turning blue

i am okay with unkept promises 
but please make them marvelous.
tell me we are going to 
have breakfast with angels 
if i will just come to the corner store
& buy you a diet coke & slim jim.
tell me you booked us a flight
to the north pole. tell me 
i will not be cold at all there
& that my blood is useful.
tell there is a church without
any gods. tell me 
you are not really a boy but 
a minor god here on earth
to make me a statue. once i looked
in a bathroom mirror in january.
it was bryant park. i was with
someone new & it was not working.
i saw my lips turning blue.
they were like tumbled beta fish.
scales & all. i promised myself
i would keep walking until
i reached the station. until i could
come home & be whatever kind of
baseball bat you needed.
i didn't do that. i stood at the station
& killed time. i lied to you when i promised
i was doing okay. i did see an angel.
it had the face of a subway engine.
mangled & ripe. it said,
"go ahead" which terrified me.
i wanted to plead, "i need you
to tell me to hold back."
promise me we are already husbands
& this is a story we tell 
at dinner parties & bond fires.
you live inside an acorn on my desk now.
i never wanted to be an orbit
but this is what we do. all life
grows in circles. ring around
a tick bite. round headlights. 
you knocking on my door. it is
the dead of night. you're saying,
"come & be blue with me." 

baseball card

i put my boyhood between my bike spokes.
chewing gum. chewing tobacco.
chewing sunflower seeds in the dug out.
no one has a face in the outfield.
we find crowns in the hawk's nest. we eat
watermelon until our stomachs 
are fish bowls. running in the meadow 
of razor blades i became a blood ribbon dancer.
no one believed me when i said,
"once, i hit a home run." instead
they thought i was just saying
i wanted to run home. of course i did.
no one with a magenta body 
goes around thinking they are alive.
on the little card a man wears his muscles 
like trophies. how the body can be
a reaping place. sewing on a gender
until it is thick & ready to be useful.
i was alone in my own ballfield. on saturdays
the mennonite kids played & i watched.
horses in the yard. i could picture 
a fragment of myself posing 
with a bat slung over my shoulder. 
this is how my body
has always come to me. in pieces 
& snap shots. standing still.
in my mother's bedroom
there was once a full-length mirror.
i went there as a ritual; i was asking
to be whole. a tall glinting baseball card.
knocking knees. one missing tooth. 
i could fit my entire skeleton
into the palm of the glove. 
there were men some where 
& they were dreamlike. 

food court

i want to let my love be greedy 
& gorged on funnel cake fries.
in the skylight world
there are false trees & there are real ones.
the difference is who is looking.
walking with my friends
& desperately trying to pretend
to be human. there was an afternoon
i looked at my fingers & thought
"how does anyone move?"
at the food court i accepted 
a sample of general tso's chicken 
with no intention of eating it.
aimless with a glaed planet. 
coming together in the name of salt
& sugar. a plastic fork.
your face coming off on a napkin
& we laugh because that's
all you can do. a warm pickle.
a red tray. highways that turn blue
from holding their breath.
i wanted to live there. chorus
of mouths. tongues like charmed lizards.
teach me how to be a pilot. tell me
i am not just a water fountain.
drinking myself into a waterfall.
my legs turned to oars.
let's go home. let's go home right now
i'm thinking but you are still
a hamburger. you promised me
you would come back. you promised me
you would be a girl too if i was. 

spaghetti

no one believed i was eating my own hair. it grew back so quickly & in my stomach, it turned into abundant spaghetti.  how delightful to be my own fullness.  tomato sauce or murder. in the clouds i saw the face of my grandfather with worms coming out of his mouth. i wonder sometimes who in my family is like me or hears the moon creaking. psychosis is being a prophet but knowing the god is not real. you walk around with scriptures greeting you. they say, "everything is made of centipedes" &  you can't share the gospel. instead, the tongues twist until you are a pie crust boy. a fork in my mouth. a fork  in the garbage disposal.  my hands come off so many times i can't count. cheap plane ticket into the boil water. my skin comes off like bedsheets. you are turning up the heat even though it's july & i am melting. i sometimes use my phone. take out the camera to see if jupiter is really a dinner plate or if i am just an iceberg again. don't worry. it comes & goes. it has eyes & then doesn't. i take a picture of my father & it turns into a porch light. i am starving if you know what i mean. i hope you do because i have no idea at all what i mean. 

