gargoyle farm

where did you plant your terror?
i walked until i found a field of snow.
used the hand shovel & dug. watched
my hands turn to stone & fall off.
became paperweights. the soul 
is a flag tied outside the door of the body.
waves in the violin air. when the gargoyles grow
i make it a point to look into their faces.
try to change rock. press thumbs 
into their eyes. grimaces & frowns.
i tell them, "we are happy in this life."
they do not budge. this is why the field
had to be so far away. i knew i would be
ashamed of what grew. i want to be
a spirit without any doubts. i crave 
community willing to go & tell the eels,
"we need a circus." i am hungry for
an ocean full of shoulders. whirlpools
we use to feed our hard candies. 
instead, i am here with the weight 
of all the rooves. drinking rainwater.
screaming into a wrenched-open pomegranate. 
somedays i believe everything 
is school bus flavor. we are not getting out.
i dress the gargoyles in knit hats 
to make them feel more whimsical. 
call a friend on my cell phone
& when they ask where i am, i am honest
for the first time. i say, "i am in my gargoyle garden."
they ask, "are there any dandelions?"
there are. little yellow promises.
i pick one & eat it. we talk about stomachs 
& what we want to fill ours with.
mice & songbirds & kitchens. 
i kiss each gargoyle goodbye before i leave.
tell them, sweetly, "i will miss you."
they say in response, "we will not miss you." 

t-bone

i fed the stegosaurus everything i had
until i was just a pair of stockings.
the intersection was crowded with protesters 
who had been there so long they
no longer knew what they were protesting for. 
there were so many small fires. there were 
so many televisions & so many dinosaurs 
without time periods to live in.
a common ice breaker is "what other era
would you like to exist?" i usually answer
"the primordial soup." i want to writhe.
i want to wriggle. my head was full of screws
& images of my fathering. he shook me awake.
put his finger to his lips & said,
"i am not real." the stegosaurus is a family member.
we have to take what lineage we can get.
i go into the driver's seat & i don't have my license 
& i don't have a car. the car is a stegosaurus.
the intersection is crowded with geese 
who no longer have a place to fly 
in the winter. my mouth catches on fire.
we put it out with tongue. taping everything
back into place. i told you again,
"we live in a duct tape city." the night came
with crinkling wrapping paper & 
a nutrition label. i was born with my ingredients
written across my shoulders. the car came
from a different time. it had a prehistoric face.
smashed like punching a hole through a wall.
like sudden & viscous anger. broken glass.
calling for help. the animals bones
in the road. protesters asked me, "how did
this happen?" i vibrated. i levitated.
"i don't know. i don't know," i said
before running away from the carnage.
before becoming a full time firework.
a letter in the mail came that said, 
"i'm so disappointed at your lack 
of good citizen." i crumpled it up & ate it. 

the good word

tell me the meaning of worms.
if there is a god he is bored 
& watching television.
licking his fingers of cheese sauce.
sometimes the birds try to evangelize me.
they quote bible verses.
"if your eye sin pluck it out." i replace
my eyes with coriander seeds.
they sting so i try apples which rot 
& fill my head with worms.
"pluck it out." i am so hungry for goodness
that sometimes i read the "good news" website.
a little girl becomes a pilot. a man
eats his weight in teeth. there is a scientist 
who turns tears into fossil fuels.
hope is a thing with no feathers
but tells you "i will be a swan." i do not
want hope. i want a jar of nutella. 
i want a burning police car. instead i'm going
to sew a button onto the back
of my neck. point to it & say,
"if your eye sin against you." a bird finishes
my sentence & says, "turn it into 
something you can sell." i hold a sale.
buy one get one free. i disagree 
so strongly with the birds. i love my hunger.
i love my eyes. i feed them goldfish crackers 
& as much sugar as they want. i watch
a video of a man being hit by the bus
in a compilation of "epic fails." 
he turns into a jug of milk. haven't you ever
become a necessity? i have. 
reached for. written on the list
& handed to a shopping angel. 
do not mistake me for a disciple. 
i just talk to the birds & occasionally 
we will agree on a word. today it is "halo."
everyone wants one but they are sold out.
"can you swipe me one?" i ask a blue jay.
the blue jay grins & replies,
"pluck it out." the presence of the good word
suggests the existence of the terrible word.
that is where i want to live.
where the ground says, "blink"
& our demons eat glazed donuts.
god calls the fire department but it is
too late. the tree is a spent matchstick.
the birds are angels. 

