pile your strawberries

pile your strawberries
where the birds can't see them.
ripen to turtle hearts.
the bog is calling all the girls down.
a ribbon of algae. warm lake.
geese sewing dresses from old silk.
but you have strawberries 
& no one else can touch them.
place them understones & in
the thoughts of strangers.
a man walking by with a fishing pole 
now thinking "strawberry."
strawberry like colonies of jam.
mother holding out a spoon & saying,
"would you like a taste." i always do.
sweet boiled berries. wearing sugar 
to the school dance. no one else
with a single strawberry. the gym
late at night. strawberry-less.
well, until you arrive with one
tucked behind your ear. there isn't enough
rambling in this world. go on & on
& tell me what you eat when no one else
is looking. don't eat them. not yet.
ripening takes patience. years of cradling.
i was a baby once & my flesh was pulp. 
leaves grew from my skull &
my caretakers would prune them.
we could have been a backyard or a brush.
more strawberries than you need but
that's not true because you always
need more strawberries. sleeping in
a glass bowl in the company of strawberries.
bruising like infants. 
nothing left to do but wait. 

July 

I set a bowl of milk out 
For my heart to drink. You slept 
All my life inside the mountain.
Ate quartz & shale. I shaved my head
Into a mason jar & watched it turn
Silver. Breakfasting under a waterfall.
Which one of your pets 
Died first? How old were you when
You first tried to pocket the moon?
A thief, I have always been prone 
To summertime. Saved my own egg shells
For a future ritual. I use Venus  
as a quarter sometimes.
I’ll be the gumball machine 
If you’ll watch me descend. 
Nothing beautiful is sturdy.
We broke our legs & spent all the orange.
Emptied swimming pools 
with our longing. Nightfall heavy
& thick with cicada wings. 
Could we have kissed 
Like tree branches 
or deliberate 
As a movie screen? I’ll never know 
So I come here. Swallow weights 
Known only by cloud families. 
Watch my father spend himself 
Above a factory. Rain & dust.
Your ghost smells like lavender
& corn husks. 

caramel skulls

i was made from boiled sugar 
in the backroom. every shut door 
gave me breath. ink in the ink well 
turned silver with with my sweetness. 
not a ghost but a ghost clipper. 
trimming the edges 
where there used to be ruffle.
tell me you love me like 
you will never cross the river. tell me 
you will stay awake past the death of the moon.
i have been keeping vigil as the sun
undresses & crosses arms over chest.
in my bowls i am often not the spoon
or the strawberry. who taught you red?
who did you eat past their limits?
i have a draw full of eyelashes
in case i have to go anywhere tonight.
stirring my heart with cubes 
of salt. the party was made from 
icicles. we covered our heads with 
our hands. i needed more. cut a hole
in your door with a paring knife.
called you "pear." soft as a word.
my pillow full of nowhere. come, please.
i need to be handled. i am turning 
the volume low as it will go.
can you still hear the bicycle?
i am not on my way. i am backwards 
in the boat. the river is rewind
& i follow like a fruit fly. 

tethered

when the atoms speak to each other
they talk of distances. holding hands
they whisper a story about stolen acorns 
& the recluse sugar we wanted to eat.
i am touched by a long stick from the yard.
bamboo grows in my living room like television.
once an ad told me "i guarantee" & i thought
"i have never been so certain."
seeing the atom like a ripe cherry
i tried to bite down hard. my tongue
is an ugly worm of need. my father's atoms
are drunk & floating in amber. looking up
at an old over-used sky. i take mine
down to the laundry mat to clear them up.
fresh smell of "alright alright." watching
the little spheres tumble in a machine.
i take my composition to the playground later
to research childhood. did i have one?
is it too late? sipping a pine tree.
sticky cones for dolls. the atoms are saying 
"nevermind" & they are letting go. 
i am troubled deeply by this. i take everything 
as an omen because it is. a dead bird is always
a sign of a car crash or a broken heart.
you were the one who told me that sometimes
atoms link up together. hold tight. 
talk & talk for hours. for every scientist 
there is a lover painted on a shower curtain.
i tell my atoms to kiss again. 
spend all night at the cutting board
trying to slice on in half. i don't want
destruction i just want to see inside.
but maybe inspection is a form of desctruction.
my atoms are all pink. well, not all.
one is lavender & one is bruise-blue.
here let me show you them. no microscope needed.
plug your ears & your eyes. 
yes, there they are.

several ways to tie a tye 

go for the throat. a snake
in the bathtub. we held our manhood
like a wrist. when was the last time
you were willingly tied to the tree?
in the yard, everyone is a post.
i look at myself in the mirror 
& slip fabric beneath collar. consider
making a simple knot with the paisley tie.
i learned to be a man incompletely
through slideshows in the shower
& neighborhood boys on bikes.
i played baseball with leaves.
tying the tyes together to make a chain.
rapunzel in the attic writing
a horror novel about girls who want 
to be handsome. guarding the vein.
dinner with loved ones in which 
the tie is vestigial. pink halos
around my neck. around my wrist.
this is where i was tethered. this is
where my body slipped free gasping.
hardwired to forget, i draw diagrams.
i write step by step instructions.
when my father gets ready he becomes
a statue at the bathroom mirror.
he does not smile. the tie makes herself.
his hands know routine. he becomes 
beautiful. combs his hair. brushes his
parchment teeth. i take a dime's worth
of lotion & rub it in between my fingers
before i go searching again. 
i don't own any tyes. 

