thorn-touching

i had a crown of beautiful
talon. the urge 
to trace my own limits.
where the telephone polls 
hold their gardens 
as close as knives.
you drew me nearer 
with a urinal of coins.
my number for the time 
of your life. flesh 
for the golden future.
all glory is about is about
how you enter the unknown.
i knew this was a bramble.
counted the teeth
on each of your fingers.
snakes nesting 
in the warmth of our
matches. this was not then
an unknown at all.
this was a coal walk
into hell's vibrant hearth.
promises in the form
of hard caramels
& latex. wrapping even
your tongue you said
this is all you needed
then you throw a stone
into the pond of my face.
thorns of each ripple.
one whole ocean covered 
in push-pins. i asked 
your permission 
to run. you grabbed my wrist.
gas stations turned 
inside out. emptied 
like abandoned purses.
made me look at my palm-reading.
there, i followed 
the asphalt of my life line
right back to your tongue.

birds run the rain machine

the pulleys & the knots i saw.
they harvest water for weeks
ferrying mouthfuls one flight at a time.
i crave the kind of 
bottomless rain
that makes rivers on both sides
of every street.
i tell a flock of chickadees,
"i could help you,"
by which i mean i want to see
the mechanism. where water lives
& how the birds find consensus 
to let rain come.
the patience birds must have
that i do not. i can hardly
collect pennies or dimes
before spending them 
on a cup of coffee. steam fills
my glasses. i am sadly not a bird.
the chickadees are offended 
that i think i can 
just jump into a process like this.
after all, the device is mostly 
a secret. a stone skipped
from beak to beak to beak. 
i discovered it only because 
once i climbed a mountain
at just the right time. 
saw the whole sky. i mean every detail.
the conveuyer belts &
crows perched at the helms. 
how everything moved like lungs.
stood in awe. collected feathers
from the rocky dirt
in the dream of constructing 
my own flight to this engine.
only finding four,
ilet them drop like 
row-less boats ready for
when the storm would come.
i ask a cardinal,
"what can i do to get there."
the cardinal whispers
three words i couldn't make out.
i pretend i heard him. 
take a walk in the greying world,
waiting for the first drops 
to come down so i can say,
"i know exactly how this happens."

splitting

at the hardware store
we purchase seeds. squash 
& sunflowers & watermelon. 
talk to the seeds like infants.
"they have our eyes &
our urges." hold them in our palms
then lay them on the kitchen table.
we have no dirt except inside
our own skulls. i remember 
opening my mouth for you
to shovel the top soil in.
then, i did the same. you laughed.
wiped a smudge from your chin.
what are we willing to give up?
the apartment gets an inch smaller
every day. the houseplants die by jumping
from the window. my father is a planter.
he will put a seed anywhere 
there is a tongue to catch it. 
once i caught him slipping pumpkin seeds 
into the floor boards of the childhood house. 
he put a finger to his lips & said,
"hush, i'm working." the next day
the living room was split 
in all kinds of slivers. vines grew.
burst wood & windows. he said,
"look at this mess you made"
talking to the pumpkin. weeks later
the plant died. we carried away the rot 
as a family. i put the seed on my tongue
& press it down. let the soil fill in
behind to cover its path. 
what journey's into deep have you taken?
i picture my skull like
the living room. my father with
an ice cube laden glass. his knuckles.
his fingers. all my first fragments.
the gourd bursting: vestigial self. 
growth is also the destruction 
of a before landscape. oh how
i loved that room even with 
its darknesses. the bruises.
the speckled carpet. you ask me
"will it hurt?" i lie to you.
i say, "it's something you get used to."
the seeds hum inside our heads
all weekend but never open.
eventually die out. we caught up
the shells months apart.
i say nothing about the living room.
you buy new house plants.

splinter cat

i dangled my face on a length of rope
as lure. stepped out into
the shattered woods. storms 
gut-punched each other until dusk
& now are feet were whittled down
to the hoof. taking comfort 
in the chatter of biblical birds.
their cowls & scripture-written feathers.
i wanted to find the mammal
whose skull marked trees all the way
to the other side of the gorge.
bark rubbed raw by their fits 
of determination. i have also 
spent nights ramming my skull
into trees. hoping to loosen
the nests of wings. praying the next knock
will be the one that's enough.
fracture the willow. gain all her arms.
he prefers birch. i feel every bone
as i trace his marks. in the distance
i can hear him. thump thump thump.
the pounding of bone to torso.
you used to tell me it is a miracle
i've made it this far. look at the scars
that make jacob's ladders across my arms.
no one has ever truly seen
the splinter cat & i am not sure
i would like to be the first. 
for now i just follow his evidence.
until the sun makes all the promises
it cannot keep. orange leaking
into the blue night. cracked knuckles.
iphone flashlight. mud caked on boots.
i find another tree snapped at the waste.
stop to collect its leaves to fill my pockets
as if they were twenty-dollar bills. 
i want to know everything about you
expect how you look. in the glow
of the waxing moon. i see your eyes sometimes
behind my own. dueling gems 
in a dark velvet box. 

