my new york city boyfriend

has a metro pass but teaches me
how to jump the turnstyles.
makes me feel like a backpack
slung over his one shoulder.
there are skyscrapers in his closet
& he tells me we can take it slow.
in his mind, "slow" means
we will get married by midnight
& in the cool morning we will be
nothing but a noted subway stop.
car horns live in his eyes.
he holds my hand & walks 
like a metronome. wind tunnel buildings.
pigeons roosting on his shoulders.
he feeds stray poets & birds.
plants a tree in his living room 
to "reconnect with nature."
on a street corner he confesses
"there is a bookshop in your teeth."
i turn a new page. on the train
we do not sit side by side but rather
across from each other. he says
he's sketching a museum of me
in his head. i have always wanted
to appear how i do with him, as if my life
is both effortless & haphazard.
the grime of the subway station
asks too many questions like
"what does it mean to be temporary?"
& "how long should you pause?"
he gives me a stoplight necklace.
red red red. i struggle with the desire
to stand still in every rush of legs.
in the village, we are truly lovers.
i kiss him like catastrophe
& he drinks an espresso 
in one gulp. walks ahead of me.
looses a wallet & says
"oh well." the moon doesn't arrive
like my lunar phases app
said it should. he says,
"don't worry i'm the moon now."
neither of us glow. his windows
have no blinds so we become
moving portraits for whatever finds us.
as i knew it would, morning comes
& his apartment is another apartment.
mine is a box on the street corner.
i have learned so well how to be 
ready to go. find a skyscraper 
in my pocket. this is how i know
he still thinks of me.

cornfield graveyard

i want to be weathered 
like crooked familial teeth. 
crops stretching their arms. 
roots weaving with bone. 
we park on the side of spilled road.
winding turn after winding turn.
a school house with empty-eye windows
& a limestone kiln's keyhole 
in the knee of the mountain.
we count the grave stones to twenty.
some lean on each other's shoulders.
others are the size of shoes.
weeds laugh between--dandelions 
& ragged prickled hands. soon autumn 
will take all the field has made.
soy beans & wheat & corn. 
this corn is feed corn, meant
for the cows who, a hill away,
lay down beneath an ancient tree.
like me & you, they discuss 
the fate of their milk & bones. 
if i had to be buried, i would prefer
to think of my stone old & smoothed as these. 
a single bowded planet. 
breeze makes waves across sweet stalks. 
we get back in the car. 
i drive & find walls everywhere.
the stacked stone walls 
of the small family graveyards that dot 
these pennsylvania hills
in my hometown. i tell you,
"let's make our own"
as if the dead could build
their own playgrounds as if 
as ghosts who might run our fingers
across headstones
to make them featureless.

in the absence of queen bees 

we bejeweled our eyes & worshipped them. 
attic dust floating across 
afternoon light. i was just 
a honey worker. bringing whatever 
sweet language i could find. 
gold in my teeth. promises to breathern.
"we will get through this." my optimism
like a flute in the dark. listening
to my brothers as they arrived as 
dead batteries. as the comb turned
grey with worry & age. my own machine-wings
becoming stained glass windows 
through which little people came
to peer through. everyone is a church.
has the possibility to contain worship.
this can be terrible or it can be
a joy. my congregation did not remember
how to sing. the other bugs 
came to watch us. we tried to crown
a cicada but she could not learn
to bask in honey. ants came
as they always to do a carcass.
i could no longer even remember
the queen's face, only that it glinted
like a belt buckle as she closed her eyes
& spoke with god to request 
every single one of us. in my desperation
i shook a sibling awake. i said
"i could do it. i could be queen."
he laughed sadly & told me 
what i already knew. it was too late
for queens. we were orphaned 
in the shell of our home. 
he said, "would you like 
to go drink night flowers with me?"
i said, "of course."
so we did. in the glow of the moon
we drink lillies. let pollen cling
to our thighs. huddled 
in the great shadow. hip to hip.
we saw the hive from a distance.
little cathedral crumpling in.
the leaves yellowing in the oak tree
where we used to flock. 

