echo maker

i love to cull mirrors where
there aren't any. an echo is not
a voice but the return. at this stage
of capitalism, everything is an echo
in horror & in glory. 
the street an echo of the wagon road
& the wagon road the echo 
of the foot path & the foot path 
the echo of the deer trails like veins
still through the mountains. each time
a story is told it changes. gains beetles
& loses the moon. drop shipping halos.
i see an ad for a house that comes
in a cookie tin. a lover the shape of a cloud. 
we run until the package driver 
tracks us down to steal our lungs.
there are echos in my organs & echoes
in the garden boxes my father prepares
for spring. still the feathers from the old corn.
an echo is always about direction. the air
reminding us, "we have all been here before."
i see echoes of the worst history 
in this country always. we live in a land
ripe with echoes. an echo went left unheard 
has no choice but to beat the ground
like a gong. it is getting worse. the rain
tastes like legs. when i open the mail
i expect arsenic. i expect a letter that states
i am no longer a creature, just an echo 
of a desire we all have but only some swallow.
my car, the a horse echo towards a road
thick & endless. the ocean somewhere
an echo of the gill times. i wonder if it is us
who are responsible for the echoes or if 
they are an element like earth or fire or water.
if i am the echo maker in sheep's clothing. 
they sell knock-off fingernails at the mall kiosk
a letter in the mail claims i could find god. 
i lay in the bath & sing 
so that my voice echoes all around me.
let the stars knock on the window all night. 

frankenstein's monster's monster's monster

my dad does a frankenstein 
in the basement with the table saw 
& a lightning storm in his pocket.
he leaves the door open a crack.
who hasn't been the victim of 
some man's ambition? i cut
the "create" out of "creativity" 
& there is just a pair of dad shoes
(you know what they look like)
on the floor like dead birds. 
he thinks that no one knows
what he does down there in his dungeon
but i have always seen  
my father. he is like a mirror.
what came first the father or 
the son? the answer: the daughter. 
on my best days i get to be the monster.
i get to share my name with
a man who loves to chase. i rise
like a bouquet of spoons. he takes me
out to the science people who say,
"that is not a daughter" to which 
he says, with pride, "of course not,
it is my monster." i am third generation. 
none of us belong here. these are
not our ears. the battlefields opened
so that we could borrow enough fingers
to make a fist. my father was made just like me
& his father too. frankenstein's monster's
monster's monster. we don't actually
remember anymore when it started.
if we have a frankenstein or if he is
just an idea we use to hold on
to one another. when the air is warm,
he opens the red double basement doors.
a halo's like gold. the sound of a saw. 
he builds boxes & stacks them
to the ceiling. each of them empty. 

ear candles in the blue dark

it was a horrible time when i went shopping
for ear candles. the moon was on fire.
i watched babies fall from the sky.
tried to pick up their pieces. handed them
to passersby. no one was okay but 
we all went to work. i would have
to look for my eyes, the little beetles,
each morning because they would crawl
to hide beneath the cool belly of stones 
in the yard. sometimes i had to spent
the whole day with just one eye. 
it was good enough. it was more than some
people had. i saw an ad on the hungry machine
advertising ear candles. i watch a woman
lay sidewards as a man lit her. i have
on occasion put a wick in my mouth
& used my body like wax. this was different.
a little exorcism. ear wax plumbed & released.
i imagined how good it would feel
to have someone removed for one instead
of added. i watched videos. i went to stores.
i bought hundreds of them. blue ear candles
& organic ear candles & laughing ear candles.
of course, before i did i googled more
about them. ear candles do not remove anything.
in fact, sometimes the wax from the candle
drip down into your skull. i wanted to weep.
i had wanted them so badly. in the morning 
before the first blush of the sun
i put one in between my lips & walked
like a zombie through the fallow corn field. 
nothing left me. instead, i was filled with
the sound of a drone overhead. my shadow 
danced around me. i still tried just one ear candle.
closed my eyes. pretended that it saved me.  