the night after i ghosted you

a waterfall arrived in the closet.
first the faint sound of rushing
as i slept. i hold my pillow
to my ear like a conch shell
so i just thought it an ocean.
stood in dark bedroom
& used an iphone flashlight
to locate the sound. i worried it was
my own blood. then wondered if you
had somehow come to find me.
you, a river of longing. your pictures
taped to the high ceilings 
behind my eyes. you, the boy three towns away
with short brown hair & a motocycle.
thought about your coat hanger elbows
& banana smile. you saying, 
"i have never done something like this before." 
i couldn't tell if you meant
being with another guy or being with
a trans guy. i decided i was rare
if nothing else. felt the cool splash
of water from beneath the door
& pulled the closet open wide. 
it was too late for my clothes,
those had been rushed away hours ago.
the waterfall plumetting 
into the soul of the building.
taking all the worry with it.
endless water. reached out
to submerge a hand & almost
got sucked down. pictured myself
like a sweater thrown from 
a roof-top. washed my face with handfuls.
cool brillant & star-stipled.
the waterfall wept like i wanted to.
was everything i wanted to be.
spilled without reason. apologized 
in cycles. "i'm sorry i'm sorry
i'm sorry." i don't know if it was meant
for myself or for you. but, then again,
can't an apology have as many legs
as it needs. i left the door open.
soaked the floor of the room. 
sat in bed & watched the water pool
until the falls were done. run out
of tandtrum by the clementine morning.
peeled the days rind with my thumbs.
my short nails. finding all my clothes
hanging in the closet. faintly damp 
from the night's escapades.
i wanted to ask the waterfall 
if i was a bad person. i know though
water is almost always too busy to answer.
i lay towels out on the floor
to soak up the remaining pools
on the hardwood floor. 

proctor

i'm losing points for cheating.
checking the work of previous monsters.
he follows me with a criteria.
this is how to be examable.
i put my palms face-up on the table.
are you good enough to be a statue today?
my mouth fills with ink. i still have dreams
of four cornered rooms where
every voice is mercury. i try & try
to solve a number sentence 
but the answer is always zero.
how easy would it be to just 
sit on my knees & ask god 
for a bolt of lightning. burning 
the old text books. filling in the letter "b"
for every single answer. he crosses 
his arms. this is all too on the nose
isn't it? but i am telling the truth.
this man lives with me. has a square jaw.
does not have a father or a mother.
when given power, is a body 
still it's matrix of blood & hallways?
i think not. i think we can become 
obelisks. i'm losing letters.
i'm failing basic skills.
this is a pie graph of my face.
25% my father 30% left over
& the rest unaccounted for.
do not ask me to math. "i am trying"
i tell him which we both know
is unknowable. i live in
a series of thresholds. here is where
i pass. there is where 
i start to become too weird 
for the word "mingle." really,
i try to usually not cheat but
we all write the answers
on our thighs sometimes, right?
my opinion is invent whatever you need 
to make it through the seams. 
everything is sewn shut.
even the exam room. the proctor 
gets a drink of water from the sink.
doesn't take his eyes off me 
as he swallows. his washing machine eyes.
he blinks before we both curl
like dead leaves. he says,
"you have minutes left." i can't focus
the dream is a suitcase now.
i am filling it with tomorrow. 
testing booklets arrive only as birds.
he is gone. i am eating a bowl of cereal.
the sun is printed on white paper. 

refrigerator 

tell me we can survive another.
the cow comes apart in continents
& i place my heart in plastic wrap
like any other meat. i'm studying
methods of salvation 
that don't involve jesus or god.
think of strawberries growing
in winter. their plastic mobile homes 
& fingers pulling each from their necks.
nothing, not even sweetness 
is sacred. if i had a garden 
i would teach my flowers
to bloom only in the dark. 
keep your faces & your tongues separate.
i do want what i was promised 
in the gold hurry of a church.
to be lifted like a basket 
of oranges towards a cool shining attic. 
only i want there to be no conditions.
if the question is whether or not
i've been holy. i have not.
i have never tried. my life is 
spiritual like the mushroom's ankles.
lifting them from a bowl in the fridge.
remembering they once told trees
their folk stories. eating their stories
before walking out into the early dark
of february in my black rain boots.
i consider the ice box in the sky.
angels wearing parkas beside 
tubs of yogurt. something always seemed
too sterile for me. i do not believe in hell
but i think it must be a garden.
wild though--not agrarian. 
plants kissing each other. 
our wandering hands. caressing while standing
in the warm soil. nothing to be 
packaged or promised. nothing without stains.
oh how i want to be saved
by a place like that. 