candied scorpian 

i wanted to run the knife
through sugar. with dried figs in my pockets,
i coaxed spiders from their bitterness.
taught the fox to waltz. in the graveyard,
using a tomb stone as a coffee table
we read the news & decided the world 
wasn't the world anymore. watched as
an airplane crashed into a jello mold.
witnessed the death of the final birds.
each turned into feathered tortes.
what does it mean to truly swallow?
in my chest i felt the insects 
as they rebeled against destiny.
some bugs had rosary beads. some were
rosary beads. god tastes like smoke 
& oranges. a pile of rind. candied scorpians
fresh from between the floor boards.
removing the stinger with two fingers.
a jar of venom. a jar of poison. 
the scorpians, eaten whole, awake
inside my ankles. whispering their sugars.
trying to gasp. i want to consume 
everything that could kill me. press car rides
between my ribs. swim with rocks.
ask the bear for a spare coin. 
the bus route is a spaghetti zoo. no telling
what street will be the next ice berg.
one more bite & then we can head out.
teeth to the moon. cutting out lips
on the rims of soda cans. the dream
is carbonated. i am never full. 

aphid

do you recall your green smallness?
how we ambled across leaf
finding manna on every furrow?
above, the birds gave each other wedding rings.
the lady bugs set up a phonograph
& danced like supper plates. all we could do
was think of teeth. our mandibles knitting
the body behind us. sweet nectar.
stories of the first mother
who fell down & shattered to make us.
tell me friend, how miniature would you be
if you could? i think i would want
to be so tiny not even the wind
could see me. i would want to walk
in circles around tongues unfelt 
& undiscovered. they say life comes
in circles but mine has always arrived
spherical. hula hoops roll 
up & down a driveway. animals 
with all kinds of machines. trees 
holding binoculars. two boys kissing
between the tall grass. summer was
nothing but a picture show. sitting down,
eating, we could feel the sweat 
of all the tomorrows. sun dipped in milk.
you are a good friend. you should
join me & traveling to another leaf.
my favorite is basil. reminds me 
of children. of being new & wild.
i am old now & soon to be part of the grass.
tell me though, tell me, just how minute 
you would live? i want to fit you
in my heart. carry you to every taste.
deliver you were everything is verdant
& everything is us.   

the taxidermists's lover

he talks animal all into the night
while i barefoot myself into my books.
take handfuls of ground beef 
& lay them to rest in the cast iron pan.
heat teaches away pink and red. 
he tells me i'm prone to over cooking things.
like him, i want to be sure what we swallow
remains still. his hands like dead doves. his throat,
the warden of an old piano. outside 
i stare into the woods looking for a ghost.
when i was a boy i used to make burials 
for bird skeletons i'd find up on the hill
by the old decaying housing. nothing but
their bricks. i would knit flowers
into their feathers & say an our father.
the church bells would come over me
like a flock. then, one day, i lifted a bird
i thought was dead & he came back
to life. fluttered & called & disappeared
into the trees above the railroad.
i prefer the full creatures. stay away from him
when he works on just a face. a row 
of elk & deer staring foreward like a jury.
their bodies still running away.
should it trouble me 
he is just as careful with the dead
as he is the living? climbs into me.
traces a finger from my chin 
to the center of my chest. kisses my neck.
we have so many last suppers with just our skin.
a drawer of glass eyes. real eyes
becoming no wheres in their dirt.
this week he mounts a barn owl & i have
visions of waking up to find the bird
alive again & perched on the bedpost.
my lover still asleep. me awake.
me awake opening the window 
& telling the bird to go. 

fishing liscense

he showed me how to cast out.
where the weights go. fish eyes beneath
lake surface. his bare feet. july,
a pinwheel of humid & longing.
all afternoon i watched his biceps.
sturdy muscles moving like covenant. 
reel the line in again.
holding his breath, finger on the line
with a gentleness i wish he would give
to my throat. a father is a body 
who searches elsewhere while you search
for him. hunting in the woods for elk.
pointing a bow & arrow at a deer's stare.
sifting in the lake 
for trout. trout's blushing sides
& speckled heart. then, me 
sitting on the blue cooler 
& trying to identify birds as they darted
from branch to branch above.
cardinal. cat bird. crow. a feather
touching the lake's surface. 
bag of potato rolls for bait.
him, waving to me. branishing a hook
& asking me to add a new lure.
to be drawn from the darkness
by a mistake. his callous hands around
fishing rod's meager handle.
why could he never claim me
like this? like urgent & "get the bucket"
& salvation & the hook through skin.
birds flushing in our commotion.
fish in the cooler shuttering
for the cool wet of his life.
a son, just like me: wet & wayward
beyond the reeds. 

one room school house

all of our pencils were gods. a slate
to write our father's names. in the yard
everyone was a tulip until they weren't.
burrying dolls up to their necks.
call me a garden 
& i'll scream. all our shoe laces
untied & shedding skin. the teacher,
long gone, was not worth our attention.
she was the shape of a pound cake
& had wooden tops for eyes. horses are
programming computers in their fields.
soon we will have a telephone line
to ask jesus what to do with our names.
i kiss a girl on the pigtail & she
wags her finger at me saying 
"it's not april yet." how rude of me.
i used to want to learn everything. 
press my ear to the black board
& hear the rustling of pages.
now i just crave mirage. hallucination 
in the heat off the road. some classmates
hitchhike home. i'm not so bold. 
i got out to the darkness & ask
for comradery. un-lesson from the day.
remove gloves & petticoat. 
no more vocabulary. no more long division.
only the heart's mitosis. slipping & splitting new.
i built the school in my own beneath.
lifted a single floor board. then went &
took my child out from between ribs
where he perched. 
the boy had been counting 
all the figs on earth.
fed him midnight oatmeal & told him
to never be good. he asked
"are you the teacher?" & i said 
"yes but don't tell anyone." 
the new school day tomorrow will 
test the strength of the parameter. 
fences are meant for disregarding.
a dog in the lesson jumping 
clean over the sun & never
coming back down.