tunnel makers

the tunnel makers are no longer certain.
open the glass boxes where they keep
their tongues. turn headlights on 
& get ready to become briefly
a part of the dirt. each night they work
they hope to cross pathes with another.
tangles & tangles of throat-building.
sometimes when i speak i feel
a tunnel maker. he hums a sideways hymn.
looks desperately in my dirt 
for an ancient coin or a lover.
there are no plans for tunnels. 
always dangerous. there was the one
i used to drive through to kiss you
on the other side. snow fell like cream.
i should have been more patient.
instead i opened holes in the yard.
dug through white through grass
& into the yellowed bone of it all.
the thing about a tunnel maker is
he knows nothing of an other side.
believes only in the beginning.
i am then often the opposite 
of a tunnel maker. i inspect endings 
like necklaces. here is the clasp
that was supposed to hold you
around my neck. birds fly
into tunnels & stay so long
they turn into moles. gently
tunnel makers palm feed them.
i too want to be taken into 
their wild darkness. follow close behind
as they dig. a tunnel both is 
& isn't a grave. a final resting place.
dominion of worms. lengthing 
like the universe's silver esaphogus.
nothing comes. nothing goes.
just goes deeper. i don't know
if i want to be a tunnel maker but i crave
the thrust of their lives.
they are everything i fear. 
orbit traded for abyss. 

in the tomato forest

we once threw red like mornings.
your body an acidic mouthful.
do you remember when you craved salt
& so i opened a packet on your tongue?
those were enough nights
to salvage me. love is waterwheel.
the river pushes forward & forgets
her face. in the forest there are
no functioning mirrors. you need
to touch your face to remember it's there.
my cellphone rings with the past.
i pick up to listen to the sound
of baked tomatos. breadcrumbs furrowed
& sweet. my face splits open.
you tell me you are going to be
home late again. i quarter the tomatoes.
i halve the tomatos. the vines wrap
around each tree. everyone's thighs
are bruised from work. 
you never saw how high the trees 
could get. all full of their hunger.
i plant more & more each day in tight rows.
mandalas of tomato heavens.
the red i loved you with & the red
i have now are two different reds.
now, deeper, my tomatoes 
are heirloom. pleated & ancient.
puckered as if to ask for roots.
what i hope for is that one day
you return & knock on the door.
pretend i am a perfect stranger 
& say, "i found this for you
while wandering in the wood."
you will be holding a tomato.
i will take you in.

butterfly

it matters where you keep the pin.
i became the left wig & you, right.
what can be said of the shadow box's
saddness. i remember when the trees
were each a wedding. how could i have been
so star-full & greedy. loving you was
archeological. i had a shovel instead
of a tongue. becoming the shared 
specimen. iridescent & not quit gone.
ghosts of fellow shoulder blades 
coming to greet us in the afterworld.
after you stole nectar. after i 
took the pin in my hand & called you
selfish. arm in arm with angels.
you were never an attentive wing.
always taking the wind's word for it.
caution is the art of mistrust. 
swells until there is no sky left.
we could have been devoured but instead
bed ridden, we don't share 
a single story. i say to myself
when i am away--i'll write us 
a graveyard fit for this kind of 
uncoupling. you speak in only flutter.
our paper is showing. window opens itself.
luckily there is a sheet of glass
to keep us viewable. do you remember
picking flowers on the solstice?
how they dried & turned dust?
this is us. each wing a separate tunnel
through which the same sun lives
apologetically. a pair of eyes arrives.
planetary. looming. when i sleep
i do so in order to forget the pin.

