razor blade forest
 
i am almost never tender to myself. 
i put the leash on 
& have a telephone walk me 
through the razor blade forest
until i am ribbon. driving,
i look up to a billboard & i see
my face selling a bottle of ketchup.
i didn't consent to this
but sometimes our faces go off
& do crime without us. 
i try to imagine what gentleness 
could look like. a fridge of only butter.
a microwaved marshmallow 
eaten with my hands. i used to be
an altar boy & my favorite role 
was ringing the bell. in the sacristy 
the priest would turn into 
a statue & ask us children 
to name our favorite ice creams.
my dreams turn to pastels & smudge off
the more i try to show them around.
when does a hand become
a corkscrew? how have i always
come open so easily. in the closet
i do at least keep a flock of mourning doves.
i feed them cough drops & iced tea.
they sing & ask, "tomorrow?" 
i shake my head & close the door.
it is not tomorrow yet. i open
the door again just a crack 
to promise, "soon." 

stale exorcism 

we took our faces on plates
to the church for purification.
the oldest man in the world
kept alive by wine & burning tongues.
he would come & paint us 
with cream. he sat on a television
& together we denounced the news.
god knows nothing 
about the current events or else
maybe he would come down again
in the form of a glorious flood
& make us all unicorns.
a rainbow comes & i hide it
so it doesn't get eaten. i place it
inside a doggie crate. feed it turnips
& dandelion greens. don't get me wrong
i am a worshipper just like
the next spoon-carrier but sometimes
i think it would be better to turn
the old man into wool 
& use him to survive the winter.
i never felt clean when we were through,
instead i felt like a pumpkin
scooped of all its vital guts.
a radio tower winks at me all night.
i know that's where the angels go
to hear exactly what i think 
& believe. it used to trouble me
how sometimes i would open my mouth
& they would speak through me
as if i were just a hallway. 
have you ever been
a corridor for school children
to spit inside of? a linoleum prophet.
then, one day, i didn't take my face 
at all. i held it & ran into the woods 
where the birds ate pieces of it.
flew & knit nests with my eyelashes.
god i felt so wild. back in town i hear
they say i am possessed by
a demon of sugar. this is maybe true
but if so i never want to exorcised. 
let me be a plate of sticky buns
for the darkness to come & feast. 

ice skating rink in hell

i'll take what i can get.
we all put on our golden jaws 
to eat the jewels at the bottom
of the lake of fire. i take a blade
& dip it into the old night sky.
drain a mile's worth of oil
to feed the flames. there are miracles 
even in the television's belly.
static saints & their beads.
we sacrificed enough flies,
their bodies cut into eighths,
for the spatula to come & flip 
the howling. here is the joy 
we knew was there. running out
across the ice laden mouth 
of a sleeping violence. throwing
snow balls at each other's ghosts.
here, we have a brief encounter
with a plastic laughter. the kind
that comes in happy meals
& in wind-up mirages. do you 
believe me? it was real. we truly
ran out barefoot across the ice.
all around it was still 
the blatant underworld. faceless
dogs & murky birds. but there
we were with our plum eyes. 
nectar of every smirk. no one
fell through the ice. we were 
just headless song birds. 
no one could steal us. 

self-portrait as an antique shop

haggle for my face.
a cardboard box full of 
black & white photographs
of long dead families. 
a glass case full of rust-laden
18th century syringes. 
do not touch. please feel free
to pick things up & look around.
beanie babies in a bath tub. 
this chest has never been unlocked
& there might be a treasure inside
or else a quilt that smells like 
women's work. needle point.
stork scissors. a manual on 
how to be a wife. yellowing pages.
is that your best offer? here are 
my pocketknives. 
moth wing odors. a pile
of vinyl records with no mouth
to fit them into. does it have
a price tag? does it have
a memory? is this faux fur or 
the afterlife of a real fox?
mounted heads of bears.
carnival glass. uranium glass. 
bifocals that are said to have been
worn by a prophet. 
the bones of a priest. let me show you
what else i have in the back.
history has a way of leaving debris.
my ribs as punch bowl ladles. 
that part is not for sale. 
no, i'm not sure where it's from
or even how old it is.

laundry room haunting

i sifted through a week's dirt.
this was before i had ever
broken a rib & before the ceiling
fell in for the fifth time. 
the apartment hid canaries 
in every closet. it was cracked-knuckle winter.
the curse on the super didn't work yet
& i heard his work boots as they paced
the long hallway. once, i think
these apartments might have been
glorious. remnants of an old city.
most ghosts live like this: on top of
the new staircase. kneeling 
at the machine's mouth. rationing
detergent. smell of a false 
lavender field. i looked up
following a faint sound & a little girl 
with eyes like centipedes stood
in the far corner of the room.
her face had porches & potted roses.
she covered her face with her hands.
"hello?" i asked. she shook her head.
i was not as scared as you might think.
a haunting to me is as mundane 
as a red clover. i finish the load
of laundry. lingered in the middle of
the room. smell of rotten wood 
& must. the building's guts
falling out through a leak in the ceiling.
"if you need anything, let me know,"
i told her on the off chance she was
a living girl. she still said nothing.
i left the room at a steady pace.
considered turning back to check
if she was gone but i am not an investigator.
when a haunting comes it is best
to treat them like a tree or a mailbox.
a nod to their fires & then back
to the doorknob life. in my apartment 
i sat at the kitchen table & counted 
hand prints on the ceiling. 