mountain ache

the truth is i miss talking to the rocks. 
i miss how your calls dropped like
boulders tumbling down the side
of the steep cliffs. i always imagined
falling when i lived there. it was comforting
to exist in a place characterized by rupture
& cracks. the mountains around here
are wonderfully old. ancient knees buckled
long before anyone in my family 
grew wings. there are legends of bird people
in my lineage. a grandfather who trades
one mountain to another. his feathers
on the closet floor. i come from a family
of men who fly just out of reach. 
the mountain has a gender that only
asks questions. refuses answers. how lovely
it is to be unknown. to have your bones smoothed
by the rain's persistence. by the legs
of animals who wish you find you.
these days i  get caught up in hunting stop signs.
on the mountain, the land demanded attention.
i am convinced this is why around here
people butcher the land as if it were 
a rack of ribs. they suck the fat. they never share.
this year they leveled another thicket
to build ugly expensive houses with white doors. 
i can still see the mountain in the distance.
you don't call me anymore & so there is
nowhere for your voice to fall. 
on my ugliest days i consider walking back.
calling you until you pick up. i want to ask you
questions you can't answer. what other life
was there for us? when you sleep on a mountain
does a part of you hope to takes you? 

the christian store

on wayward saturdays 
my mom used to drive us to the christian store
to pick out toys with crosses on them.
it was mostly plastic. jesus rubber ducks
& jesus bouncy balls & jesus statues 
of every possible size. holy water vessels
& in the back a rack of priest garments.
i always wanted to try them on. i considered
that if all else failed maybe i could become holy. 
the thought of living alone in a house beside a church
appealed to me & my budding otherness. 
we often went to the store after i received a sacrament
because they had beanie babies for most sacraments.
bears with communion wafers embroidered 
into their feet. it is strange the make-shift rituals
we consume in this country. there was very little
that i would consider holy about the store now.
i imagine the items arriving in bulk.
plastic bags of crosses. statues in packing peanuts.
as a kid, i loved to amass as many little 
objects as i could. i did not feel divine or safe
but i believe that those statues of being were maybe just
within reach. i am not catholic now but i do
have to admit that confirmation felt
mystical in a way i have seldom recreated.
we all wore white robes. my hair was 
still wet from a shower. my face, round
like a fresh moon. it was a specific moment.
the oil on my forehead. i did not want
to wash that night & lose whatever tether
i felt to a fleeting glory. the trip to the christian store
the next weekend felt different. some of my hunger
for objects had waned. i was in sixth grade & my body
asked for more than i knew how to give it. 
we still bought a bear. this one red to represent 
the sacrament. it did not feel the same as the ones
before. i think it rained on the way home. 
i don't think we ever went back. 

attempts at holy water

when i learned about holy water
i started to hoard it. i had seen 
that everything precious runs out. 
the drought will take the sky.
cupboards will go hollow & sing.
you & your father with eat 
candy spearmint leaves in the car
until your teeth ring. 
i had a flask i would fill 
from the baptismal fountain
at the back of the church. 
then, i started to resort to mason jars
& water bottles. stacked them all up
in rows on my shelf. blessed hands
& felt nothing. i began to devise
a downpour. a way to soak myself 
in the holy water in the hopes
that it might make me feel freed
of some unnamed snare. my body was 
growing into some kind of snake.
i spent evenings on my belly 
slipping between holes in the world.
when it rained, i would go out
to get soaked. forget the vessels 
with the church holy water. joined
a pouring out of the august sky.
some slit divine artery. my bones 
as wet drums. i wanted the rain 
to never stop to become a salamander 
on the humid moss-bearded land. 
i would return inside. peel 
each piece of clothing from my skin
& lay them on the floor. 
whatever i was trying to get rid of
has never left. instead, has become
like a gargoyle in me. rain down my back.
i still keep jars of water on the windowsill. 


 

mouth museum

i only visit the mouth museum alone.
i like to carry a bag full of toothpicks 
& work when no guards are looking.
some of the mouths are alive & others are 
alive but in the past. 
there are mouths from the old world
& mouths from species that no longer
sing into the night. i stand inside coelacanth jaws.
they tell a story about the deep. i nest
in beaks, one by one. dodo & albatross.
thinning to a string to fit in the kiwi bird maw. 
the museum is often empty. when i see
another guest i know they are like me.
a person whose mouth betrays them.
every once in awhile there is a theft.
someone taking a new mouth 
all for themselves. i am not to be trusted
& so i have occasionally tried one on.
i walked into the bathroom wearing a bear.
i scared myself. all those teeth. how do 
they kiss? once, on the ride home from the museum
my partner called me & asked if i had ever
considered going on a silent retreat 
at a buddhist temple. i explained that i am
not buddhist though i think i might be
better off if i was. really, i am just a tongue 
turning the pages a script written 
on roast beef. some of the mouth in the museum
do not have tongues. i will bend down
& lend them mine. they'll whisper 
what they taste. i feel terrible taking it away.
there have been nights i stayed there too.
slept inside (you guessed it) the manatee mouth.
i felt briefly peaceful. like the world had
enough rice. i boil water. i boil teeth. 
i always go alone but maybe one day
i'll take someone with me. i have only seen
two people there together once.
they were not lovers. they were enemies.
they had come to put on carnivore mouths 
& devour each other. i did not stick around. 