long story

"it is a long story"
i said as a catapult sang 
herself toward ambrosia.
the war was luckily all wooden 
this time & so we put in headphones 
& ambled away to the basement. 
we he been sitting in front 
of the portal & talking 
nonsense when you asked me
where i stole my eyes from.
you replied, "please tell me,
i need to know. i don't care
how long a story." we both
had lion's tails we bartered for.
i lay mine across my lap 
& contemplated your attention span.
outside, birds were huddling
in fear. a grey cloud fathered
the fields, meaning he pummled them.
i agreed & began. the story
had whimpers & muck.
the story pulled us through
croquet arches. i talked so long
i passed the eyes & moved on
to the origins of my heart.
how at the dawn of time 
a mistress pluck it from
a fallen apricot tree. wrapped it
in plastic & shipped it off
to the future. there yours was too.
an orphaned plum. too ripe
for its own good. how do any of us
endure these durations. 
my story skipped like 
pinewheels in too much wind.
the portal asked, "why do you say
so much?" the story crumbled
& released us. i glared 
at the portal. who asked you,
i thought. portal are always
trying to coax you away from your bliss.
i took out an ear bud. war still
knocking around. you said,
"could i tell you a long story?"
i said, "only if you tell it
twice. once longer than the first."
the windows scabbed over.
in the dark, your voice
was the only moon. both my eyes
trembling like wet river rocks.

famine

in the morning all milk turned to air.
pale white smudges where god
pried his fingers away
from the glass earth.
i used to sit at the kitchen table 
as a round little human 
swallowing roaming calcium.
the cows grew horns. bulls bleed milk
from their mouths. i asked 
my gender what kind of nutrients
it would provide us for these times.
raining lemonade. afterward 
the street smelling of constriction.
we used to drink the cream
from the lid. used to soak out feet
in white. took spoons from 
an angel's plate to eat
vanilla ice cream in front 
of a glowing television. the bees
search for words. i cut a hole 
in the ceiling & wait to be flooded
with grief. mothers turning into elm trees.
my sock puppet lover saying
"your love is only you looking back."
a boat to prepare. a life jacket
in the hall closet in front of
grandmother's furs. the animals,
drinking nothing but maple syrup 
from the throats of trees. their bodies
thinning into twigs. in the end,
aren't we all the fire's bildungsroman?
i'm asking the stars 
what is left to quell monsters.
the stars are packing their bags
& covering their faces
with their hands. 

mountain gardening

i shed a bone last night
& carried it into the woods.
it was not yet white--
still sinewed & greyish.
if i'm being honest, at first,
i tried to put it back.
unsure of where it fit,
i pleaded with the fragment.
asked to stay whole
which is, i am well aware,
a futile effort. but a bone
is a great opportunity 
for a mountain garden.
so, i carried it into 
crowds trees. orange & red leaves
making a damp fire all around me.
a mountain garden is the deepest
kind of planting. digging 
with bare hands into the earth
of the mountain. asking to hide
a secret between her shoulder blades
just to watch it grow.
once, i buried a ring like this.
the ring had a string to 
an old lover. the lover now travel
to the mountain, following
the rings blossoming impulse.
i asked the bone to become
a well or at least a new ridge.
covered it with moss & gravel.
listened as the trees sighed
in gratitude. there is no better way
to dismantle one's self
but to make a garden. i am planning
what each shard will become.
i want to instigate a stream.
cultivate new ruined houses.
rubble for dusk light 
to play in. the bone trembled
in the dirt. i still feel it
from where i lay in bed alone.
above me, a neighbor moves his dresser
back & forth as if she is a wife.
across the street a woman smokes 
endlessly on her porch. 
she's missing four teeth. 
i hope she has a mountain garden too. 