cassette garden or a blue jay elegy 

play me the best version of your chlorine.
in the burial dirt behind the garage 
i planted my father's cassette tapes.
some of them were steel-tongued
& others were of him singing in the choir.
when i say no one believes me i mean
they put their ear to the soil
& hear blue jays. there are no such thing
as blue jays, only the little ice cream scoops 
of real world removed to make space
for the sky. i would burry my hands 
& run to my mother to say, "i don't have
any hands." she would go & look for them
with me even though she knew it was my fault.
is it true that we, as mice, choose 
the color of our eyes in the next life?
eating a rabbit made of chocolate. eating 
a melting bone. i learned how to play them
anywhere. put the tapes in my mouth 
& hear him saying, "come here."
scissors gliding across a ream of fabric.
i peel open. i pretend to be a machine
or else i am a machine. boom box breath.
listening to the beetles & remembering
everything is about capital 'm' men's pain.
not mine. mine is the cassette tape garden
which is also a farewell plot. a tree grew
which bore the saddest pears. i swallowed them all.
i did not want to share. church music.
ave maria. ave maria. green thumb or guiltless.
the garden cracks its back on a folding chair.
they come & find me but do not recognize me.
pull the tape out of my mouth. 
i am not your song. i am your blue jay.

hammer wedding

you tell me that a love poem
is a toolbox of marching bands.
i carry my hammer.
catastrophe the windows.
there used to be a girl on the roof
but she jumped & turned into 
a heron. we try to get the wasp's nest
but it turns out to be my father's head.
don't tell me you know about my veil.
i have kept it like a quail 
in the singing box all my life.
i whisper to it & say,
"there is not such thing as the sun."
it weeps & thanks me. i don't want to be
your man handle. i don't want
to be your grotto or gorge. i want to be
a knitting needle through the skull
of a night terror. pin your moths 
to the cork. keep your teeth
in your skull. i used to feed you mine
like bubblegum. spat oceans
on the dining room floor.
we hold a wedding but just for
our hammers. mine is the woman.
you have to keep
your rage somewhere. "you may now
break the wall open." do not tell me
i am your stray cat child. i do not want
to be loved in a spare room. 
i want to be a candelabra or at least
a chandelier. 

notes on withdraw

i never said i wouldn't eat your heart.
there are ads in the newpaper
for mousekillers. 
i don't want to hunt for glass anymore.
broken plum seed. fracture
my funny bone & call me a jester.
o queen leek, let's get in the blend
& try to talk about football.
my stomach grows a jaw bone
but no teeth. my hands shake 
& i lift a skull from its velvet pouch.
tell me everything you know 
about being a girl. when i think of myself
i say "we" because i keep a greek chorus
in my head. a mouth with seven beaks.
the enclosure has a feeding trough.
the feeding trough is full of jax.
your heart tasted like peach rings.
i did not leave a single crumb.
all the while you watched & said,
"do it do it." "yes" is a form of submarine.
let's see how deep your yearning goes.
i pay a man to kill a tree. i am my father.
the tree has a brother who haunts the yard
always looking for revenge. 
this is the process of finding your footprints
everywhere & not remembering
being here before. have i really had
so little control over my bones?
yes, the answer is yes. there is
a bowl of strawberry candies
for anyone who wants to be a grandchild
in my house. come here. come closer.
tell me what i look like to you. tell me
if i still could pass as a nun if i needed to. 
do i look as hungry as i feel? 

parade w/ anti-aging 

they make a cream now 
that turns you into a lobster.
live forever. god yourself 
in a little robe. i walk out 
into the night lotion & we are
having a party for everyone
who has decided not to die.
blow up the light bulbs.
write your name in the shop window.
no one is safe from a wrinkle
in righteousness. i put the clown face on
& vote for which pair of teeth 
i want to bite down on the board.
when they cut off our legs 
let's not be afraid. let's instead pretend
the procedure is cosmetic.
something yearned for. how you come apart
has little to do with desire 
& more to do with seams. 
who put you together? whose dogs
do you run away from?
my tongue as a pin cushion.
the grandmothers walk & so do the unborn.
contrary to what some people say,
the unborn are very happy to remain unborn. 
little bubbles in the air. heads full of cranberries.
no air to worry about, just the highway rush.
i pick up a hitchhiker in my parade float.
he says, "what are we doing?"
i whisper, "i have no idea."
he nods & i add, "just go along with it."
which is actually terrible advice.
that is how worlds explode. that is how
you end up drinking gasoline 
in a lava garden. who knows though.
the parade just started or it's ending.
i did not ask enough questions
before i go into the cockpit of this body.
now i'm trying to play space invaders. now i'm
dressing a wound. the best treatment for age i hear
is bathing in the fountain of youth
which is really just a puddle of oil
in the grittiest gutter. unsuspecting. 
all prizes are cloaked in terror. or else
to win is to be in terror. maybe i am 
less alive than i thought. maybe i am 
walking towards the edge of the earth.
of course i believe the earth can be
walked off of. i have seen it happen. 
some people sprout wings & others 
become comets. goodbye. goodbye. goodbye. 

