night vision

i saw you in the fluent green of midnight
with your face a matter of cattails & swamp.
a swing dangled from the ceiling 
& i waited for you to ask me what i did 
with the stars. led them out on leashes
to drink from my mother's face. each of us 
has more than three eyes. the eyes in the cupboard.
the eyes for morning light. the eyes who see
a bruise before it blooms. we are a family 
of watering cans. the tomatoes know
how to get exactly what they want. once,
i let you slice me open just to see how this
could work. crawling on hands & knees
in the dark kitchen where the pots & pans
have no right to be so jovial. we could have been
the whole cylinder. i'm realizing you aren't 
who i thought you were & likewise you're seeing
all my heat. red spreading from my heart
to my face. let's talk about depth & iron.
let's eat crayfish from the water. our hands
fresh & cold as stones. should we speak
of this again? should we call it "legend"
or should we brush the dead leaves over
this old night's face. lay him to rest,
his time like dew collecting. do you trust me
to tell you what i do & don't see? i see 
an elephant in the backyard. i see a neighbor
mowing his lawn at midnight. 
i don't see you at all. 

the invention of waterfalls

in the before times, there was no such thing as plummet.
the water came down from the mountain geometrically: 
triangles & hexagons. swiped from the air by neighborhood children 
& used as rainbow-spitting prisms. the angels spun each shape.
decided on distance & divison. as they worked they named the clouds 
after the children they wished they could have. their long
dewy fingers knitting water into water. no one fell.
not even small children. the ground was made of flurries.
when dishes were dropped they'd just hover before
laying down gently. not all acts of physics are scientific.
in fact none of them all. the downward was something 
angels had considered often, wondering if it might make
less work for them. they took turns testing the new feature,
tossing a rock down a roof-side or spilling glasses of milk.
they delighted in the hurtling. they even tried to fall themselves,
nosediving from their clouds to no avail. they could invent falling
but they could not fall themselves. some wept, wanting so badly
to feel the air open around themselves. others thanked god
for this gift of presence. yes, everything else would drop
& crash, but not us they said. the waterfall was not intentional.
it was a natural consequence of the contagious descension
spreading all over the world. one day an angel went
to knit to water & found it gushing from the mountain's throat.
washed his hands in that deluge & then his face. soaked through
his robes. he laughed. decided not to tell any other angels.
this would be his private plunge. he dreamed all day of it--
water free of angles. water spilling & wild. 

sticker book

you peeled me from my bed neck first.
a finger around my 2 dimensions. we used to 
eat firecrackers in the white-empty. fished
each others glow & adhensive. i was rare 
as a rose in a pear factory. all the production.
pressed into a symbol. you wanted to keep me.
pushed the edges down like furrowed lines.
called me halo or hologram depending 
on the light through the bay window. paging through
my bones. flimsy in the birding. saw the cardinals
turn flat & stagnant & the dinosaurs collapse 
into pictograms. eveything could be made figurine.
everything could be held still. your thumbs 
like rogue pilots flying planes engine-empty.
water churning beneath our feet. old aquifers
disucssing unknowable politics. setting your teeth
one by one on the sink in the bathroom. 
the locker room expanded to hold the whole house.
boys came & stuck themselves to the walls.
the difference between a portrait & a puncture
is a matter of equipment. hold still.
removing one too many from the stove. oven mit.
clothing iron. laying side by side 
on the counter to cool. you & me just little
printed dreams. our edges almost touching.
you closing your eyes the way a feather 
gets lost in a crowded museum.

