. everyone is wearing yesterday 
like a shawl. i get kissed on the subway.
we are not elephants like i wanted to be.
in this version we grow old. participate in
the private property death cult. 
you get famous. i get famous. i think 
a better ending would involve more stairs.
a dress or at least a window. instead, 
there were sirens & cakes smashed
on the sidewalk. there was a dog with
birds for eyes. i did not hold you 
like i should have especially near the end.
i could have taken my shoes off 
at the door. i could have washed my hair 
with the sweet soap you liked. i got my nails done
for the last time. i saw behind a store
a herd of birthday balloons. rounded them up
& tied messages to each of them.
each was a different ending. all of them
were for you. let's call each other ghosts.
let's buy a boat & sail until there is no more
water beneath us. i get caught up in these 
writer tricks, believing if i dig enough
i will find the one ending that will save us
from all the ache. from the midnight drilled
full of holes. i stir a pot of water. i have
no shoes, just a mask. the town is quiet 
& laughs to itself at night. god i miss
your howling. the hardwood floor. 
our neighbors above us, dancing. 

4th of july

when i was small 
a teacher asked us to write
about our favorite holidays.
i told her the 4th of july.
i do not remember her reaction.
maybe it was delight, thinking that
all the flag pledges had worked
& that i was a devoted disciple. maybe
she found it strange, knowing me
as the creek stepping child i was.
knowing on a bone-level, no country
could hold me. 
i did not write about the united states
or even fireworks. i wrote about
fireflies & how everyone was home from work
to watch me catch them. a tupperware
with holes in the lid. my cupped palms 
& their brief lights blinking in the hollow
of my hands before i released them
back into the humid night. all around
the fields filling with glimmer. the bugs,
unconcerned with a country. not thinking
of borders. heavy though still with
the weight of fire on every horizon. 
i look to that kernel of wisdom. 
a knowing that a holiday can be undone 
just like a country can. the celebration,
our breath in the dark. our bodies 
somehow here. somehow quiet before a rupture.
these days i do not catch fireflies. instead,
i try to talk to them. i ask, "do you remember me?"
knowing that fireflies only live one summer.
the fireflies flourish. they respond,
"we remember everything." 

your underworld 

there are geese in your underworld.
i bring a shovel. you explained that
you need another room. a place to store
a hunger without any legs yet.
in the sky there are war planes. in the mailbox
a war face & a letter from a man trying
to sell us another underworld.
it is enough tending our own. the portals
waiting in the bath. i prefer your underworld
to mine. yours is almost velvet. like
a sock turned inside out. instead, mine is 
prickly. woolen. i reminds me of my mother's
old jacket that i would put on to walk
outside in the winter dark. isn't that how
it always is? you crave anything but 
your own lungs. i see the geese. i feed them
& you scold me. you explain you have
been trying to get rid of the geese for years
but they always find their way back.
i can sympathize. my underworld has 
bugs on every wall. centipedes & jupiter beetles.
i used to try to smash them but that just
brought more. each fracture the seed-making.
one bug into two into four. once i thought
i could stay in the underworld. i started 
to bring magazines & peanut butter crackers.
i think i was in middle school. i curled up there
& wept. the walls widened. i shrunk. 
my sibling snuck in there. they were astounded
by the colors in my underworld. they explained,
"mine is all grey." we sat together, unsure
of what to say to each other. i felt better though
that they could feel it too. the cool 
of a root cellar. i even sometimes visit your underworld
when you are not there. that is my favorite.
i try not to touch much of anything. 
i find video rooms & plow rooms & dog rooms. 
some doors shut & locked. when i emerge 
i try to go outside but the heat makes 
a hot plate of the street. my fried egg face. 
i picture all the underworlds sewn together. 
i used to think i could reach my father's if i
dug in my own enough. i never did. instead,
i made new rooms to hold each absence.
the doors, refuse to become geese for me.
i bring sugar to feed to bugs. 