night racing

i listen as they trample 
with dinner knives through 
a field of antique stars.
their headlights, hungry 
dueling brothers. humans 
are always in need of a race.
who will defeat all distances?
the road, a dark ribbon
around the neck of ghost.
i want to know how far they go
& how they choose which streets
to tear into. if they rush
with their windows open
or down. does the music they play
invent catacombs in their skulls
or do they sing to forget bone entirely?
memento mori is what engines say. 
gripping the gear shift:
the wooden spoon their mothers use
to stir a metal-belly. dinner
was or is autumnal. 
everything now orange.
passing children as they
pick the season's last strange
wild flowers: pink & lilac faces.
from the racers' windows, a pasteling occurs.
every corner houses their mothers. every porch,
their father's cigarette smoke. how & when
do they decide to slow? when they leave
their machines are they rid 
of some urge or are they 
even more haunted?
do they always want more? 

universe poem

in a blender, a star becomes
a pale of gold. on a lunar beach
there are space sea gulls feeding
on lollipops that escaped orbit.
often, i'll find tiny universes
where i don't expect. opened my pocket
& grazed the edge of a black hole.
opened my closet to find nothing
but cosmos, thick & blue.
there are too many stop lights 
& not enough moons. a car parks
on my street nearly every morning
& beeps the horn loud & long.
they are taking someone each time
to another sun. i wish when 
i looked up at the night sky
stars would crawl like aphids.
a great flower blooms & universe bees
come to visit as a pilgrimage.
i, on the other hand, have never even
left the atmosphere. there are billionaires
with space suites who have never heard
what the black of space will say 
if you cup a hand around your ear.
telescopes are spiritual instruments.
staring the universe in her wild face.
freckled with space junk. 
i walk down a side street at night
feel a universe in the bushes 
& another in the street lamp.
quicken my pace. i don't have time
for how large everything is.
i prefer inner-tubes & lakes.
a park with a looping trail
exactly one mile long. the universe
winks with blue headlights. 
i trip on my own electric
before the car honks. 
it is morning. 

rind

scrape pink from my carapace
& give the clothesline my secrets.
i stuff all my worries into one sock
& hurl it off the side of the row boat.
by the ocean, a giant squid's carcass
is making landfall. soon, the humans
will believe in monsters.
eyes like dinner bells. too late
for a new tire. standing on 
the side of the highway & waiting 
for a father or for god. i invent
disasters for entertainment or survival.
took a pocket knife to my stockings
so i could breathe. there is no outside
vs. inside. there's only fruit
& rind. if you eat the rind
you eat the elsewhere. i have a right
to know where my shoes go
when i sleep. little journey 
to the basketball court to play 
with the others. i want to sleep.
i want to use the moon as a record
& see what songs she's hiding.
if i am seasonal, please divide me.
don't wipe your faces or wrists.
become nector goddesses.
wear bees for rings. what does it mean
to be whole? with a rind touched?
i don't know what i would do 
with all that thick skin.
i might be lucky then to be 
a pinwheel of bruises. each 
sweeter than the last. 

washing rice & hanging it out to dry

we are called to eat our elephants 
one grain at a time. but, i am too busy 
with the sink & the blue sound of soap.
i watch you as you swish the rice.
each fleck of bone. i imagine rice growing
from graveyards & church courtyards.
plucked one fragment at a time.
this is how i find myself living,
morsel to morsel. on my thumb i sketch
a sunset & press it into a lined-page.
i want someone to scrub me clean.
your knuckles, like bouys. my family is
driving to the ocean as we speak
with a trunk full of rice. our daily 
pilgrimages. how we choose to relate
to salt water. gulls sifting the rice
from a dark storm cloud. diving 
into the water to wash each grain.
this is what each of us must do.
invent polish for the rest of our lives.
who doesn't want to come apart like rice?
i opt for stickiness. to be served 
like a little round mountain in a tiny bowl. 
this time, let my murk be released 
by nothing but water. pristine 
from every possible edge. 
you pick up a handful & tell me
"look-- it is almost ready." before you
i never washed rice. nearly transculenct,
the grains grin. almost teeth, but not quite.
something further than teeth.
wing buds. tear ducts. the future eyes 
of storms. ready for the pot & wooden spoon.