census

when they came to count my fangs
i said, "i do not have a war inside me."
the man frowned & made notes.
in this country everyone is a moving city.
i build a train. i build a tunnel.
find a secret history where everyone
had to live as ghosts. when i say, "everyone"
i always mean us & not them.
they put a purple 'x' on my door
which could mean anything. 
a friend tells me they feel affirmed 
by the marking. "the birds can see me" they say.
i want to be so happy. instead, i make 
the same 'x' beneath my tongue.
tell the birds, "i am terrified of the bus station."
once, i found a piece of a body
in a trash can there. gender is often
"what were you turned into." i wanted
so badly to be recorded that i was
& it wasn't good enough. they take 
our pictures with a polaroid & then eat them.
i ask them "what does that do?"
they say, "i was just hungry." they make a dream
in which we are all beta fish. gorgeous 
& incapable of living in the same water. 
i spit up a wrench in the bath. i use it
to make a telephone. i call a neighbor 
& ask, "what did you give them?"
the neighbor whispers, "nothing."
i am embarrassed. i always shed too much
when a fist turns into a shadow puppet.
let's curate our capture. let's by
shiny data. i do not want to live forever.
that is only what i am told to want.
i crave unknowability. mystery is a gift 
that only the gutless can get.
write down that i am one of those bodies
that doesn't stop barking. 

wing harvest

the ripening happens all at once.
"it is time" i say into the darkness
of a television night.
we were asleep in a pitless peach.
nectar still on my shoulders.
i was once told i would never 
be a harvester because i am too velvet.
i laughed & bought a knife
from a crossroads man. 
i sharpened it on my own teeth.
the birds shed their flight 
as they pass on to their next lives as fish.
you have to be there at the split second
their soul turns inside out.
or else you will end up with just
handfuls of beaks & feathers.
the tongue field laps at the night's cream.
when i was human, i sometimes
made promises i couldn't keep
like "i will save you some" or 
"i will come back" or "i'll call you."
instead, i took those words & knit cozies 
for my bones so that no one 
will be able to turn them into video games.
the wings are fresh. the wings
are brown & yellow & blue.
they are not for eating. they are
for keeping. for following. for worshipping.
i fill a whole backpack. thrum all the way home.
hang them out in the living room
to dry. it doesn't take long
for them to settle. i usually hear the birds
asking questions about the afterlife.
i tell them, "keep heading towards jupiter."
my father harvested birds too.
he told me, "the trick to staying alive
is to fill your ears with cattails."
i have never listened to him. i love
to hear the dead talk. how else
would i know who i am 
& what i am gathering? 

cigar box uses

the spare hand. the key to the tunnel
beneath the house. a tooth. a tooth brush.
my uncle used to smoke
in the humid summer. sweet ash.
i was in the yard eating bees. i was 
in the yard digging a hole
to put my gender in. a place to hide
the blood. a box to burry the dead chicken.
cigars of course. you could fill it with
cigars but the primary use for an object
is never the best one. filled to the brim
with marbles. a cow tongue still talking.
there are never enough boxes in my house.
i search for more places to sequester 
my ghosts. bird cage. storm cellar.
damp steps to the well. have you been a boy
inside someone else's dream?
they would ask me to stand on the table
& be the turkey. devoured one leg
at a time. i had a toy video camera.
i said, "this is a movie" pointing
the device in their faces. like popped balloons
they retreated inside a cigar box. 
ashes of your family. band aides for the journey.
a juice box. granola. a single bullet
that was once used to kill a deer.
i believe in repurposing everything 
but especially my memory. i was a mail man
to my uncle. i brought him dead lips
for him to sleep inside. i was an angel to my uncle.
i delivered meat covered in powdered sugar.
empty out the box. i need a place
to put my knife. i shake the box
as if it were a gift. open it again.
the knife is gone & it's a spool of thread.