death tarot

i ride a skeleton horse into the mouth
of the ending i didn't want. isn't this always
how a love poem goes? i wanted & wanted 
until the sun lost all his legs running.
when i pull the death card i know it is time
to find the shovel. walk out into a forest
that knows my name & dig a hole deep enough. 
a dream is an organism. blood. breath. bones. 
hungers. i feed it my fingers & my eyelashes. 
i make promises i cannot keep. i am told by
a blue bird this is just a cycle. that tomorrow,
alive again, i will just need to ask again for seeds. 

palmistry

in the darkness of my pre-self 
spiders came to knit. dice in their mouths.
when we hold hands, i am looking for our burials. 
venus stands always on the crest of a hill. dead lovers.
dead children. a spattering of lute strings.
hanging clotheslines for the heart. divination
comes like a window you must run towards.
tracing where we will end & you will find someone new. 
a string i pull & find moons i didn't know
i have to spend. i give you a bracelet so that
we can spend another thirty years playing tug-of-war.
i am crooked tree branches. a two-headed snake.  

horror movie / boyhood

we entered killer nests / spoke to each other
by flashlight / as a child / pull demons
from the mouths of my friends / based on 
a true story / feeling attic / until the end /
we jump scare / jump scare / seance staircases
burial jumprope / everyone / witness / glass
hallway / trap door / impersonating teenager /
stranger's cars / headlight or skull / i tried so hard
to be caught on film / instead it was always
/ a deer head / left out a dish of blood for them /
to drink / kneeling / wreckage / i am / the one who is left /
the one who calls / for help / the one who is first to go

mountain hunting

we have walked for seven lanternfly life cycles
with no signs of mountains. laid traps
of telephones & rice. in the dark, at our campsites,
sing mountain songs. ripe our voices out
like peach pits. i was five when i saw my first one.
it was an accident. i wondered down to where
the televisions go to die & i saw a mountain drinking
from a pool of oil rainbow water. it was sick
or else it would not have come near us. i knew 
we needed to kill one for resources but instead
of telling the others i told the mountain, "run" & he did. 
i dream that makes us kin. one mountain to another. 

prayer bead

the wind plucks my teeth out to make
a wild flower field. haven't you ever 
rolled your life into a marble & carried it,
searching for a tongue to put it on?
all the cherry pits i've swallowed without their flesh.
prayer is sweet until it is not. until it is
hard & knotted. until the gods walk down your throat
looking for a place to be blameless. to be children again. 
i have a jar of lady bugs i could use for eyes 
if i wanted to see the world i want to see. i'm told
to speak as if everything has already come to pass. 
truly, we are only on the first thumb. i shed my eyes. 

translucence 

i used to be a whole. maybe not in this life
but in others. i stood for a portrait 
& a painter made a butterfly bush of me.
color coming in tongues. oil paint. dried plums.
i have given up all joy i found in being tangible.
now, i crave a tracing paper life. skin swims with shrimp.  
frosted winter windows. i keep only a finger in this world 
& all the rest in the next. forfeit my shadow.
i wake up early so i can hold my phantom hours. 
move about the house. a centipede. a moth.
find myself in the front lawn. cars pass &
their headlights walk right through me.

once, i was a story

eat the rind of my hero cycle.
i want to be saved at the end of journey.
the man who wrote this lived inside a cave 
inside a cave & believed he was conjuring odyessy.
wrote monsters down my throat & a mother
with a stomach full of pendulums. i emerge patchwork word. 
landscapes turn into men. outside of mouth, i am nothing
but a jellyfish's fears. footfalls on a dark moon.
trust me when i say i have tried to make it to flyleaf. 
to a grape leaf conclusion. but the sun keeps falling 
in the glass of milk. guadrians find more thresholds 
for me to be birthed by. women in lakes are always mine. 

diving board

i want to approach strangers & ask, 
"where are you putting your grief?"
does anyone else feel as urgent as i do?
if i had a patch of dirt i would dig & dig
until i was deep in marrow. then, i would
fill that hole with water. kill an angel 
to christen the pool. construct a diving board
hanging over the lip. jagged tooth. my reflection, 
a spattered bird. i crave something real to dangle above.
each day, the ocean asks more & more questions.
when you be an animal again? why don't you weep? 
how will you survive? i have no answers. 

saddlemaker 

the horse was a dream of fatherhood.
of who becomes who & who is ridden into noise.
animal to animal, i am only holding on
by the stirrups. dragged for years 
along the orange dirt road. i see card games
in strangers' eyes. ants march, hands full
of urns. they are headed towards a highway. 
he used to tell me to get on all fours
to make a place for him to put up his feet.
pounding leather. pounding skin. roses in detail work.
holy horn. i was the wooden model he shaped each saddle on. 
i gave him his manhood. he gave me mine. 

harness 

i want to be walked on all fours
into a valley of greased diamonds.
here, craving is carved into tongue.
i drink water from a dead angel's throat.
you, above me. chandelier. world. wheel. 
my bringer of nectar & dead stars.
tell me who i am & i will step
into the river of your voice. please,
put this harness on me tight. your fingers move
across a buckle. i need to be pressed into my life. 
strapped into my body to keep me from disobeying. 
until you came, i was gone.