sat test 

the test will detonate 
when you are a first-born eel. 
the test will call you "mother"
if you find the question used to determine
whether or not you grew up
in a place with big money. i did not
grow up in a place with big money
& so the question bit my finger &
the proctor put her finger to her lips
& uttered a "shush." 
i cannot believe there are still sitting children
with pencils in their teeth. a screen opens
to reveal a trophy. someone was 
the smartest in the eyes of the hungry state.
someone was worthy in the sense that
their blood tastes like oranges & is not
prone to rebellion. i remember 
the bathroom after the exam. all the children
from other schools. their soft fingers
& the pink soap they used to scrub
their hands. my score was mediocre
which at the time devastated me but now 
i feel proud. do not let them
swallow your thoughts. do not let them
measure you. to be measured is to be
destroyed. i am as tall as the great oak tree
that once stood above my elementary school
but is now just a stump where
older kids go to sit & look up at the sun. 
i am as small as the toads whose throats
fill with trumps in the late season when
they are debating when they should
turn back into stones for the winter.
a timer went off. a door opened. 
in the parking lot i wiped my palms 
on my thighs. i do not remember who 
drove me or why. the day, a can of black beans.
lid pried open. mouths gathering. 
some people will tell you "future" & mean
"capture" & some will say it like a root.
hold on to the root. dig them up
only when the season is right. feast.
the legs in the dark. the timer going off
in a cloud. decide what parts you are willing
to feed the question machine & which 
are only tell to the crows & the dead deer
& the man without a face who meets you
beneath the oak tree that is no longer there. 

salmon mouth

sometimes i open my mouth
& the salmon are home. they have swam
up my blood to the surface. their scales
like hand mirrors in the dark. 
i am fishing. i am fishing out my window
like i used to do as a child when 
the year put on her blanket & curled up
at the foot of the bear. i would snag
all kinds of dreams. a hook through 
my grandfather's lip. his braided beard
like a trestle into a sweat sweet jungle. 
a hook through my grandmother's ear
as it rang like a bell struck in an empty church.
i am hungry in a way the stars can 
no longer fix. i am hungry for sleep & for 
legless birds. no more landings 
let us go until the world is water. until there
are no more dams to block our teeth.
bite down on the holy ground. mouth of sand.
mouth of water. mouth of salmon. 
the roots clapping their hands beneath
soil. singing their bells. the hook 
finally catching my father when his hair
was still long. when the sound of cicadas 
opened us like canned meat. his jeep
in the parking lot beneath the willow tree.
the salmon finding us there. filling the floor
of the car. a breeze that turned us both
into ghosts. i reel in a bare hook. put it through
my own tongue & hand the rod to the sun. 
make me a cloud. i want to rain. 

ripe window

windows start falling from the big fist tree.
i can't work quick enough to gather them all. 
i have been considering giving my phone
to a passing fox & escaping from the world. 
what would i do to keep my little brain 
from buzzing? i guess i could start 
receiving prophecies again. my windows have windows.
my windows taste bitter like dandelion root
& nasal spray. i want a really ripe window.
i want one soft to the touch like the flesh
of an eager persimmon. a portal to push through.
once i spent the night in a house with windows
for walls. i thought the whole world
had pulled up a chair to watch me. i laid
on the floor & looked up at the ceiling. 
waited for my skin too to turn into a place
people gather to see another side. if i had
the ripe window i would pull up a chair.
drink some spiced tea without sugar. offer
the window a sip. maybe outside there would be
deer protesting or a magpie with a message
about where to be saved. the best part of 
my lush window would be the guests.
crows & salmon & even the wondering 
ceiling creatures. all of them here in the 
living room with a plan about how we are all
going to remember our bodies as part
of the soil. in one apartment i had a window
that opened to the sky. i always dreamed of
a ladder to reach it. the window did not open.
just a skylight. i wanted to touch the glass though
in the middle of the day. feel if it was warm. 
feel the sugar. learn if it was sweet. 

the deer walk

when i am alone the deer always walk
on two legs. you drive home & take
three wrong turns. we snake through
weird fresh neighborhoods that look
like movie sets. most of the homes are unsold.
there used to be trees here & weeds
& the occasional wildflower with a heart
of a hummingbird. i don't usually feel 
like anyone can hear me when i talk
except for the deer. i admit that sometimes
i cry alone before bed. it is pathetic.
mostly in the bathroom. on a good night
a deer will walk up to the tiny window
& press her nose to the glass. i will show her
my legs & ask her if she could give me hooves.
i want to run with them through 
all the tongues of men. eat their gardens.
ring their doorbells. enter a new development 
& stand on the ceiling. the guests in the morning
baffled by the wayward hoof prints. 
the worst part is i cannot blame you.
i know i am the kind of lover who runs away.
who avoids making promises. we hang 
a left. the roads thin & you go slow. we are 
in deer country. i am embarrassed & i hope
that none of them are standing, ready to greet me.
is it wrong to want to keep a secret? myself & the deer
with our feet planted in the autumn earth. 
their eyes shine like dimes in the dark. tossed coins
turning into stars. the deer always keep
our secret. i walk out barefoot to bring them
grapes from the fridge. 