caress

i wanted you to hear my airplane 
in your bowl of soup. propeller propeller
stirring the sequence. how to be touched
like a licorice rope. jump over 
a ripe stone. our hearts: slimy oranges 
in their sweet rot. the field ready.
the meadow blooming with tiny spoons.
could we really have grazed on each other's
side roads? parking on long island.
the way streets refuse to link elbows.
roar of your race car in the tail-light lullaby.
tell me i'm soft. tell me i'm safe
from all edges. 
supermarket for fingers. open palm. spring of soot.
we walked almost hand in hand until we didn't.
lived icicle graveyards empty &
without mourners. you took the fish hook 
in your mouth. you asked me to pull you along.
tea kettle over eager. unboiled water.
chirping children. midnight illegal fireworks.
thumb in a jar of peanut butter. 
to be touched is to be 
obliterated or maybe i'm just american. 
picking up the pieces is 
my favorite part. oh look my clavical. oh yes
here is one wrist without the other.
"pairs" are a myth. there is always 
a oneness to come back to. when i read tarot 
i'm only looking for one answers
"it is okay." sometimes, when we sleep,
we come apart. lay facing each other
like parallel avenues. 
i am the tree that breaks all the rules. 
reaches an arm across the way.

ocd seimotics 

you are not your face but 
the disappeared in the right mirror.
when did a motion become a function
of the worm's worry? i need hands like
i need water. drinking in fists.
i should have been born a gyroscope.
could have been all kinds of lean.
just wanting please one morning
where the sun calls my name like she once had.
no more legs, just paragraphs & parables.
how do you learn to save yourself?
the trees slipping their feet out of their slippers
& running like wind tunnels. i just want
an easier body. one less box for the eagle.
twin scissors on the staircase making
an arguement for more salt more salt.
blue mold lodged in cheese like crown jewels.
i want to lose everything in this.
throwing the suitecase down the stairs
to have it spill at the bottom.
please i want to be less dire & pressing.
just want to flip the noontime 
like a lily-lever. no more rush
just silt & old stream. 

grounding poem

let's breathe like orchids. i want to be
a castle in the midst of a latest water or else,
drowning, i'd like to have long hair again.
hearing a foot step dragon. where do i belong?
where belongs me? 
my lightning rods turn to pasta. a storm cloud
asks what it should call me. i want the old life--
the one without anything at all. i just laid 
& ate parsnips. i was basically dead.
the air was cold & bruised. i love the way
a wound can remove you from yourself.
standing above you say, "yes that is
my muscle surfacing." a box cutter grow 
under the big pine tree & i asked why it is
we have to decision our way always
into bedroom. the blinds blink themselves away
until i'm just one wide wide window.
i would like to wire my mouth shut. i'd like
chickens in the yard. to wash my hair 
in the jupiter sink. love you without urgency
or detonation. i don't know if i can do that.
my heart is a tomato timer or a pin cushion.
all i know how to do is say, "more more more."
in the before times, we would eat at the food court
& the park bench & the train unspooled us
like maple candy. like an orange, peeling off each lobe
& feeding you. sweet as ice bergs. sharp 
as new boys. i'm standing here
& swaying like a state-of-the-art old tree. 

reaction time

the suitecase full of violin bows. 
horses that strung them with their tails
& their catastophes. i carry a measuring tape
to catelog the distances between stop
& signature. i always realize too late that someone
wanted to love me. one day their house is empty.
singing like a flute notch. she plays
with her own hair for comfort. she saves strands
like probable notes. write me a letter
in the key of C. every cord is made
of old bees & their intentions. between now
& collision i would like to eat fries with my hands.
wipe the grease off on my thighs. a mountain 
strains to remember the flautline & the push
but stumbles on a written test. fill in the blank.
fill in the blank. we discuss fractiles 
& their deepending futures. move the image
searching for a catch-able bird.
a delay can be the difference between a porch
& a podcast. the forks undrawer themselves demanding
hairdressers. when shouldn't have asked 
for the large. why would we get the large?
in my hometown, everyone has a poem
they haven't written. mine is about obstructions.
a damn for the damn. logs piled like leg bones
in front of the only door. when i emerged 
i was not the finally but the waited & waited.
in the yard, birds collect their feathers 
like playing cards for a future game. i look
in the mirror & cover my face with one hand
then move it away. 

