medicine cabinet vacation

there was an ice rink on my face
where i stored all my solutions.
mirror, a sister prayer book, taught me
how to be asymetrical. a little more
to the right. tilting the room 
so all the water rolls down. 
i always check inside. use the box cutter.
use my natural sense of poor direction.
deploy a lexicon of verbs that all mean
"to decay." to spoil. to fester. to 
wither. whether or not you agree
there is going to be a cure, someone 
will drink a cup of purple 
with their eyes closed & think
"finally." a bandaide with 
no wound beneath it. the texture 
of burned skin. teaching the shower
how to make veils. needle pricking
the thumb. i could have been 
a scientist. i could have taken 
one train to the other side of the glass
& sat there for weeks feeling employable.
crossed my legs & un-crossed them.
have you ever asked the moon 
for advice? i do that to every
medicine cabinet i meet. i say
"hello there, how should 
live a less fractured life?"
& they always say, "why would
you want to do that?" it's a lesson
in folding the paper before
you tear it. i search for phone books
just to cross out my name.
no. that's not me. there's no such thing
as another. sleeping. i am
sleeping on a shelf. beautiful & blurred.
a bird in my hand. it is not 
morning or night. it is vacation 
& i am waiting for my body
to come back to me. 

ice fishing in july

we cut a hole in the sun with a can opener.
saw hot-glow fish thrash like irises.
our skin peeled off to the bone & we were 
skeleton-shadows on the dry grass.
hunger is the hand of worry. how how how.
summer, unpocketable no matter how hard
we try to fold & fit. wanting to carry days
like saltines. a nail in the wall to hold a cross. 
basement safe from ocean but not safe
from fatherhood. crouching to lick fingers.
faucet whispering one one one. how should
we close our entrances? keep a backpack full
of doorknobs. accept defeat & windspeed.
get the fire going. afterall, this is the desert.
rubber shoes melted by the UV rays. 
violet teeth to put in the dishwasher.
there was no sign of rain but the clouds
told their own tall tales of mercury
asking god each year to make himself smaller.
our deserves are more celestial & less bodily 
than we think. once, a star perched on my sill
& talked to me as rudely as a car alarm.
i shooed him off & then felt guilty.
it is nearly impossible to say what we 
really mean. i don't really mean ice fishing.
i mean standing on a precarious surface
& not becoming the underneath. i mean fish muscle.
i mean the cold unknown waiting to future us.
tomorrow is a new spell of string. 
the fish are ravenous for air.  

no sign of hometown 

no on the highway necklace 
or even in the green dumpster.
a flashlight to the forward & nothing
but deep & deep. whistling just
to have the distance whistle back.
i left it right here at this exit
& hometown grinned at me & waved.
i just wanted to plant an earbud or
an eraser. i can't remember which.
we could have easily wandered 
to the park's green face. we could have
tied the street signs in knots. 
somewhere a movie is eating through
fence & farmland. reading the backs 
of my hands. veins like telephone lines.
operators in the graves still reaching
to connect a call. hometown was lush
this time of year. hairnets riddled
with fireflies. hometown swallowed deeply
& never slept. was barefoot & saved.
took slow breaths. calmed even the crows.
mountains doing new graces. the hills 
rolling without where. sleeping in the trunk.
a tire rolling in our hearts through
what we used to know as staircase. 
sitting on a stoopless stoop. the house
a new nowhere. hometown dried. 
hometown in the reeds. hometown hidden
like a baby basket or a belt buckle. 

emotional support goldfish

made my chest an aquarium. 
added plants & pebbles & a filter that
churned through the night. slept 
standing up so as to not spill.
i wanted a piece of the sun but i settled
for goldfish. at the pet store
they all stared at me & said 
"not me not me." i promised it would
not be too bad to be loved.
promised i would buy more than one
so they wouldn't get lonely. as a girl,
we had many pet fish. betas & neon fish
& a few aquatic frogs. their lives 
were like toothpicks. bones turned to hairs.
ghosts in the unswept corners & under
side tables. aimlessly looking
for a great endless water. i filled the tank.
three shiny goldfish. placed a hand
to my chest to feel their color. 
named them new each day. names are 
a silliness reserved only for humans.
fish call each other by futures.
fed them pellets & flakes. sung to them
like embryos. a child is always
a floating relation. requires water.
my goldfish children told me i was worthy.
i asked, "of what?" & they didn't respond
or maybe they intend to respond later.
i walked out into the street & no one knew
all the water inside me. they just saw
a human, clasping his hands together
as if in prayer. i might be
always praying or i might never be.
the goldfish made no promises. 
died like hardboiled eggs one by one.
i didn't bury them. waited for each
to leave my mouth as a bird. 

over-sized load

i want to travel with a warning label.
trailed by smaller cautions. we drove
all the way to the ocean & fed our door knobs
to the god of the water. i could have been
so much larger. a skyscraper or a red wood.
i could have had fingers the length
of dinner plates. i could have had 
an echo reaching past the moon. laying 
on my back & becoming delivered. no one told me
the arriving would be do hefy. a flag 
protruding from my back. a bag of feathers
on the nightstand. no more assembly for me.
i just want to pick up the whole world
& lift it with me. my volume is less
than you would expect at the first sip.
he was a good enough man. not great 
or wise but he had a way of bending over
like a saint. everything is religious 
until it's too late. the highway crawls.
i wear the sides of the road like gills.
pollution is all the rage. i close my eyes.
bathe in daylight then drench in dark.
where are you taking me, my barbed wire love? 
the final yard is a dream of silence.
no more street lights or timers. 
just the whoosh of a passing cargo. 
how would you like to be taped shut?
who is the currier & who is the carried
in your relationship? i lose a door
on the side of the road. deers knock at it
all year until, in the dead of night,
it opens to somewhere only they can see.
wildlife is seldom as green as this. 
the cabinets buzz with guilt. here i come. 