promise day

i wore the ugliest dress i could find
to go out into your wilderness. 
you were on your back
& talking only to toads
for weeks. to heal is
to become not myself
& so i take a shovel & i name it
"everlasting." a timer
on the kitchen goes off but
i don't remember what
i was roasting in the oven.
a silent star? a rotten melon?
my own hand?
i didn't want the wilderness
to get a good look.
it didn't want it to say,
"here is a boy" or "here is
a girl." even though a girl is
always a boy & vice versa.
the dress was paisley print 
or else it was see through plastic
so as to avoid the metal detector man.
one flight to the old thoughts.
another, a train, into 
a valley of languishing shoes.
once, i made a promise
that i would always be your 
pineapple. your fork
in the pan. then you were
standing on the ceiling
& talking about baby deer.
the one you hit on that sunday night
when everything was already
too cinnamon. do not
promise anything to me again.
they always become pocket caramels.
get sticky. make me a less beautiful
version of myself. let's not pretend
this was dazzling. let's say what it was.
a man with a machete
hacking his way through 
a thicket. did i say 
you could call me a thicket? 

monkey's paw

wishing the moon red,
we stood on the porch
covered in a phantom blood.
pickled the fireflies. salvaged light.
my limb went missing & the whole family
is pretending to look for it. 
i'm begging everyone
to admit to it's existence.
they ask, "was it a hand?"
"was it a foot?" i shake my head.
i am a feather duster.
i am a morgue flower. i do not remember
how or why i was able 
to climb onto the roof. 
luck is not a place to dance.
it is a place to cover your eyes.
a turning mote. coal mine 
of goats. they get on their hands
& knees. run fingers along the baseboards.
there is no knuckle. no shoulder.
just a house of monkeys
eating their dinner nectar. 
monkeys in the cabinets & monkeys
in the garage. i imagine harvesting
that limb from them. replacing it 
on myself. transplant desire.
once my mother asked me
why i wanted 
to mutilate my body.
i sobbed into a lemon
& then ate the lemon whole.
the paw is not a real place.
it is just a myth of conservation.
that the gone parts will return
full of promise. make a wish
on my teeth. i pluck them out
one by one. my family has
given up looking. they watch
a television game. glow of the screen.
blood comes from the ceiling.
first just a patch & then a downpour.
we all ignore it. soon it will clot 
& scab & we will just be standing here.

log cabin

i do not want to be alone
& yet here i am with an axe again.
i chop the legs 
off of spiders. i carve a face
in the ground & let it speak.
it says, "cover your eyes."
nothing happens or else it does
& i miss it. 
the trees are all wearing 
their violin faces. once, when i was a girl
i tried to get my family lost.
i said to my mom, "this way"
when i  knew it wasn't the way home.
some girls lose their heads
when they're grown. i lost mine young.
looking up at my body from the dirt.
axe like a bell in my hand.
the cabin has goat eyes 
& goat hunger. eats greedily
& without intention. a tongue
i lay down on. i ask the cabin
how i taste & it says,
"like a steel & syrup." 
slitting the trees throats
for sap. there was a time when 
i collected loneliness like pearls.
shucking open any face i could find.
tell me what you don't tell anyone else.
i want your sleeping bags 
& you poison ivy. there is a bowl
of sirens in the kitchen
i keep for just-in-case kind of nights.
juggling them with a field mouse
who is not a field mouse. 
who is a father figure. who tells me,
"you should call more often."
i agree but then i don't. i hammer
a nail into the wall & it causes
a lightning-bolt crack. the cabin
splits in half. one is a boy & one
is a girl half because at the end of the day
that's how we're splitting most things.
kaleidoscope of dirt. i kiss
the windows goodnight. i do not 
want to own a cabin. i do not know
where it came from or who built it
unless of course it was me. i know
i built it but it is easier to pretend
the cabin came like a fresh rain 
& not like knees & knots.
nights spitting as much green 
as i could until here it was
all glorious. my axe hangs 
on the wall. there's not wood
to split tonight. 