pollen

every animal has its own way 
of writing its name. humans build
towers to poke holes in the sky.
horses run the length of a field--
leaving hoof-prints in fresh mud.
bees scoop up pollen--taking yellow
into their small hands & searching
for flowers that remind them 
most of their mothers. bowing to a breeze.
pollen coated the outside of my car
on the last days i saw you. you drew 
a heart in the dust. we blinked 
future fruit from our eyes. 
drank sodas in the front seat
with the windows shut. you talked
like only deer do. ready to run
deep into wooded curtains. your eyes
like signatures. ink whirling 
all the way to bone. i used to practice
writing my name on napkins & notebook paper.
that was before i discovered my mouth.
planting my name on your neck.
you said you were growing
a family of potted plants. i imagined
being the father of plum trees
with you. there was enough sugar
to keep our wants caramel & dripping.
dew spitting letters onto my canvas shoes.
everything was damp. i never used 
the extra closet space. simply filled it
with empty boxes. names upon names.
the backyard where you asked 
if i had a space ship anywhere.
sighed & said, "not yet."
the bees hovered, watching. 
re-collecting their pollen. asking
if you were their mother. inside
before you left, you drew a portrait of me
using only forks. i asked, "am i smiling?"
you said, "only if you want be."
i find your name still in crossword puzzles 
& written in pollen on my desk.
a single bee the keeper of my regrets.
is a name a capsule or a lectern?
you road a sun beam back 
to before i knew you.

mutual

requited palm in the bee hive.
my hands evolved to honey. sticky
between fingers. golden words
spit at your teeth like brick walls.
all i had in the parallel you.
i lift my arm. you lift yours.
oceans reduced to blankets & sheets.
sleeping monsters clasping hands.
your breath a shared engine. we could
have been one palace. i go in with
a diamond shovel. unearth the quartz
& dinosaur teeth. you sigh.
planets crack open to reveal 
their dragons. this is all i could
ever want. to watch you & to watch me.
the symmetry of birch trees 
& their water reflections. no more rooves,
rain comes down on us in bed. 
thunder tossing candles from shelves.
nothing will ever burn again after this.
what if i broke the rice paper curtain 
& kissed your back? planted tulip bulbs
on your neck? i want to hear you ask
for more than the moon could carry.
i will crawl on all fours for years
because of you. we laugh like only 
copper-rich fountains can. i'm laying tile
on every wall i find. these are our shoulders.
this is both our bed.

milk bowl

i drank from the hard drive
as deeply as i could. nose damp
with cream. in the pasture, all the cows
gossiped about being replaced 
by machines. i kept a plastic straw 
in my pocket just incase there was
a tall glass of ivory. elephants 
have taken to playing pianos 
as an act of reclamation. i know my bones
will not last the next earth quake.
it is dangerous to attach yourself
too much to your flaws. i hold my mistakes
by their hands & walk them down to the creek.
a heron sells used watches. by body
no longer swallows. instead, i stack quarters
underneath my tongue. everyone has a designated 
parking meter. a quarter per day. it is not known
what would happen if you don't pay. i woulod like
to find out. nothing happens anymore. even clouds
are kneeling & praying for a second winter.
i for one wouold like nothing more than a hail storm.
only, i want the hail to be glass. the sky
the mirror it was always supposed to be.
if i could go the rest of my life without hunger
there would be nothing else to be afraid of.
will you dine with me from the cermaic bowl.
the stray cats have a practice of drinking
the moon's shadow from a bowl of water.
lay down with me. let us be feline
or at least carnivores. my teeth
are thimbles of blood. the year is old.

self portrait w/ my autism

it feels dangerous to write about you
using sound. the way water waves "goodbye."
here is the upstair-neighbor's laughter
knotted in your hair. a siren making a ramp
of your shoulders. you used to be arrow-like
how you shot yourself through crowds 
of shins. telephone wires intercepted 
your fears & turned them into birds.
how often you felt yourself slowly drifting
like a fog receeds back to its ocean nest.
a party in which no one but you has lips.
then another party in which everyone but you
has lips. the texture of socks turning to sand.
cardboard box where you used to believe in god.
taking a walk away from the house 
& counting mail boxes until they become omens.
ceiling tiles wink at you. the secret is
purple & it curls up infant. you live in rooms
like powerpoint slides. i keep promising
to be less cruel. i want to look at you & see
trestles instead of turnstyles. a checkpoint
where i can inspect all the mistakes of the day.
the anograms of shopping lists. my skin 
breathing a sigh of relief to see a blanket
monsterous as me. repeting the phrase
"june bug" until summer arrives. 
you sit alone at a picnic table. your hair
feels long but is as short as it can be.
when you say "sensory" you always mean "sing."

