traveling salesman

i want him to knock on my door
& sell me the big purchase.
a basket of wooden parables.
tell me i am finally the fox 
& not the crow. grapes grow
from the ceiling. i say, "feed me"
to no one at all. do you ever feel
like god is making an example of you?
yesterday i was sold a package 
golden biblical gloves. they turned out
to not be golden or holy. 
i'm still wearing them. stylish at least.
it's not worth trying not to be scammed.
instead, i lean into the spending.
a man with a top had full of mice.
he knocks on my bed room door.
says, "i have just what you need
to forget." i buy all his glass eyes
& a remote control to a dead tv somewhere.
i crave the uselessness of window objects.
the unplugged lamp. the neighbor children
who laugh like they aren't just
figments of my imagination. i don't have
a roof. i just have a simulated forehead.
i'm getting carried away now
& saying too much. what i mean is
if not for him then how would i know
what it is i'm missing. he says,
"slide flute" & "electric blanket."
i thank him & pay him in quarters.
there's nothing left of the backdoor
just the bell. i wear it around my neck.
each year i believe less & less
in homes. that is just my body.
"would you like the last clarinet?"
he asks. how could i turn that down.
we all want to be chosen or at least
a little special. i cradle the clarinet
like a son. lay him down in a bed
of hay. he is back asking 
if i am still looking. i am. oh how
i am looking. we sit together
& wait for the instrument to fall asleep.
morning comes like frayed wires.
he tells me he doesn't meant to do this.
it is just all he knows. i tell him it is
the same with me. i pay him to sleep
while i walk a circle around
where used to be the make-believe house. 

backdrop

knitting a tornado into field.
we told the horizon to have more shoulders.
sometimes i forget there is
a sky. airplanes aren't real.
or, at least, not anymore. instead
they are the memories of the distance
we could not bear. what can we make
to fill the empty out there?
i used to think i could walk far enough
to escape the sound of the tea pot
but now i know they blossom everywhere.
a telephone rings & no one has telephones anymore.
once, my father opened the window
& throw a handful of bottle caps
at the moon. they stuck in her face.
the moon is my face one nights
like that. a man landed on my 
& stuck a flag in my eye. this was not
a love story. though many people think love is
about laying claim & being claimed.
i want to be less landable. i want
people to circle my mountains on a map
& say, "we have to be careful
when we pass over here." i spit a storm
the color of bruises. the smell of copper.
blood of the rivers. when was the last time
you bathed in a curtain? took the light
& threaded ribbon through each dart.
a spotlight falls & becomes
just a dead bird. who wouldn't want
to be a sacrificed language?
no one but the foxes are watching.
they have a hole cut in the clothe
for going between here & the other side. 

picnic basket

you wanted two of everything
& for you i became an arch.
two forks. two blankets. two mouths.
the geese set candles out
on the edges of the pond.
night came like spilled nectar.
skin sugared, the bugs came 
with their lovers. mosquitos 
& ants & gnats. i thought you were
going to ask to make a wine glass 
of me. instead you kissed me
like a bowl of blackberries.
stains. the picnic open, i thought
if only i could crawl inside
& become just an ornament.
a folded blanket. a tiny white plate.
to be a gender is to be told 
over & over again what you are useful for.
pleading for you 
to carve a forest around me. 
your love of knives. darkness coming
sooner than we thought. i whispered
that we should take shelter 
in the picnic basket. you were stubborn.
until i mentioned we were
one of both kinds: a concave 
& convex mirror. you loved to be
any kind of pair. & so we slipped in.
listened as the night tied 
all its loose ends. foot fall 
of gods. the police car shining a light
in the car window & telling us
to put our lives back on. 
my gender was all over. mosquitoes 
who left jewels across my shoulders.
the picnic basket's half-eaten worlds.
red apple. ripe melon. 
me asking to drive us home 
& you saying, "no, i need to."
a cracked window. ants with their lovers.
two painted turtles underneath
the pond's water gossiping about
what they saw of us. 