trust fall

i end up on the other side of 
the moon with my feet in the air.
we buy only left shoes 
for a whole year & try to get along.
i have snippets of a dream in which
i am unprepared. i cross my arms
across my chest & ask you to catch me.
you do not (cliche) or you do (cliche).
we eat ice cream until the sun
is bored & goes to get his hair done. 
when you get right down to it
there is not much to do. once i fell 
& my guardian angel caught me. 
i saw his horror face & screamed. 
"there is too much screaming" someone says
who has had the pleasure of not
having their lungs scream at them
or their joints scream at them or the sky
sometimes shake her fist & scream at them.
i prefer movies with no trust & no story.
let the vibe knit us a great trust.
something warm as a golden bowl
of melted butter. when i was small
& could not sleep i would beg for
cinnamon sandwiches. wheat bread 
with bitter cinnamon. i think i craved
a really solid fall. i learned 
how to get up on the roof of the house
from my dad. there he stood one morning
& i asked him, "have you been here
all night?" he asked,
"can i trust you?" that is how i learned
to catch someone three times my size.
he is shrinking now so it'll be easier
if i end up there again. sometimes i want
to ask my brother if he ever caught 
our father but i think it might end up
sounding like i'm bragging. it is always
better to do the catching than the falling.
i have mastered doing both
at once. we played "trust falls"
in elementary school when the sun
was a softer color. a girl with cucumber melon
body spray caught me. i forget if it 
was in gym class or just the playground.
i remember feeling surprise at the lack
of catastrophe. no one dropped anyone.
not even the boys. not even the bells.
not even the sky. 

false sense of security

moments before alligator,
we all drove to the mouth of the waterfall
where no legs were supposed to exist anymore.
i used to sleep only four or so hours 
a night back then. i think, "no wonder 
i was crazy & on fire." i loved you though
like only a fire can love. tongue around
the heel. we walked in greenwich village
& smelled cigarettes & lost music. 
there were billboards with our bones on them.
i am envious of everything my fledgling teeth
had not bitten down on. the windows 
that had not turned into terrariums around me.
never go toe to toe with the dark,
it always has something else to spit
into the sky. a boy without a face. a train
that rides, passengerless towards the end 
of the island. & to think i used to float 
on my back in the public pool & not see
a chandelier above me. just the clouds, each 
a zoo room. how soon before the jaw
do the lungs know they are flags?
sometimes still we talk on the phone 
while i'm driving. i think of how small
the beds we slept in were. no choice
but to hold on to each other. 
i have always thought innocence is
overrated but then again it has been a long time
since i had a carpet like that. sometimes
on the right night, i walk for days until
i reach a pair of knees. they knock together.
all the doors in the world have kitchen knives
behind them. i chase myself back
into the warmth like i do for the chickens
at dusk. a fox calls me four times.
i don't pick up. he leaves a voicemail 
claiming to be my mother. my real mother
leaves a head of lettuce on the porch.
there is a police car on the moon & a police car
up the street & a police car grazing in the field. 
i keep my face in the top drawer next to the keys. 

holy infomercial morning 

in middle school i liked to be
the first one up. the house cracked
her knuckles. i washed my face
with loud bar soap & sat alone
to watch the infomercial channel.
there were women with perfect hands 
& rotating spatulas & machines meant
to keep your meatloaf from sticking.
a vacuum seal god. a magic towel. i watched
until the television came alive with cartoons.
i came to crave the infomercials more
than the stories to follow. i loved
the repetition, how sometimes the same
three hour commercial would play
for weeks. i memorized their mantras 
like strange prayers for an easy life.
the hosts were either perfect women
or shouting men with thick beards 
& shiny teeth. their genders, polished &
tidy. i waited with anticipation
for my favorites: the round cake pan
& zoo books full of bright animals. 
we never ended up getting any 
of the items from the commercials. 
that made the shows more meaningful
to me. a glimpse over & over of that which
will never come. the way the hosts
hold the products like treasure. after the infomercials
arthur would come on & my dad would come home
from the night before. no one but me
knew anything about my affinity for 
long-form advertisements. my secret realm 
of strange desire. the host begging, "call now."
i wished i had a credit card so i could pick up
the phone & answer their pleas. instead, 
sun rise knocked on the windows. the day crawled
out of its numbers. my father drove
the winding roads from the factory back to 
our blue back door. 