the discovery of tea

once, we boiled in the tortoise shell. 
shed leaves from our heads & dried them
on pavement. all our scabs had names:
oceania & baltica & rodinia. watched each sprout
red & wonderous before our eyes. walked down
to wash in sunlight. here is how you 
clean a wound. here is how water turns amber
from glass. faceup floating in the bath 
losing pieces of our souls down the drain.
living is the process of coming apart or
more precisely, how you make breadcrumbs 
of a body. i clip my finger nails & line
my little smile-moons up on the windowsill.
drinking deeply from the clay mug & passing it
along the line. everything is warmer now.
face full of faultlines. eating with my fingers
in the kitchen dark. who knew we could 
sing with a thumb over our throats. 
a bird at the back of the cupboard
with all the rest of the dried words.
sudden & promising. deepening dark. 
a whole lake turned maroon with waiting.
sugar cubes balanced on noses. i raise my hand
to find it gone to the water too.

Thunder 

We lay on the storm’s tongue.
A flock of water birds landing 
heart first. 
Burst feather. Bull frog legs. 
Wind overturning weeks worth
Of shoulders. How did I weather 
A July without you? 
You make a pearl of each of my eyes.
I pocket them. Give in 
To the forests unknowns. 
Darkness thickening to sound.
Earlier, we lit candles and asked 
The spirits what they wanted 
To leave us with. Handful of wildflowers.
Mushroom fist. Eagle feather.
It’s hard to hear the thunder 
Over the downpour. Leaves falling 
And becoming boats. I want to be always 
Tangled with you when the wind picks up.
In house or home or tent or tea light.
I kiss your forehead. Brush your cheek.
Blue grey sky. Clouds kneeling 
Holding in their pinkness. 

Bull Frog

Give me your wooden voice.
I want to talk through the night 
Like a sieve. We are not the closed-mouth 
Lily pads or the fishermen’s early legs.
Birds take turns asking “how” 
And “why?” Then, here you are,
Making forests in your throat. 
Twigs snap. My lover tells me 
“At night animals might come by 
Just to sniff the tent.” She is tucked 
In her sleeping bag. Our bodies are 
Warm even in the lake’s cool song.
I picture
Myself in the fur of an old spirit,
Crossing a River toward lantern light.
Your conversations are of the real life.
Of soil. Of green. Smoke. Rain.
You swallow mosquitos. Tell a joke 
To yourself. Rain picks up.
You welcome dampness. Breathe through
Skin. You ask a lover to come closer
Just as I do. 

i tell myself a bedtime story 

you are a girl in the heart of a wooden fire.
the trees are curling like bent nails. 
soon, you will count to one-hundred 
& hear the thunder make chickens of each roof.
with a pillow in the sink to stop the bleeding,
you pluck through the brambles towards
the metal city. as a child, you would
go downstairs when you couldn't sleep.
you would lay on the dirty speckled carpet
& watch a new man make sense of the darkness.
eventually, sleep would wrap you in grease.
waking up in a folded world where the sun
was a possible crease. now, there are 
wolves to take into account. a walmart 
to sing to. parking lot after parking lot.
if you fall in love the love will turn 
sweet as rotten clementines. seeping down
into the crawl-space. the cool cool basement. 
all the flowers, losing their skulls 
in your wake. it is a terrible thing to be
so alive. you talk to the cement & ask
for tips on how to stay still. the rocks,
all once humming birds, say it is just
part of the process. you could kill the stars
in the graveyard or even cut the legs 
off a moon. destruction thrums in you 
like water. cross-legged, you sit in the tall grass
& pluck handfuls of blue from the green. 
smeared on your hands. leaving prints
on every ounce of breath you breathe. 
it is time to tuck knees into chest. it is time
to stop talking to god & put yourself away. 

the last location

was opal & arched its back. 
took a photograph using only my fingers.
we were younger than we should have been
standing on the ledge. memories of trees
flooded our bodies. hush of a strong breeze.
thumbed wine corks in our pockets.
watched as the horizon line turned brittle 
as a bird bone. flightless, the landscape
told a story of thinning. all of us
eating less than we needed. licking our thumbs.
the plate, hovering like a halo. white. round.
shoes falling away one at a time & often
taking the ankles with them. a single ornament
dangling from above. do not touch, 
remembered nothing should be touched from now on.
how did we arrive here? the final of the final.
ends curled up like parchment. there used to be
that field of purple skunk cabbge where
dragonflies rose like angels. dirt carried away
with each exhale. soon the bottom of the barrel.
soon the penultimate glass. a fork in my pocket
for something that won't come. siren stuck
in the air trying to become a fish. 
there had been so much water to float on.
the clouds had drank on their knees.
tell me, if no one is there to remember,
is a location still a location or just a physical?
just a collection? not a collection though
a wordless waiting. un-somewhered by loneliness.
last of our kinds, we filled our pockets with
what was left. kissed beneath us
until all closed into a single stair. 
back up to the attic & no more down.