lithium mine

in a green square i saw
future wire zoos. knots of eager. 
i want to get tangled in 
the gold of my ideas. a fragment
asked where i had learned to write 
using ogham. i learned from my blood
& the work of upside down trees. 
the ladders lead into blue fields. 
energy is always coming to the surface. 
workers talk to the water. sweep the souls
of tomorrows electricty. my body 
is a breeding ground for crystals.
find them on the roof of my mouth.
bitter & then sweet. sustenance 
to make it through the landscape's trials.
geese cut through my notions of season.
we all need the source & the source
learns our names. my reflection 
in hopscotch words. a tongue
wide enough for mirrors. we once opened
the guts of a machine to find 
a gallery of gems. the quilt was made
for fire eating. a hook to hang jackets.
hymnals floating beneath. tinged 
with the glee of wrongful discovery.
schemes of extraction. tell me how
you would like to be stolen from.
the earth splays her legs open.
with a knife i kiss both thighs.
batteries on a vine. i push one
into the back of a lover's neck. 
they tell me they've been tired
for so long. they thank me for voltage. 
praise the harvest. the field teems.
blue rash on our hands. dropping marbels 
& watching them sing away.  

in a dream, i have a daughter & she calls me "mother"

so i bury her underneath the pine tree
alongside goldfish bones & cicada skeletons.
winter is full of holes & i spill out all of them.
she was soft like risen dough. un-baptized.
swaddled in newsprint like a fish. 
lately, i have been thinking about children.
on a bookshelf, i build a tiny replica 
of my bedroom in my parent's house.
bunk beds grow wild in the park 
where i walk & witness children
summoning demons beneath the jungle gym.
i used to do the same. hair wracked with 
wood chips. she was so hungry.
drank deeply from a bottle 
as i sat holding her. telling her
we come from a long line of haunted boys.
asking my body what it could know
about fatherhood. she does not know
how to cry & i do not teach her.
says it again later from beneath
the soil. calling me "mother."
but that is not me so i back away
from the wreckage. every time she crawls free.
sits like a centerpiece 
on the kitchen table. wriggling
or wrything. tell me the difference
between motherhood & grave-tending.
my gender grows as a birch tree
& then burns like a bush. nothing speaks.
only fire. we warm ourselves by it.
i feed her gold coins. later, 
we will take a road trip to a crater.
eat the cores of apples. wash my hair
in thunderstorm breath, trying 
to lose my "mother."

t-rex graveyard 

under the cvs parking lot
is a prehistoric dream.
as a girl, i walked there barefoot
in patterns around green & brown glass.
felt their foot prints widening beneath.
we have no evidence t-rex buried their dead
but i know they did. gathered 
in circles. trees burning with grief.
how can our words animate a world
before their own existence? even t-rex
had five different ways of saying "kinship."
t-rex language too was knit 
without past or present. the gathered
& the soon to gather. i love most 
the places where only poetry can enter.
here is ancient mourning. here is 
the body of a creature becoming only bone.
i don't know if i want to be a t-rex
but i do know when i sense them 
in the parking lot i can't help but believe
i've made some mistake. here i am 
with plastic bags. bottles of elsewhere.
feet no longer bare. my body nothing but
a femur. ghost rain washing their bodies.
stories of the oldest feathers. 
then, i think, will an animal someday 
sense me & my bones. crave a living room
& mirages of caskets. think to themself
"i could have been a human, but instead
i am this." t-rex had four chambered hearts
the size of pigs. i have a handful of dirt.
t-rex are gathering & gathered & soon
to arrive. dusk falls early because its winter.
i return home. see their shadows
conjured by street lights.