filaments 

when the birds died
we collected them 
in a glass holy-goblet.
blew on them softly 
until they turned to light.
still though, on the right afternoon
i will turn on a fire 
& hear a thousand wing-beats.
nestlings falling toward flight.
during the years without a sun
we had no idea what each other looked like.
spent our days re-telling 
the stories of our lives
until they were as short 
as a sentence each. "i caught a devil
in the creek rocks" &
"my mother couldn't remember my name"
& "without the smell of lavendar 
i'd be dead." i want to learn
to catelog my losses without 
living only for them. this is 
easier said than done. here is where
the birds died. we have light
because the birds folded inward
& opened orchidly onto the room.
my sentence is "i was a girl
& then i was a boy & now i am
a prophet." i saw feathers
behind my eyelids since before
i knew what they were called--
thought of them as collected eyelashes.
i try to blink as often 
as possible. pretending what i see
is a series of photographs.
one following the other.
maybe there is a lake kept by the gods
where a polaroid of every second lives.
if i could i spend the rest of my days
swimming there in search 
of an image of the last bird.
her wings are what make
every shadow in me. i would steal
her image for myself. maybe slip it
beneath my pillow as i slept.
absorb some of that boundlessness.
commiserate over our desires
to fracture in illumination.
a loon calls as i turn on my desk lamp.
outside, a flock of yesterdays
passes beneath the always. 
i take a picture of my hands
& add it to the inventory.

wind chime maker

at first i used only bones.
tied them to the end of each finger.
standing scare-crow 
on the porch i waited for a breeze
to talk to me. there are theories of air.
gods gathered whispering 
or the wing beats of extinct birds.
ghost foot steps. a motion
of a secret coming undone.
i tend to believe a gust of wind
is all of these combined.
once, in the night i woke
to find an angel's feather
on my nightstand. the beast hovered above me
& shone his myriads of eyes.
he said, "i want to talk to someone"
then blew all the papers form my desk.
now, i pluck ancient words 
from gales. hang spoons & pans.
destroy what it means to "chime"
& make it cacophonous. a clatter meaning
"once i was a girl who fell from a cliff"
or "my hands shake whenever i see you."
i used to think i wanted to learn
from the wind. now, i am more interested
in conversations as comrads.
i told a grey storm last year
"i'm not supposed to be so depressed"
& the storm responded by playing
the wooden chimes. a downpouring
of hooves. she meant, "we all feel
like becoming bed sheets somedays."
i don't know if that is true.
i distrust all statements that begin
"we all." we don't all. the wind 
is interested in closure. on this also
we disagree. shutting again the front foor
which i wish to keep as wide open
as possible. when the angel comes again
i want to be standing & ready. 
i want to ask, "is there a process
for playing the wind?" then 
"if so, one day, will you have me."

bikini contest

i want to wear my body as loosely as possible.
have you summered your fat yet? i have 
a hammock where i remember to be greedy
for feet. remove the inhales i don't need.
bleaching autumn from every hair. 
above the sun is rubber & ready.
i enter each photograph legs first.
feel the stage beneath ask 
what name girls used to call me
when i was just a handful of salt.
nothing prepared me for how much i would want.
cutting out all the hands from a magazine.
thin beautiful fingers. stream rising
from hair as i become a curtain. 
it is easy judge quests of gaze-collection
but i want you to know when i am
the glossy parrot, i laugh whole diamonds. 
when anyone a girl or a boy or a person
extends a finger & i stand on it's length,
i feel all my sundials spin with fire.
hold all the fabric i need 
balled up in my hand. how tight a space
can you corral your everything. our strategies
of revelation. here is where 
my secrets begin. i pose & the crowd  
is a broom closet. they stare
as if this were a brush with a god. 

amusement park mirage

we have been walking for
eight years when we come upon 
the nest of steel & wood.
a bird flies from one of our mouths
to the other. what we want 
is a boiling laughter.
one that can loosen all our bones
& remind us that despite 
the cyborg parts, we are human.
aren't we? another says,
"i no longer believe in delight."
she'll soon turn into a red button.
watching the machines move
i remember how as children 
the moon used to come down
for one night & one night only
to dance with us in the playroom.
we use handkerchiefes to cover
our chapped lips. all the windows
in the world are vacant. 
searching trash cans for styrafoam
& straws. i fill my pockets 
with colorful garbage.
don't know if i can board 
the ghost hurtling through cloud.
i've taken so much work 
to stay alive & now all i crave
is monsterous movement.
oh the feeling of air fiercely 
across base skin. for so long
all i've been is foot steps
in the grit planet. here.
here maybe i could plunder 
a feather. find a well in the sky 
& drink it dry all by myself.
a dream of selfishness. 
riding a cycle alone. not letting
anyone else cling to my ankles.
we get closer just to find 
a chain link fence
tall as an old oak tree.
we line up in a row, fingers
through the metal knots. 
nothing at all but a cliff 
on the other side. did we all 
see the coasters. blinking 
gumdrop lights. the threat
of abandon. or was it just me?
i am too afraid of sharing
what i thought i saw. or, really
the fact that i only thought i saw it.
instead we agree it is 
a dead end. where dead really mean 
emptied. i am terrified
knowing now what i really want
is a beast to rip me from myself.
play with my body like a doll 
& place me back from where i came.
even the moon is dead. 

