barricades

the road ached with lemonade construction as i drove 
past the cementry. one-way streets cat's cradling
through the city's hornet's nests. i'm trying to park.
trying to be a car. elbows falling from a grey cloud.
porch people & their banisters. stray cats laugh
with quarter's for eyes. i am another person
who wants to fry eggs on the side walk. who digs 
graves in the sidewalk & plucks spring onions
from the sidewalk. i hold my steering wheel 
like a microwave dinner as cars put on goat horns.
every house is a pocket book of bills & mint candies.
i finally find a spot. the sky is a pink. i am far away. 

chord book

when i played guitar, my fingers were 
a bestiary. i sat in my bedroom listening to
death cab for cutie, trying to follow
each chord change. at night, i bleached 
the love poems out of my hair. i was sixteen 
& i had too many fingers to keep track of:
salamanders & newts & toads. all of them looking
for water. reading my chord book, i pictured
every neck as a stream. my fingers, skipped stones.
i was never very good. couldn't press down hard enough
on the blood. strummed clumsy as a minnow. still, 
i miss the way i thrummed, animal & thirsty.  

cloakroom

i'm all for shedding what we can.
we sit elbow to elbow & don't talk about
how i am texting a new god this week. 
an uber is on his way. here. parks inside my throat.
outside, the winter has fingernails. polar bear ghosts
awaken to walk the avenues. i never believed
i could truly be bare for you. inside, i showed you
everything i used to wear to funerals: black dress 
& black feathers & black crown. you had a gift for me 
but you left it in the pocket of another coat. i too have gifts 
undelivered. my mouth. my breath. my ankles.
i take your coat & you, mine. 

mood lighting

in the box i always glowed bisexual.
the video game screen had on a single pixel
& i held the remote like a grocery store.
riding my bike on the ceiling. skinned knees as pillows. 
he took out his teeth on by one & said, 
"she loves me, she loves me not." we ate 
nothing but light bulbs for days & i told myself 
soon he will love me so completely i'll forget my gender. 
this is what coat hangers are for: for folding a memory 
like a pair of wings. in his dorm room we talked
as if neither of us had faces. rows of lights 
traced the seams of the room like viking ships. 

re-sewing

the needle talks to me like a baby bird. i need so much thread.
even my desires are translucent. i think i have taken too long
to grow a thick skin. i live a life full of punctures.
sand pours from my mouth. at the bottom of a well, 
i talk to a demon with the same problem. he says cracked words.
i can't hear him over the desert. everyone spends
their last life as a mourning dove. standing 
in a green green lawn & thinking about cranberries
& mothers & wilting vased flowers. the last time 
i was really kissed i asked if i could see his seam.
a line down his back. he said, "right here." i could see 
where feathers were coming out & he let me re-sew it for him. 

welcome to my miniature life

i dug this grave with a spoon. everything was a baby 
but especially the television & each breath i took.
my cherry tomato fist. palm standing 
& calling a boyfriend "zeus." talk to me
like you would a necklace of ants. i am
here to carry away each grain of sugar. doorknobs
the size of knuckles. even smaller still
is the passage i use to sneak into the walls. knock
three times on moon & wait for a seagull 
to open the door. i am not welcome in most 
dioramas. they say, "where is your mother & father?"
i say, "i am my mother & father."

guilt free

we sit in front of the factory drinking seltzer
& talking about hunger. when we were kids, 
we accidentally fed our goldfish to death. 
filled the surface with flakes & watched them 
swallow & swallow & swallow until their bodies 
were no longer their own. you ask me how to make enough money.
the seltzer is peach flavor. tastes like hallways.
i want to be a guilt free person. someone who 
doesn't replay each conversation we have for years after.
am i a good sibling? why don't i have any answers?
i pretend the seltzer is a can of real fruit & that i am feasting. 
i drink quickly. you crush your can under your shoe.

boiling meat from bone

you took off your coat three times before you entered.
winter smacked bells against every window.
for you, my hands became door stops. in the cupboard 
pickled song bird eyes unfurled to diamonds. the meat is
always in the way. i wept for days as walls
fell off each side of the house. soon it was 
just me & the vacuum cleaner. sucking in my stomach
i stood in front of a full-length demon. wrote you letters
& each lost its exoskeleton on the way. delivered
& delivering. watching my knees like watermelons.
there is always more to cut away. i banished your mouth 
only to find it whispering in every corner.

antlers for almost once dead boys 

with a pocketknife we planted seeds
in our skulls. blood throbbing all night long.
on the trail the day before, we watched a buck 
chasing a comet. he looked over his shoulder
to tell us "feed the sun." so we did. we baked all day 
& all night. offering loaf after loaf of bread. 
sun refused to eat until he saw deer had come too. 
an antler is a branch from one day into the next. 
one body to the dirt to the roots. an antler is a courier. 
it took weeks but the seeds did take. in the mirror, now,
an oak tree sprout grows from my skull. soon, i will have antlers. 
planets will nest here. i ask them to ward off my hunger.

narwhals kissing

we skewered the moon like a white grape.
every core was apple flesh. breaking the ice
& waiting for angels to come out. at the poles,
god comes with handfuls of thumb tacs.
you told me you wanted to become penguins 
in our next lives. i asked, "how are you so sure?"
you said you were not sure. not at all. 
i swam through blurred ancient worlds in search of
our oldest skeletons. graveyards beneath the water.
i looked up & saw you. your body like a book of commas.
everything i know about blood i learned from snow.
when they see horns crossed, will they know we are kissing?