on the devil's pirate radio station

he talks about silver. bullet. tea sets.
a house catches fire & the sound eats a hole
through my satellite. i am trying to decorate
my bedroom with empty picture frames.
the devil & i have so much in common. i want
to sit on the tongue of his voice all night.
the devil doesn't believe in god. the devil eats
crunchy potato chips & listens to string quartets.
his confessional is full of broken bottles.
he speaks into the night as if he might own it.
i too am prone to over-consumption. there he is knocking 
or else i am just eating the door again.
 

stillness

i paint the fruit & plead with them to hold still.
there is a bee inside the heart of every apple.
they rock back & forth, swaying with sweet. 
caramels blinking from a frosted jar. 
the still life asks if it can borrow a quarter.
carrying change is a thing of the past. now,
i just pray to a demon for my candy. everything 
is rotting on the face of the moon. canned peas 
with a silver fork. my stil life has a beard.
it has mold & moss. it has a diagnosis. refuses
to be as still as i need. i hold a paint brush 
& a ray gun. i say "you have a choice to make."

limited edition 

it's almost over & the sun hasn't even
worn roller skates. i am calling the manager
to discuss dissapointment. sometimes i buy
enough food to last me until the heat death
of the universe. sit holding a spoon like
a shot gun. why is everything always going away?
i feel like i spend most of the day chasing 
a smell or touch to need. your hair. a basket
of overripe plums. why wasn't i promised more?
why didn't a god kneel down & say, "will have
everything you need." it would have been a lie.
i think i want to be lied to. tell me nothing vanishes.

concrete city

there is no such thing as the forest.
you told me you wrote your name inside
one of these nests of bones. the houses awaken 
& spit boys into the darkness. you said 
you made a fire here. said you took off your face
& ran headless from building to building.
all around, the trees try to sing without legs.
birds with human teeth chattering in the coming cold.
i ask to be encircled by water fountain.
grow a beak & follow a knot of frolickers 
into their dens. what i wanted was for you to tell me,
"i was always a good person." what a jupiter for me to want.

there is a pear ripening in my mouth

the pear was already ripe when we got here.
a silken moon. foot prints left on my face.
out here there are not enough ways 
to say "sugar." snow comes. rain comes.
carry me like your dying planet.
your thumb through my skin. i want to ask you,
"do you still love me?" instead i ask
if you have a butter knife. i do not need much
in order to be content & yet it feels like
i need the tree to take me back. the house
to turn on its head. i wish you would come
& devour me like you used to. 

radio waterfall

i promised you too many clouds 
& now i do not have enough to last this week.
do you remember parking on the side of the wooded road 
& asked the trees for directions? 
they said, "come here" & i told you 
i wasn't ready to become brush. inside the waterfall 
a voice is always talking & saying i need to move on. 
it's inside the waterfall so i can't just reach 
& shut it off. deluge. wound. 
the waterfall is a girlfriend & a hitchhiker
& a god. often you speak to me when you're no where at all 
just to say something like "do it for me."

bird call

i use my fingers for dead trumpets. do you remember
when you tried to sew me a pair of wings?
your sewing machine in the living room. bowls fall
from top shelves. the birds are talking, love, are you
listening? they tear pages from bibles. i want
you to crave me like a mourning dove. i carry a nest
in my mouth, waiting. i do not want you to come home anymore.
you never finished the wings. instead we bought 
a doorbell & hung it from a great oak. do you remember
collecting my feathers? i remember you carving hollows
in the dry wall & saying, "you can sleep here tonight."
the finches do not forget. geese make the sky a movie screen.

night driving

my father & i both sold our eyes to crows 
but we don't ever talk about it. drive through
a field of black berries. soot falling
as snow. the cars headlights make pie crusts
in the wrinkled dark. i can never see enough.
too tall men on either side of the road.
they have antlers & dog faces. road signs 
that dangle & become old pendants long lost
& turned to planets. once, i drove for an hour
past my exit. pulled over on the side of the road
& wept until the moon vultures started to swarm. 
angels, knocking on windows. my father covering his face. 

touch sensor 

my house is infrared & a vigil. here comes
the hand we have left. jumping rope
until the rope is a snake. i hold my bones
in a wicker basket. nothing in the burn pile,
just sensitive & strange. i have a faux fur coat
& the sensor says, "you have no body."
a metal dector for a lover. passing under
bridges. tuning forks in the drawer. we do not
make the cheese board we thought we would,
instead assemlbing a tray of buttons. an app
will operate the staircase from now on. i try
not to take offense when you dont trust me by myself.

back rooms

i will take you with me behind the wall again. 
do you remember when we were children & 
the forest opened to a carpeted dream? you ran 
until the birds were loud speakers. grey men. beige walls.
then, we were home again. often, i will
still go out there, searching. there is always
another place underneath the underneath. 
i take a knife & claw at my bedroom wall.
find insulation. wood. nothing. nothing. you saw it too,
didn't you? where rooms followed one after another.
confessionals. funeral parlours. vacancies. i stare 
at my fracture. hear that same neon light humming.