indigo tide

this is the year the water decides
to be bluer each day. i agree.
a needed direction. 
we watch, standing on the shore
holding up paint swatches 
naming her new face. blueberry wine.
lavender azure. if i could i would
put my body in a raft
& send her out to discover her own atoll. 
then, the rest of me could be
the ghost i've always wanted.
once, we bathed together 
& the ocean rose from the faucet.
loud & full of urchins. sea foam 
& white sand in the drain.
cold, i pressed my hand
to your back to feel warmth. 
like anyone, all my sadness comes
as water. a thicket of wind.
i miss how you used to find me
with starfish in my hair. 
i crave discovery. you ripping me
from a bed of kelp. floating past 
monsters in their depths
as the blue around us verges
on purple. they remember
how in the early times
all the water used to be red
& thick. in their ancientness 
they wonder where we are headed.
somedays i almost ask you the same.
my body finds new land. i can feel it.
lays down & lets moss gross
across her chest. foot prints
in the sand leading to water.
when i say "we" i mean just me
& the desire for your company.
i bend down to the water.
notice each grain of salt 
glistening as a school of diamonds.
i ask the deep, "what can i do
to help?" she greets me with 
a swell. waves applause breaking.
palms to a drum's face.
the death of bell. i do not know
what she is asking for.
i give her a memory of us 
by the beach. made miniature 
in the shadows of great shoreline rocks.
two of my face in your sunglasses.
the water used to be green then.  

metabolic panel

tell me i was the right function
& that all my life 
will be a fit of honey & light.
needle enters like a hand into water.
divers searching for a ship wreck
where all the jellyfish came from.
algae eating treasure.
i think of all the ways
we write language into bodies.
the doctor's glass eyes 
& the painting that hang
in labs. a fallow field.
little white dog. lopsided tree.
i crave & reject all & everything
that could be found in me.
plead with doctors to hear
the ways my body rings, 
especially at night 
when there aren't supposed be bells.
the words 'glucose' & 'creatintine'
know nothing about fallen leaves
& how, from my window, 
i named their colors. asked my body
to be a real thing again
as if it ever had been. 
i learn the world is a spell
of un-limited limits. 
the stairs which used to carry me
are private mountains. 
me, the sum of the results
& their eye-wide stare.
it becomes harder & hard 
to know what is my flesh 
& what is a signal. numbers emerge
for numerology's sake.
i have a chart the size 
of a bible. scrolling through 
a scripture on the aftermaths. 
i used to breath pollen in 
& exhale blossoms. watch the fruit grow
on the floor of the living room.
my blood arrives like gems.
rubies rushing into a cave.
blue gloved hands. phlebotomist says,
"only one more."

in the bone thrift shop

we hold up skulls
in the bone thrift store
asking each other
"what would i look like
inside the cavern of lion?"
& "could my body fit these ribs?"
we drop off spare metatarsals
gathered in plastic bags &
a femur none of us knew
what to do with. 
these bones will be priced
& then join the others
on dusty shelves. there is
no blood at all in the store.
we leave that for parking lots 
& knife thoughts. instead, we wander
like bed sheets. souls thick as dough.
curious, i am wondering
what of myself is housed in bone. 
could a whales finger let me know
the sound a quiet ocean keeps?
teach me to yearn myself deeper.
sometimes i dig a hole in the yard
in search of more bones.
stand in the crater & stare up
at the squirrel skull moon.
i seldom find one but when i do
i treat it like an addition
to the house. my father used to talk
dreamily about building 
another room onto our home.
this is how i think of my body like
maybe all i need is 
another space. a new limb 
or organ bunker. at the shop, bones
are often used & fractured.
i take some anyway. a snapped tibia
& nearly shattered vertabrae.
hold them in my hands. let them
windchime & rustle. to rid them
of lingering spirit
i could hang them from the tree
in our backyard. instead i'm wearing them
before we even excite. they sting
& tremble. oh monster body,
i love your insistence that i not rest
for in this blurr i find
the most dangerous parts
of creaturehood. you say 
"will you love me with a boar skull?"
i say, "i already have three
just inside my chest."