water foundation

i cut a hole in the gourd & get 
a whole lot more thirsty. we should be
fighting grammar as often as possible.
sometimes i punch my pronouns
until they give me what i want. 
(they never give me what i want).
if anything i am pro not-making-any-sense.
my memory is going which is either
a good sign or a bad sign depending
on how you look at it. sometimes i forgot
as an act of self protection & other times
my mind has a shovel & together we dig until
there is no floor left. online i watch videos
of a man remodeling an old victorian house.
he pulls up the floor & the next floor
& the next. i own a house now which is
confusing. i never thought i would survive
this long so each day feels kind of like
a mirage. there is an angel that lives 
in the well beneath the house & sometimes
i hear her singing in the pipes. i don't know
if there is a better way to say this but 
i could drink water until i make myself
into a pond. manmade is an oxymoron.
the land makes us & we run as far away as possible.
i do not want another scab of concrete where
there should be milkweed. i want a fountain
where we can all take off our skin & be tangled.
in a city where i don't belong i trace the telephone wires
like veins on the back of a hand. 
my grandmother was never happy 
with her life. i could see it in between her teeth. 
there are enough pennies in the fountain 
to feed the whole town. we all eat consonants 
like soft pretzels until we are sick & doughy. 
nothing left to say but the open mouth drain
of the "o." not a surprise but a foothold.
not a "catch" but a "caught" & a "hold." 

wedding train

i have accepted that i already have brain rot.
we go to the park to harvest acorns alongside
the squirrels who are working on getting
as fat as they can for the snow globe. 
some of the acorns have little white worms inside. 
i let them loose on the compost 
so they can have a disco. i have become addicted 
to wedding content. drama is best 
when someone is dressed all in white. 
i bought a wedding dress at a thrift store once. 
it smelled like an attic but i loved it. 
i took wedding pictures in the forest. knit a train
out of cities i had left. the stoplights dragging
on my heels. everywhere is beautiful at 9pm at night
no matter the time of year. a fallen light. animals singing,
"good bye good bye good bye." i don't know
where the dress ended up. i think i remember it
standing up one sunset & running towards
the turkey hill gas station at the bottom
of the mountain. i think she wanted to get
a really wild stain. blue raspberry. i scroll & 
the videos turn into jump rope. i don't want
to lose myself but i am not sure what is left anyway.
a bride on a video complains about her
wooden bouquet of flowers. i did not know
until this moment that wooden bouquets existed.
the tree inside a rose inside fist inside 
tongues that butter the porch light. i saw
an article that said the color of the year is 
a pale yellow. i think of the bellies of the acorns' worms.
my skull full of them. i am sure of this. 
who do i go to for help? the mirror is bursting
with alarms. a fire starts elsewhere & drowns the sky red. 
the worms scroll of their phones too & so do
their worms. a chain of rot deep into the guts
of our autumn. one bridge on a video advises 
her followers, "never do what i did."
i have already forgotten what she did. 
my wedding dress tries to forget that she
was mine. goes to a diner & orders bottomless coffee
until the whole world is dressed in white
& the sky wriggles. we jar the acorn meat. 

anomaly 

a pair of shoes in the 24 hour pawnshop window 
has a dream of running to your face.
my favorite part about new cities 
is the weightlessness.
tonight i am in dayton eating 
red curry in a window with
broken blinds. everyone has a cold
& the air coughs up feathers. 
at a corner store i buy chia pudding 
that makes me feel like i’m eating 
frog eggs. spring is as far away 
as it can get & at night i can taste 
the mushrooms beneath the bark.
you miss me more than you usually do
& i wonder if you know more
or less about me than when we first met.
on the way to the airport the world 
is dark as grass jelly & there are
somehow police everywhere. you text me
that you left your ringer on 
in case i need you. when we first met
i used to call you whenever we were 
apart even though neither of us 
can hear well enough to have 
a conversation. our voices like
butter planes in the dark. 
is there still grapes in the fridge?
was someone in this city here
with as many shovels as me?
i waited for an uber in a square where
just a few years ago there was 
a mass shooting. artists had tried
to make sense of it. i don’t remember 
the title. something about seeds. 
flowers grew. i talked to them.
a little black-eyed susan, asked me,
“is this your face or mine?”
i did not answer. the sun was already 
washing her face. i rolled my eyes 
in sugar. bought a bag of cranberries. 
woke three times in the night 
to look for you.