god of flowers

tell me how to lose the pinwheels 
of my face. i build guillotines
for the necks i've used.
gather in a pouch a handful 
of cinnamon & the scabs of a 
yellow rose. gift me a mirage of wings.
i want to be the angel 
just for a night. wear glass skin
& press my lips to the cool dirt.
tell soil, "here's a daffodil"
& "here is a dandelion."
sometimes i look in the mirror
& my whole face bursts into 
needles. i touch the skin. 
knick my fingers. ask to see
the carnation or at least the rose.
my eyes are watering holes
for snakes. they come. 
your messengers. i want a body 
without so many seasons.
to want a body that doesn't change
is to want no body at all.
if i could then be a grove 
or maybe just one flower's spire.
i crave all the smallness 
the world took from me.
i met you only once. ambled down
to the creek where trout
gossip & wait to be fished.
kneeled down & gazed into the water.
there you slept just beneath 
the surface. i said,
"tell me how to drown alive."
you kept sleeping. were you cadavered?
clouded by algae. lips as blue bells.
i was the girl worshipper. cut my hair.
planted each strand & waited.

air bnb on the moon

tell me this is temporary.
that one day i will wake up 
to a bowl of fresh strawberries
& earth will be a head of hair.
i look out the portal 
to see the darkness as thick
as grease. stars speaking
their old languages. i used to want
the distance to dance like veils.
used to hold a telephone 
to every door. this is the nest
of the oldest hermit. a woman 
with five-thousand years 
of loneliness. no pictures 
on the walls just rings of salt
in every room. a cottage
the size of a thumb. i think maybe
i could purchase her life.
lead my own wandering into hers.
what do i have to do to get
my perminant vanishing?
i'm putting on my suite 
to walk in search of a dandelion
for conversation. on the moon 
sentences are written by distance.
could we orbit today then?
step forward through dust.
animal shadow. songs of dead species.
all the while, you sit on earth
& maybe drink water
or watch television or 
close your eyes for a second too long.
tell me i can have a beautiful life.
give me the oldest ocean 
dried for lack of fingers.
a flock of strings pluted
to make an orchestra. i have
one more day here before 
i have to become a girl again.
all the clocks say different years.
i take a bath in sunlight.
feel the cottage exhale. 
go out one last time to stare
at my own foot prints leading away
into the galaxy's purple-black.
help, i don't want to go back 
to my stained-glass life. 

we have to keep the trees asleep

because what if everything moved
green-lizard fast. i feel my heart
darting beneath every rock it can find.
we are so unprepared. my shoes 
are coming apart. i am far-sighted
& at a distance trees always look like
they're linking arms. they have been sleeping
but that doesn't mean a wrong sound
couldn't wake them up & then 
we'd have all kinds of new small talk. 
i rehearse almost all conversations
& i try to imagine their outcomes.
make lists of "if they say this, i'll."
would the trees want houses? i walk 
ten blocks to the park just to press
my hand to one of my favorite trees.
thick trunk. forked at the neck. 
a shoe hands from one of her arms.
i don't have a plan for what i would say
if suddenly she spoke back.
this alarms me. there should always
be a plan. maybe, "did you have 
any dream?" lately my dreams have been
too all-knowing. laying down,
i always get the sensation of falling.
as if i'm the newly oranged leaf 
& soon i'll be a part of autumn's quilt.
is a leaf like a eyelash or a child
to the tree. i guess this is conversation.
i don't want her to wake up though.
if i were beautiful & still 
& didn't need fingers i would want
to stay like that. i wonder if
it's too late to get in on what they have.
give me each season like a haircut.
my skin is as dry as bark. 
a bird comes to nest even though
it's not even close to spring.
i am eager & afraid of every 
merri-go-round. what will we do 
with all their roaming? how do we
even manage our own? i sometimes
tie myself to the radiator to ensure 
i don't wander too far off
in a fit of elsewheres. before leaving
i tell the tree, "you can sleep 
at my house if you wake up."
simultaneously i'm thinking
"no. i don't have any room."
this is how we have to offer so much
of our love. if we must. if we must.
i want to give the way apples fall
if not plucked. swelling globes 
of my sugar. does anyone at all
live like that?