graveyard for trees

i bury my hands. shovel in my teeth.
the graveyard is full of televisions
playing reruns of the superbowl. 
i still don't know how to play football
& i'm uninterested in learning.
trees die in rainfalls. one limb
at a time. they stand & watch a hand 
fall to the earth & become the home
of mushrooms & little bugs.
i too know what it's like to mourn
the body piecemeal. i said
no freaking way & that's why 
i'm doing the taking apart myself.
a little headstone for each hand. 
mourners come. other hands of all 
my friends & former lovers. the trees
are not like this. they do not mourn
their dead. instead, they wait for
them to become part of the soil.
years from today they know
the loved one will glimmer behind their eyes.
my hands were mischiveous agents.
always picking another apple & 
shoving it into my mouth. i wanted to
let them run rampant. let them
strangle as many dandelions as they pleased.
i could not see them wither. i am not a tree.
the trees say, "this is a graveyard."
we are standing in a parking lot
& then in a mall bathroom & then 
in an arcade. i think a graveyard is
an onion. one petal for every species.
goodbye previous galaxy. goodbye 
old rotting moons. ours is fresh 
& shiny. i often push rolled up notes
into the ground for my hands to read,
"i'm sorry" i say. they don't respond.
the trees lay down sideways beneath 
every broken strip mall cathedral.
i leave flowers for them. the tree ghosts
spit them out & say, "we are not dead."
i say, "i know. i want to join you."  

bicycles for the trees

escape is a state of being.
escape the telephone. escape the holiday
escape the bone structure. escape 
your father's tongue. escape
the teeth of the bear who lurks
by the telephone poll desert.
i tell the tree, "you should 
run way with me." a forest on foot.
they say, "roots roots roots."
always an excuse for not 
flowering in the deep knots 
of the wild land. of course i do
the same thing. i say, "not today"
over & over until my body is nothing
but a windchime. the trees have dreams
of living inside an ice cream parlor
& having an adolscense. i have dreams of
swallowing so much dirt i do not
remember being a piece of chewing gum
in the mouth of a wingless system.
everything here is meant to make us
into escapees. exit signs 
line either side of my days. a boat
with a beating heart i could ride
into the sea monster lands at the edges
of the map. i mean screw it 
maybe i'm a flat earther now. maybe
i need to find a fairy ring 
& pull it apart. incur the appropriate 
wrath of the magical beasts.
i shake the sapling at the edge 
of the creek i say, "there is still time
for you!" the tree stands up & gets on
her bike & rides away towards 
the supermarket. she is going to buy
as much ice cream as she can eat.
i kneel down to touch 
the warm earth where she was. 

altar clothe

i saw god in a stock photo.
we were walking through the goodwill
seeking refuge in all kinds
of beautiful nonsense. there he was
with a linen scented face. i was looking
for altar tools. it was a cordless november.
all i wanted was to be a human again
but that always feels like something
i'm reaching for. do other people 
see the mirror & think "almost there"?
i brush my teeth with a paint brush.
mouth full of trees. i've learned
to fill every empty space with a knickknack.
in between my ribs are snowglobes 
& that portrat of god which i purchased
& he quickly vacated the frame. a coward.
always running from containment.
if i were god i would first turn all landlords 
into fireflies. there, they too can learn
to try talking to lovers with only
the light of their own bodies. power out.
summer's talons. we sweat & quickly ate
the melting ice cream cones from the freezer.
when you get fired from a place
i'm told you put all your desk things
into a little box. mostly, i stumble through
the day like this. all my little needs in a box.
god could show himself any time
but he is afraid. he knows he's 
royally fucked up for the most part.
i bought an altar clothe with 
little bird knit into the doilie. i bought
some lost candles to make into a crown.
i am a winter-is-alway-coming kind of person.
the cockroaches playing their keyboards
beneath fridge. all i wanted 
was a holy moon to slice at the counter.
sitting with sugar dripping down 
our chests. a bookend. a chalice.
the checkout line, a glorious little purgatory. 