intermuscular planets

deposited like sewing needles 
into a ripe tomato. i was the galaxy grime 
& you were the insertion tutorial. 
a nurse sits on the end of the bed 
& smooths & smooths. there's nothing
to be done about the throbbing. walk it off.
walk off the edge of a sturdy precipice 
& learn to hover like jupiter. 
for my 10th birthday i was rewarded 
with my very own. a sharp jagged planet.
i wanted something blue. all the water
stolen by our own. i pinch the muscle.
feel the entrance like a hinge or
a tanned skin. drumming like a dragon
in the throws of a magic episode.
replace magic with manic. i was 
holding as still as possible & still
grazed the vein now weeping. 
i'm full of statues & statistic.
one in every three men feels useless
after learning gravity is what hold
us all down. mirror at the back of my throat.
a whole vanity. brushing my hair.
one hundred strokes. the texture of ice
after talking to it. planets in each thigh.
their hunger for moons & reaching
for asteroids. comets like gnats buzzing
above the sleeping bananas. i used to want
to be a real boy. now i want to be
galactic. want to be full of mass.
want to pull objects from their own desires
towards me. i transform socks into sail ships.
spoons into lighthouses. glint of a candle
between my ribs. flicker boy shadow 
in the ghastily noon swamp. wipe blood
from the doorframe. close it shut. 

heimlich maneuvers for gramophones

i begged for the crab apple tree. watched its hearts
burst under my shoes as they shed on the driveway.
sour little horns, brass in their shaking. 
a mouth piece gets lodged in my throat
in the middle of the night & i pace the hallway
with goose noise until i can get it out.
in the attic is my father's gramophone 
& whole skeletons of records--their gills repleat 
with dead men's voices. what does it feel like
to give a sound over to etching. i would make a record
of your laughter, play it over & over. the gramophone 
was choking & we were alone. i knew it was a crab apple
by the way the creature doubled over like hopscotch.
coughed & coughed. no matter how wide 
the narrow returns. breath comes & goes through
an opening the size of a cherry. spit a pit 
& make a hole through the window. almost everything
is perminable. the dying gramophone tried to sing.
i saw ghost pigeons fall from his mouth.
driveway sick with sweet & syrup. how to account
for all the sugar? i reached inside. i told 
the music to hold still as possible. searching  
i find water & ocean drowning. feel fish thrum
against the back of my hand. wisps of cattails.
the kiss of lilies. i reach the crab apple 
hard & vibrating. pull it out & throw it far away
across to the next town. the gramophone gasps.
lays & stares at the sun. more crab apples fall
at our feet. i carry his noise in buckets
back up to the attic before i cradle him there too.
memory is then maybe about who is gathering 
& not what is gathered. humid in the attic
i ask him to play a song. instead he plays bird songs
he heard while he thought he was dying. 

extension cord

i walk out to the middle of corn field 
& lay on my back, looking up
at the great greening sky. the stalks 
are still low this early in the season.
closing my eyes, i ask god for a television
& one falls beside me. boxy & old.
probably flung from a back room.
god often only donates what is no longer
of use to him. i set the TV on my lap
& promise to feed him energy. plug him in
somewhere eternal. only, there are no plugs
in the midst of a corn field. cradle him.
smooth his forehead. i too was once
just a television. patient for feeding.
a simulation of geese glide over head
on a loop. the glitch is still being worked out
but that's what they've said all year.
sometimes i look at my hand & then it's gone.
nothing but bone & smog. the house's power strip 
shutters & groans. i leave the TV 
in the field where he is safe & travel
to the sources. find my outlet weeping
& tell it's alright. it's coming. she calms down.
nothing is coming, i just wanted to comfort her.
then from the den i find an extension cord: 
coarse from use. knicks all along the throat.
stroll the miles & miles back into the field.
field of sway & drone & fire hazard. field of
lime sound & loneliness. i find the television 
right where i left him. push the plug
into his back & watch the static storm.
voices behind a wool veil. 
lay down again & listen.