hunting party

we leave early. you with your 
gun & me with my wings. 
we walk until we are on all fours.
until our hands are hooves. we go
to play this game with each other. 
once you told me it was a celebration.
when you are afraid of losing me
you tell me you love me over & over.
the words start to mash into each other.
unlanguaging in the daybreak. 
when you are feeling extra generous
you give me a headstart. you say,
"run" & so i go. the forest doesn't end.
i go deeper. i get so far i unspecies 
& then i am a sound. the sound of 
your voice peeling backwards. i will
admit that i enjoy when you hunt me.
it is like finally a twist in the celebrations.
everywhere i go someone has a gun. 
someone has an idea big enough 
to swallow us all. someone is making 
a flag to honor colonizers or terrible men
or both. when you hunt me i think,
"at least he'll use all parts of me."
the antlers & the hooves & the teeth
stitched into a dress you'll wear when 
we are laying & walking our laughing box.
in some versions of the world there are 
nesting dolls of violence. of course i like
the smallest ones best. your hands. your flesh.
our forest. our night. the hunt does not
have to end with the day. we could do this 
until our bodies are dust. once in the night
i stumbled upon a campsite. an man 
was holding his wife & devouring all
of her hair. i covered my eyes. i was not
meant to see. our intimacies are breathing
on each other. when you finally get me 
hold me tight. let us eat something sweet
together. you always tell me i am too 
devoted to grapes. i know i buy too many.
my secret is that in my throat i feel the globes 
becoming bullets. i am the most loaded gun.
the trigger, somewhere else. i stay full. 
you gut me the following dusk. 
music plays on a tin can radio as you do. 

sadie hawkins dance

i get my gender from the gymnasium 
covered in streamers. there were boys
without teeth & boys without fingers
but never boys without eyes. 
i made myself a plate & waited like
a mailbox. i have something for you.
i have a place for us to pretend. i remember
the thrill of the boundary. what would 
it mean to be the boy in the blender.
the one i liked was not kind. he no bones
but plenty of bedrooms. even the dark
beneath a tree can be a bedroom 
if the boy you know is hungry enough. 
i had my own faults too. i wanted to
be loved which was a real shame 
in the four walls of a sneaker-chirping place.
that night it was still summer-hot. 
maybe september or maybe may's unfurled
tongue. farm field breath in the sky.
i remember the parking lot. a night sky
without the stars. i took off my shoes. 
he did not carry me. you never arrive
at what you crave by asking for it.
the moment it becomes a request 
it looses that plum-hunger. becomes a need. 
i needed to be a boy. i needed too for 
the boy to be a rocket ship. i do not know
what he needed. maybe my skin. maybe
just my mouth. we did slow dance. 
was it a relief? i do not remember. i just
remember the sweat afterwards. 
he was much taller than me. the space
beneath him, a bedroom. 

power puff girl bed

the old house grows hairy legs
& walks to me. i remember vines
on the brick shoulders. a crack widening
in the gills of the place. smooth wooden
floors & spearmint whispering 
all through the night. in my room, my dad
built me a power puff girl bed.
wooden & pink. i adored that show.
wanted to be powerful & still small. 
instead, i have grown. i think there was
a time when i could fly. i looked down
on the lamp lit little town. we did not
stay there long. i remember a snowman 
returning to water. his gutter ghost. 
i remember too a wooden spoon 
i used to dig in the wet dirt. the house is 
lonely now. stands like a sick creature.
sometimes i leave out bowls of cereal
& peanuts for her. she mopes. clips
her toenails & hurries back to the railroad tracks
that stitch the towns together. 
i wish i still had the power puff girl bed.
then i could sleep in it. experience once again
being a popcorn chicken. instead i sleep
in a plate. fork fishing for hair. i dream of 
going to the house. coaxing her over.
stroking her ruffled siding. feeling the fracture
that run up her side. climbing within
to be a little radiant being. spoon beneath my pillow.