squirrel meat 

gut the moon. replace my eyes
with walnuts. winter is going to 
make apples of us. in school 
everyone’s lunch boxes were 
full of squirrel meat. they feasted 
while i ate imaginary spaghetti.
i pictured the tree dwellers 
with their bones undone.
hung in the kitchen like twin socks. 
a bruise forms in the shape of
my mothers face. she is asking 
if the casserole winked at me.
it did not but i am too hungry 
to mind. a dissection diagram.
i never sleep well. who am i
kidding? who is plucking out
the squirrel’s heart just to find 
it is only a cherry. you wear a fur
coat & tell me it is faux even though
we both can tell it’s not.
the moon doesn’t crawl back.
we were going too far again. i faint 
& when i wake up you tell me it’s been 
5000 years. the clock on the wall
says you’re lying. it’s only been
a decade. i measure tule. i measure 
time in meat. muscle bone. 
lunch box buzzing. faint taste
of chestnuts. a quail egg singing 
in my hand. she won’t hatch
but we can pretend we will be fathers.

birthday cake flavor

there are children outside 
with their confetti faces
waiting to be born. tasting vanilla
upon waking up. i don't want
to be reminded of backyards ever again.
a balloon with a fist inside.
once i had a party & invited
only fingers. another year
i was a girl & i had a birthday 
with my friend who was also a girl. 
we ate dinosaur cake. we dressed 
in vitamin suits. there were men
talking about government 
in the corners of my eyes. 
a fork is a place to go if you need
to fester with sugar. sweet
in the same way that spiders 
are sweet & fainting when 
you knew you were going to.
sometimes i find icing where
i would not expect it: in my wallet.
in a lopsided drawer. we could go
& tell the children it isn't time yet
or we could let them do 
what they will eventually do anyway.
touching every window & shouting,
"butter!" haven't you ever
shouted "butter!" in desperation?
i thought i was a baby again
& i thought everyone was going
to sing to me. sky blue bruise.
where the crust comes in
to cull. i take a bite & then
you do too. i don't share 
with any of the children. 
they beg & beg until they are
just piles of sprinkles. i want to go back
to when i was only color. 

gutter

get me the axe. get me
the green whistle. in the new house
gutter clogs with leaves in the storm.
waterfall in the bathroom 
& i came on the phone with god
who is saying, "you asked
for a piece of licorice."
do you ever brace yourself 
when you ask a simple question.
sitting at the table. my feet don't touch
the ground. you can decide 
whether or not you remember.
i do not remember. i do not remember anything
just the scent of spearmint 
behind the house where the rusted nails
proliferate. a man came & removed
heaps of gunk & heavy brown leaves.
water flowing. standing in the shower
thinking, i could be standing outside.
i do not miss you like i hoped i would.
instead, i think of you like a hunk
of leaves. again & again you cease the water.
i am bare & cold & it takes me
too long to realize i've turned off
the water. the walls are still damp.
what kind of playhouse is this?
i feel like everyone is watching
& they know exactly what i've gained
& lost which is news to me 
because i am still unsure. i lay in bed
like a bagel. the hole, something to orbit
or else an entry point. the rain stop
& in the morning everything is made
of violin string. a snake
on the sidewalk speaks in
the old language to say,
"the river is full."