steel wool blanket

the crickets come to the window
to promise i can be more clean.
beneath skin. beneath bone.
beneath chicken flesh & guts 
there is a tissue paper garland.
one thought biting the tail 
of another. that is where my teeth
are gift wrapped. that is where
my skull glows full of cave worms.
i sit in the kitchen sink with 
a duck call & a gun in my lap.
in this country anyone could have
a gun in their lap & so i have one too.
i name the gun "honesty"
& pet her like a dog. i  just wanted
to shin like the glass cabinet 
full of plates we cannot eat off of.
skin comes off like a tasty-cake wrapper.
tell me the cream is right. tell me
i am as soft as you hoped i would be.
you aren't a man until another man
takes you completely into his mouth.
cuts his gums on your sharpness.
delight is a blimp i once saw burn
on the front lawn. we put on sunglasses.
we took out lawn chairs. tell me,
are you going to sleep in the guest room
or on my forehead? i have space.
the blood was always alarming
after sleeping in such a device. 
but, i've gotten used to it.
to seeing the wreckage & learning
i still need to call it my body. 
tell me, when were you last
comnfortable? i think i was four.
i stood naked in a thunderstorm.
washed. raw. electric.

horse-drawn suture 

i came with my mint floss
& my hooves to the rift.
the floor broke open one night
& we all ignored it. simply moved
the sofa to the other side of the room.
fed plums to the fireplace.
listened to the sugar as it turned
into birds. i pointed & said,
"what is this?" & everyone put on
their binocular faces & looked at
the neighbors who were killing
each other again. stray cats outside
always the spectators or maybe 
the angels. i don't know if i live
inside a wound or a body. inside 
a family or a sneap pea's belly.
behind a paywall or out for 
the whole town to gawk at. 
all i know is that we need a horse 
to haul the void shut. tossing shoes 
at the open mouth of a boyfriend.
every time i've tried to say the thing
the thing grows insect legs
& i can't get back there. i need to say,
"this is all coming undone."
the word abuse has too many eyes.
sees the quarry & the blood sacrifice 
& the doing our best. i no longer want
to be doing my best. i tried with all my might.
i just wanted to seal the chasm.
instead, i saw it grow even as i tried
to thread floss & shoelaces in an attempt to
pull one side to the other again. 
the horses road through
the living room frothing at the mouth.
two of them fell inside. their voices 
like dropped pennies. all the while
every watched tv. it was wheel of fortune. 
cheering. laughing. a studio audience.
i could swear sound came too
from the hole. 

palm mirror 

we went to the beautiful store
to get our faces made into needle points.
future can fold into cream
& into a knife. sometimes 
i punch the blush into my face.
there is the blood beneath
the surface. the moon is an organ.
cut open, it spills like a thumb.
i always wanted a mirror to hold me
in my most miniature form.
here i am small enough to slip
into your back pocket. powder.
a new purse. pickle jar full of tongues.
mine molts over & over. what is
& isn't worth cutting a finger off for?
i look & i see a girl whose head 
got sacrificed for a good harvest. 
each year the crops grow back as
little compacts where there used to be
peaches. i picked & picked until 
my skin was fuzzy as the fruit.
to have a girlhood is to be schooled
in the art of checking. all genders 
have their girlhoods, only some 
are more inferno than others. sometimes
the burning is brilliant. here i am
the size of a cherry. the size of 
a rear view mirror. then, on the worst day,
here i am the size of the sun.