earth's core

i saw your eyes in the cherry bomb. 
we were digging past dinosaur death
& reaching into a box of costume jewelry.
has your grandmother died yet?
did she leave you a box
of faux furs that smell like cigarettes?
mine still inhabits a closet where
beneath her dresses is a magma hole.
the earth is furious in her guts
just like me. i have taken a shovel
& searched all night in my skin
for an ancient civilization's remains. 
clay pots. spoons. the bone of a murderer.
how do you know the sun isn't 
made of silt? a river with a silken face. 
i have tried before to get deep. i have
torn up floor boards & found bones.
you were standing there & pleading,
"let's just pretend we never saw this."
for as long as i can remember
i've been afflicted with nostalgia.
the past puts on a robe 
and settles in the wiry innards 
of the planet. i ask my lover, 
"how does a tree die, is it roots 
or branches that go first?"
he says, "that is not how trees die." 
i decide to believe that a tree passes on
when their roots lick the earth's 
raspberry heart. 
then, all they can dream of 
is chocolate & sleep. 

midnight men

lock the door with jupiter blood.
we burn the moon in the fireplace 
so that the night sky can stretch 
her legs. have you ever seen 
a midnight man? i ask the rats 
who are busy playing harpsicords
& eating dust. the rats scatter.
they do not want to know. 
 they stand in the yard at night. their bodies
are static & wool. eyes yellow
& green like dropped words. 
they knock on the door. put on
their sweet voices to try to get you
to come closer. my biggest secret is
i once laid down in a bed of teeth
with a midnight man. his skin shimmered 
a pearlish white. he grinned & talked
like a television. i said,
i have always wanted to be eaten
only it wasn't my voice speaking.
i was like a puppet. blood trickling
from my mouth & my eyes.
he reached inside me. extracted 
jewels & juke boxes & pocketknives.
all my treasures. insisted that this
was a toll for his company 
& i gave it eagerly. when they come
& make a home inside your mind
you chop off your own fingers 
willingly. this is why i say 
do not talk to the window at night.
take the blood of a trusted planet.
paint it over your eyes 
& try to sleep. i know. i know
i hear them talking too. 

sewing machine

tell me where you keep the mouth?
i need to make sure
no birds get out
of this salad bowl. i would
do it by hand but there are
gods for this now.
now we can feed our hand
through the chaos engine 
& get a pillow on the other side.
do you remember sitting
side by side & planning 
our evacuations? do you remember
the house burning like
a ceremony? i kissed you 
like eating the last fig
in the whole world. you promised
everything that could not
be promised. i stayed awake
for seven years 
trying to sew a wedding dress.
out always came a morgue.
i told you, "i am working
i am working." 
the last message i sent to you said,
"i can't believe we were
just standing in a mine field
& didn't know it." i took a walk
to the dead tavern
with my face wrapped in
scarves. the wind blew
& turned the cell phone
into a shot gun. you didn't say
anything in return. i went home
& could sew everything. 
baby bonnets & wedding gowns
& funeral suites. filled a whole closet
& then set it one fire. 

freezer love poem

i crawled into the snowfall 
to be a girlfriend. 
let's dress in our furs. let's
light a fire for the ancestors.
i eat my life
in freeze frames. a pirogue 
palace. you used to 
drag me by the hair. i used to
laugh about it. opening the door.
a portal into your family portrait.
gust of frigid air. during
the ice age we were kernel
of catastrophe. a saber-toothed
tiger's fury dream. 
hunting a tongue to keep.
once when the power
went out we burried
our wedding rings
into the snow outside
to keep them from melting.
broccoli forest. wolves 
we both secretly feed
the good meat to. when we kissed
it turned amphibial. 
breathing on a frog
to bring it back to life. 
no more room inside
the salvation room. it's just
for the chicken fingers 
& your polaroid camera.
picking me up, you promised
we would have a honeymoon. 
instead, you closed the door
& i had to eat mango popsicles 
to survive. my blood turned 
into playgrounds. 
i thought i could keep going. 

changing the locks

i tell you i see the world
through the door's throat.
a gullet for reaching. all day
i try to become a mail man.
i deliver a package of fires. try
to be a lover & instead 
i break my fingers into bread crumbs.
have you ever tried to 
gut an animal? our bodies
do not want to come apart.
instead, each movement is a reminder
that this was all once whole.
screws on the floor that turn
to beetles. i find his name 
in my mouth & no plier
will get it out. doesn't everyone want
a life free of yesterday? cutting
the tail off & watching it writhe.
it turns into another version of you
who hair never stops growing.
the screw driver prophet. 
canned holy water. we drink sodas 
in the yard. untie a noose hung
from the tree. clip our fingernails
into the dirt. test the lock twice
before we believe it works.