goat house

on the night the goats ate the house
we were fighting. you were blaming me
for the moon & i was blaming 
the moon for me. i have eaten houses
before. windows & doorknobs 
& all. i grew wings & feathers. you grew
scales. the world was bleeding 
in a river. a snowstorm on top
of a snowstorm. we were forescasted
to wake up as a statue garden. 
i tried to feed the goats my hands.
they learned how to write poetry.
became more curious about the smell
of water & the sound of the color green.
they devoured the cedar tree 
& the thresholds. the rind off the moon.
i thought, "maybe i can fix this."
as an oldest child, that is my impulse.
to put flesh back together. to open
the windows in the attic & let the bats
out to make more night. i did not really
try to stop them. you did & i should
have helped you. i find that for most
of my life i end up a spectator. it is
the most cowardly thing to do. 
bleachers sometimes arrive where
i did not expect them. in the front yard.
the middle of the road. they were hungry though.
i am good at justifying why i have
been gutted. they needed the organs.
they needed the moon. the house inside
the goats. the goats inside the house.
you blaming me for the dirt. the dirt
blaming me for the ash. the sky
trying to kiss us both on the necks. 
i promised you it would not happen again.
it happened again. we did what we had to.
we climbed inside the goats that night.
slept in separate stomachs. 
still, i reached out to touch your hand.
you returned my caress. do not forgive me.
i just want to be kept. in the morning
the house sounded blue. 

cave crickets

we do our rituals in the kitchen
where no one eats but me.
a hole in the wall opens & closes 
like a fist. i sometimes feed it forks.
the forks are never enough & i cannot
understand what it craves. 
i tried once to follow the cave crickets.
it was early pandemic & i was becoming
more & more animal each day. 
i even tried to make an exoskeleton.
surfaced my bones & took pictures
for the internet. the cave crickets
let me down gently. they led me 
to the basement with the nailed shut door.
i tried to barter with my eyes for prophecies.
i told them, "you can take the left one."
the crickets have witnessed 
the turning of the soil. birds turning
into planets from want of a lover.
they told me, "we have eyes. you do not."
a darkness spilled like a paint can 
across the dirt. the cave crickets
talked all night. i got proficient 
at their language. i am used to being
a cusp being. not quite. not quite.
just enough. music in a jar. knocking on
the nailed shut door at night.
i do not know if it was a dream or not
but i think i joined them just once. 
maybe i had contorted enough to fit in.
we sang. we traced the shadows. cool
& damp. my phone rang. the window 
opened & crows came in to steal forks
& knives. i never got away with it again.
i think they just took pity on me.
do they talk about me still? flesh & water.
my bones, dull white in the kitchen. 

house/less 

when my car died all i had
was my mouth. it was summer
& the stars had parking lots to rest in.
i slept there, inside myself.
same pillow i had since fifth grade.
everything smelled like 
the mint gum i bought from the wawa. 
drove around with just my legs.
store windows glowing all night
to keep ghosts away. if you keep moving
it is almost like you're not without.
i would walk the little town 
& look for "for sale" signs in 
front lawns. pretend that i had
a golden goose egg i could barter
for my piece of the hunger. lately
i keep watching apartment & tiny house
tiktoks. they're from realtors & each
is a little empty shrine. i love 
the tiny ones. the compact sinks.
one room with a perfect window.
even they are not
as small as a car or a mouth or a july
when the moon is as thick as it's ever been
in your whole life. sometimes i feel like
i was meant to be a pavement dandelion.
something bright that should have
never stolen my piece of fire. 
i fit a television in my mouth. 
only once. plugged it in. pirated a show
i had wanted to see for years. 
it downloaded slow. always glitched. 
i didn't take my shoes off inside. 
tracked in dirt. wanted to be ready
in case we needed to escape. from what
i am not sure. i like to guess the monthly cost
of the apartments in the videos.
the last one was 7,000 dollar a month. 
tile bathroom. claw foot tub. in my kitchen
this morning i open a jar of fennel seeds
to sleep their sweet licorice singing. 
my old car is parked on the moon
but i still have my mouth.