sun stain

give me the first teeth again
& i'll write you the hymnal 
of pterodactyl flight. i'm letting the attic
ripen a certain prophecy. all in all,
i never meant to be the scribe. i always meant
to draw pictures of everything i saw:
a father with a closet full
pilot helmets. chrome crossword puzzles.
mom in the car on the way
to another planet again. 
my brothers & i discover we can
leave our mouths open & let the sun
color our insides with crayons. 
i was taught to whittle my sadness into
a useful shape. i make mine today into
a miniature tree. the tree catches 
on fire. funny how quickly a coping mechanism
can become a little disaster. i go to where
the bird's return their feathers.
they will be born again as fish or
if they're lucky, tigers. 
i watch every day as the room turns 
inside out. my little salted snail life.
the sun sends a bushel of rats 
to eat holes in my plot. i don't tell 
any more truths. i know they will
crumble from exposure. instead, i just recite 
a litany of screen doors. let time 
walk around with an apple for a face. 

the inventors of caves

speaking into the stone
the pathways came like strands
of lost hair. on the mountain,
i tried to send my ghost
to get lost down a mine shaft.
she always came back with
bundles of twigs, saying,
"the angels gave these to me."
i do not want to be a flashlight
or even a yo-yo. i want to be
a chisel & a skull in a pot
of boiling wings. the caves fill
with hard candies. my brother 
lays on his back waiting to be
mumified. i go out to the roof again
like i used to as a child
to feed a whole roasted ham to
the angels. their teeth are
pocket knives. their eyes 
rolling in starlight. i told myself
this year would be different but
here i am again with my hands
still covered in grease. still thinking,
what if we were toads in the
wild spring earth. i know i do not
want to be your rose bush anymore.
i know this deep inside
my underground rivers. 
do you remember the cave i took
you to? how we walked further
& further & the air was cool
as a fresh march day break.
stagatites formed from your face.
i saw us in every single rock formation.
imagined you leaving with out me
& me still seeing your jaws every where.
instead, we left together. the angles
dug these absences in us 
just like they did the mountains.
there is a cave where our knees
used to live. i go there to tend
their feathers. i'm not sorry anymore
but i do want to tell you i have seen them.
i've seen who made the caves in me
& they were terrifying. they were hungry.

candy house

unwrapping the door knob
& putting it in my mouth.
my father believed in 
the kind of sweetness
that turns your teeth into 
hag stones. i remember standing
in the yard eating a bag
of gummy chicken's feet
& thinking "this is breakfast."
bubble gum cigars. he said,
"this is how to be a man"
& then said, "did i tell you 
that you could be a man?"
i shattered windows with jaw breakers
& blamed it on the phantom 
chicken coop. every poem 
is a biography & a fantasy.
i planted dice & grew a tree of 1s. 
the bed of licorice we watched
the men eat. on their hands
& knees. i said, "why can't 
i decimate something. the wants 
of a static blanket child. 
so much sugar. bath tub of sugar.
bowl by the coffee holy water 
fountain. in the chimney 
my brother & i would say
there was a chocolate solider.
one who might come & liberate us
in the middle of the night. 
he would put a finger to his lips
& say, "no one wants to have a gender
until they do." he would pull us
like blimps through the air.
cotton candy sunset. our father
asleep like a tootsie roll 
in its little wax evening gown. 

giantess 

i took a daguerreotype of my grandmother
when she was eating carrots 
in her husk. fallopian flute players
& their row boats. when i say
"discover" i mean dig up every root 
of the grass one by one. 
leave the yard as a picked scab.
my grandmother
stood taller than the house &
thin as a toothpick. she bent
holding a wooden life. teeth chiseled 
from a broken bust of persephone. 
her plants how they died. one after the other.
then, her little cat butler
with his ghost up on the ceiling.
he meowed at the cleaning man
& the sitting woman. we try to save 
as much of ourselves as we can. so, 
we cast the fishing line backwards.
there i was & there i was & there i was.
only, all i can see is the purple veined woman
with a shovel for a heart. 
a breeze blows her hair. sheets of
glaciers & violet mornings. knuckles 
like acorns. touching the fins 
of a beached whale & briefly
believing we could all lift it together.
a family is not a thing that does 
but a thing that does itself.
the whale becomes us.
what can't be mended. what stays 
on the spring time beach 
& waits to become a cathedral.
that is where i find her. amoung the dunes.
broken shells. none whole are left.
or they were whole to start.