washing machine

i put a leash on my hand
& walk it down to the soap lands 
to drink. inside the gut circus 
we find our sock orphanage.
when i say i want to come clean
i do not mean i want to tell the truth.
i mean the truth is telling me.
zooming back to see my life 
& thinking "who is this monster?"
you are always the gentler tongue.
you say, "get me a glass of blood."
in the fridge is the body of an angel.
it lasts all winter if you are not greedy.
the stains do not ever come out.
not from this life or the last one.
i used to go to the laundry mat
& pray for salvation. watching
all the wads of clothing
roll & roll. their owners, naked
sitting on plastic folding chairs.
i trust no one. i wash my dresses 
in the sink. hang them up 
around the house. ghosts pop into them
from time to time. i say, "you look lovely"
&, embarrassed, they vanish.
the trick is bleach or so i'm told.
bleach & a head without any syrup. 
i can't live without the sugar though.
i'll go mad. i'll start chasing ants
into their little kingdoms. i'll start
demanding rent from the quail. 
instead, i subsistent in lavender chaos.
the washing machines of my eyes,
churning. spitting suds in the sink. 
i have a dirty mouth & i intend to use it. 

rice cooker

i put the bees in their tuesday outfits 
so we could eat what was left
while they were preoccupied.
i don't want rice again
i want to put the catastrophe into grains
& pour curry over their heads.
the machine is a belly world.
picking gnats from the ceiling
& finding each is a piece of shrapnel.
on the television the world is eating itself 
with a spork. garbage disposal screaming.
i crave to devour as much hair as i can
before the time i turn thirty.
nothing is guaranteed though.
some people turn into bugs
before their fifth birthday.
some people open the front door 
& let all the cats out. "was he really
that bad?" my grandmother once asked.
she was dead already. this was just a seance
& i was hoping she would turn out
to be a feminist. she is/was not. 
instead, she left diet pills in my lunch box.
killed a bird & hung it from the power line.
in a world without ankles
i am the pogo stick. my lover teaches me
how to measure rice in the cooker
with my hand. palm to the bottom.
water to the knuckle. outside
everyone is on fire at least a little bit.
it's good to ask if someone wants
to be happy. most of us do not want
to be happy. to do so would mean 
letting the trees talk loud as they want.
giving up the television words 
& going out to the actual warzone. laying
against the ground & feeling exactly 
how the soil trembles. tonight i eat
my pinecone meal. i plant a hydrangea bush
inside the rice cooker & close the lid.
open it forty-five minutes later
to find a lamb there, sleeping. 

model t

ride with me on the back of a false god.
i was told we were highway sisters
& i can see the resemblance. 
our teeth tossed like dice. i have been 
collecting specimens. i have been
calling the friday bigrade. no one has seen
a victory in the last hundred years.
tell me, did your ancestors burn 
your only piece of the moon? did they
put the fat in their mouth & suck?
i ask for a vaccine against the decade. 
let's not talk here out in the open
where all the mice can see us. i need a bee hive.
i need a brethren castle. instead, i have
the rusted yard. the corn field
cut for the winter. there are so many places
to go & run. i hold the factory in a soft heart place.
it's where my father found his gender.
only through repetition. assembly line.
how do you power you hunger? i give mine
a galloon of gasoline. i tell it, "we could
own the mountain." no one owns the mountain
of course but it's covered in ear tags.
herd the cow into my mouth. we need
only five hundred more signatures before
we have a consensus. none of us wants 
to drive a car to work. 
none of us want to wear the leather gloves.
the car is running in the driveway.
we really have to go. there are grapefruit waiting. 

dead man's curve

the road twists its lips into a snarl
or a grin. a bouquet of teddy bears
left out in the rain to become demons.
darkness is where we can go
to eat chocolate. i drive & you play
on your phone. you turn into a prophet.
i turn into a disciple. we are on our way
to foretell the coming 
of a great pile of buffalo skins.
let's not pretend the land doesn't remember.
grudges are as deep as the shale.
water carries blood & vice versa.
once i kneeled to quench my thirft
in a stream. i looked at my hands,
cupping the water, finding them crimson.
the deer come here to make themselves
into martyrs. the birds then arrive
to feast. play percussion song 
on the ribs. when was the last time 
you drove this slowly? i was a teenager
& i gripped the wheel, holding on
to a dinner plate. i ran a stop light
& no one was around. i pulled over
weeping to the coyote. "don't come
& devour me." punishment is less
a force of nature & more a force of
memory. here is how the earth did not let me
get out without bruises. without
a man in my backpack. once, a man's wife 
dropped ribbons from her hair
before jumping off the roof
& becoming a blue heron. that ribbon
is the road i used to take to your house.
the road i would take & call 
the fireworks over & over until she answered.
until she took out her pocket-knife
& made the cockroaches talk. 
i'm not afraid of travel or even if fire.
i am scared instead that we will 
come out on the other side of the ridge 
& not be able to remember each other.  

quantity over quantity 

i have been told i look like a sea gull.
mirrors turn into little factories.
i don't know how to be a thumb creature anymore.
i apply to a job on mars. i apply to a job
making wax models of myself.
there was an ad on my phone today
for vacationing in heaven. when was the last time 
you made a sandwich from only hair?
i have eaten what the earth does not want.
i have built hundreds of houses 
from only feathers. i was told by a voice
coming out of the wall, "build an arch."
i reject all notions of two by two. 
even the flood is heteronormative. instead 
i tell the animals to fit as many as they can
on my egg carton raft. pill bugs & elephants 
& neighbors. i pull a snake from my mouth.
i sell five eyelashes to the highest bidder.
the auction house is not a place
but a state of mind. how can i convert
these shoulders into gold. how can i 
plant a potato & wait long enough
for it to grow into a child. we cut 'x's
into the walls. dig here. the spare room
full of nothing but shoes. there has
to be another way. or else we are already full.
no vacancy on my solar system. just 
a lot of trading cards & a lot of bicycles.
don't get me wrong though.
i also want it all. i want to be full. 

2 weeks notice

tell your god you will not eat the planet.
there are whales underneath my eyes.
i used to pull ribbons out of my mouth
for a room full of jenga blocks.
pulling free a foundation beam. 
soon the collapse will be beautiful
& all yours. i write my name on demolition sites.
i bring a box of chocolates 
to the protest. the protest has pickle jars 
full of specimens. we are all trying to 
give over evidence. "here is how the hours
have been used to mulberry me."
a tooth pick made of glass. 
the dentist in the glove box who says,
"you could do just another week."
hunger is a little town in the snow.
no lights on. just a grocery store 
in the dark. let's not pretend i was a saint.
instead, i was a body with blood in it.
i carried a pocket knife into the database 
or the hot water. do you have experience
wringing a bone of its milk? i do.
i learned exactly how hard to squeeze.
there is the gold. there is the doctor 
& the promises. none of this will ever
make you a cherry tree. you already are
a cherry tree. i am collecting pits.
i am going to find a payphone
& call the factory just to hear it breathe. 

skinny dipping

there are not enough ghosts to go around.
i see you pulling elephants from your mouth.
the lake is full of red jello but we swim anyway.
i could go on & on about every way 
you stripped me down to me necklaces.
instead i will just show you the callouses
on my feet & the scar in the shape of a rabbit.
we drive slow at night. the deer are deering.
standing in flocks of three & waiting
to ascend into heaven for the winter.
it was january & the pool water unfroze.
i was fourteen or fifteen. i said, "watch me!"
there was no one watching but an owl 
with a mouse in his mouth. haven't you 
ever taken a moment to relish your prey?
i have not. i am an audio-tarian meaning
i only eat sound. the water hit me 
like piano mondays. my heart a little pomegranate.
get your thumbs in there. get your teeth
pulling husk from hail mary. i do not 
know how i got out alive. i shivered
for days after. sometimes i still shiver
from the cold of that plunge. all the scales 
& talons i shed. limbs floated in the water
around me. bare as my bones would let me.
i had never wanted so badly to be kissed.
to have the warmth of someone else's blood.
never mistake a fire for company. 
unzip your skin in august when all the cicadas
are on television & boys fall from the trees
all day in the form of soup peaches 
& mango. don't get me wrong,
i loved to hear my bones ring. i loved to see
all my future teeth buzzing like beetles.
i loved to be, for a moment, undone. 

blood born

get out the butter, i'm ready.
give me the syringe full of spiders.
i can survive any kind
of kiss. even ones with chains.
we drove for hours until 
our lives were fingernail clippings.
the moon was a vanilla wafer
which i ate while you weren't looking.
there is something in my blood
about escape. my grandfather moving
from ecuador to brazil to philadelphia.
all the gasoline in his red. 
eating a chicken from the sun.
there is a church in my lungs
& it's always burning incense.
i do not want to be blessed or holy.
i want to have a painting of mary
on my wall. i want a halo to teeth with.
if you looked at my blood under
a microscope you would see 
all kinds of moths & whales.
they would have goat eyes &
big cartoonish frowns. it starts with 
the zipline. it starts with the kissing
on the bridge. haven't you ever driven
somewhere you don't belong?
if you haven't then we aren't kin.
then we aren't even talking to each other.
a mulberry tree grows
under every bed i've ever tried
to sleep in. rubber ducks in the blood.
rubber tree bleeding milk. 
violet bruises. a tea cup with a little scab 
sitting at the bottom. let's tell the truth.
there was never a butter dish. there was
only a knife. you were just trying
to make me think it was duller than it was. 

spa night

i want to deserve the prophecy.
god is tall & thin & standing
in the corn fields just before harvest.
all the while i am laying in a bath of broth 
& blood. let's not pretend 
i am a saint. instead, i am a carrier.
i fill my car with teeth & drive
to whatever mouth is full of song birds.
when i say i want you to love me
i mean i want to sometimes be pandora.
to open my mouth & let the destruction
of the universe fall out & have you still 
want to take me to mcdonalds
for a sundae. i put on a face mask
of crush stink bugs. i wear my robe.
you are throwing darts at a board hung
around my neck & saying,
"why do you never stand still?"
i stand still & you ask,
"why are you always standing still?"
my bath bomb heart is not deployed.
i don't want to be a desolation ever again.
let's instead try to talk about wildlife.
about sharks & gills. about dead skin.
i remember when you used to treat me
like a lobster. hold me under the water
& say, "the meal is tomorrow,
for today let us be lovers."
red as a red can be. i prefer not to believe
in an afterlife. instead i believe
in friday nights. in ear hair & a capacity
for transformation. you ask me,
"do you think my hair is falling out?"
i do not. it looks as lush as ever.
there is a whole rainforest on your head.
i rub my scalp. tell myself 
one day, if all goes well, i will 
plant a yew tree here. i will tell no one.
i will sit beneath the tree & weep. 

amateur taxidermy 

you do what you can with the body.
salt & smoke. holding on to the ears.
replacing eyes with gumballs.
taking the guts wherever you can.
into the sky. into the mouths of birds.
i used to believe in preservation.
that a body could be held. lie in state
like a saint. now, i believe in meaning-making.
sewing ceiling with marigolds. conjuring symbols
from fresh earth. wind chimes of bones. 
the hardest part is making the pelt
look like the animal once did. running.
climbing a golden sock pile. muscle
& blood. a remnant can never be
that which it is the fragment of. 
this is part of the definition & yet 
i labor. kneel in the rib cage 
of another boy, saying, "give me 
your teeth." he is just like me only 
wind turned his face into a plum tree.
forest fire that made each of us
leather shoes. i walked out among flames.
returned again to carry out carcasses. 
so often we say "rebuild" we think 
"replica." i mean memorial. i mean 
the skin is still here to be tended.