queen of the mosquitos

eventually i gave into their hunger.
i am the blood mother of a flock. 
i go outside 
with a bare face.
open for their feast. the jewels
they plant beneath my skin.
a private collection. pearls 
& sideways rockets. i am always
the one eaten the most. i am unsure 
if this is fate or a learned behavior.
i remember being a child 
& admitting to other kids rule-breaking.
sitting in the time severed land 
while everyone else got a spot 
in the mobile. 
the mosquitos notice it first.
they come like children 
in a school without sugar. i name them
after lovers. when those names
run out i switch to stars & galaxies.
the mosquitos know the smell
of my flesh. know exactly how many 
birds i have devoured in a day. 
they ask about my wounds
as they drink. it can almost feel
symbiotic in the throws of 
the moment. then in the afterward
when they are gone i feel like
a queen without butter. i try to call them back
but they are busy being blueberries
in the dark sky. i have a vision of 
all of us together. my body,
a gown. their wings like dog-eared bible pages.
in the end i think we are all royals 
of something. me, just the back door
& the light on the porch. you maybe
a garden bursting tomato wide. 
i ask the mosquitos what my blood
tastes like & they say, "moon light." 

sail boat

in the morning i untether 
the sail boat from the crooked tree. 
i have been blocking out the negativity 
from my life which is to say
i have been floating in the ocean
while the sharks beg me to come
to a little fiesta they're having. i explain
that i don't go places anymore,
that these days all i want to do is to 
get in the boat & see where
we end up. i did not buy
the sail boat but i lie to everyone that
i got it online in my sleep. i have
sleep-bought before. no the sail boat
came to me in a dream. my partner
is always dreaming about meaningful things
like ancestors. instead, my dreams are 
county fair rides. rusty & uncertain.
the sail boat made its way through though.
it is good to have as the sea levels rise
& sun forgets to call home. i think all 
the planets are hoping for a break.
for gravity to exhale & all of us go like
pinballs. i want a really big cow that i can 
show off. i want to take her on the boat
with me & tell her secrets. instead,
i am stuck with a sail & the wind which
i have never learned to harness. 
still, i do my best to care for it. 
sometimes i think of sewing together
maps of all the neighborhoods where
i've lived. the ocean, here. the city just
a broken hip away. the x-ray shows
a sail boat in my femur. the wind
pulling me, mother-like, towards 
a really nice ice cream shop with 
fancy people flavors. i ask my partner
once every few months, "you like
pistachio right?" i am always wrong.
i tether the boat wherever i can. once
when we were on a honeymoon 
i had to keep the boat a secret. i tied it
up the street to a mail box. the boat wept.
i said, "do not worry, i will be inside you soon."
i woke up with my lover in the boat.
for a few minutes when he was still asleep
i swayed & all the stars were like
a strawberry patch. we rocked & swayed. 

night gown

i want to spend all day
in a nightgown. 
this time of year the rain stops
& starts all day & the snake weeds
are having their last romp across the hill.
soon their flowers will go to seed.
freckles in the downpour. 
i wear my nightgown to the grocery store
& no one bats an eye. i buy beans &
fry them with onion on the stove. 
my nightgown asks if we are 
a woman & i laugh. it whispers 
& asks, terrified, if we are a man.
i do not answer my nightgown.
in my life, i have been surrounded by
people who don't respond to questions. 
when i was small i ask where babies 
came from & my mom explained that
sometimes the wind is too heavy 
to take us home. i asked my dad
what he remembered about his mom 
who died when he was ten. he said
something about the turtles he would catch
in a pond behind their house. 
most questions are best worn as nightgowns.
soft & swishy fabric. once i had 
a thick felt-like nightgown. cats danced 
all across the collar. i wore it whenever
i could. climbed on the roof with it
to talk to the clouds. they were gathering
& readying for summer's burial. 
i am mostly unable to rest but when i
put on my nightgown i think that maybe
i could one day be still. that i could
have a hammock little breath. my nightgown
does all of this without me. walks out
to where this year soybeans grow. 
climbs a try & sways in the wind. 
my aunts wore nightgowns to bed.
now their nightgown are at a good will 
on the moon. they rest like my aunts never could. 
a house with windows but no door. 
i leave out a bowl of milk on 
the back stoop in case the gown returns. 

flesh

i am all about using all of the animal.
me, the animal, is not getting
as much use as i would like. i could 
be growing a cherry tree from my head
or i could be sewing corn up my spine.
instead i ask the dirt to do this for me.
i talk to the toads who, in autumn,
are considering their options for
places to potato all winter. 
i have been watching videos online
about the book bound with human flesh. 
i think people are a little more into them
then is called for. i mean they're call 
& all but i guess i just think skin
is everywhere. my only hope is that 
the words inside are something the animal
would have liked to hold. i think 
about this for cow too. all the leather
bound bibles. the cows, of course,
are never christian. sometimes deist.
sometimes pagan. but never christian. 
i think of the words pouring over
their mind in the afterlife dark. if i came
& despined the book, would it set them free
or have they come to expect a downpour 
of language across their skin? i think 
if i had to be holding words i would want
it to be poetry though i am indecisive 
about what kind of poetry. hopefully
at least one pantoum. i don't want
to be kept behind a glass case though.
i want my flesh book passed around. 
smoothed from holding. the cows i know
are always talking about leather. i show 
one my shoes & they say, "only wear them
once each moon." i do not question 
their wisdom. i have made the whole
flesh book thing seem a little romantic i think.
i feel the need to tell you that most of the historic ones
are doctor-patient situations which would
be much more interesting if it were patients
making books of their doctors. instead,
the other way around, it has a way of trapping
skin in examination. one, a psych patient
like me. her pathology played over 
a loudspeaker. i think that book should
be rebound. give her at least some mary oliver
or even the romantics. something less terror.
the body though is maybe never able to escape.
stories are like bones. cast for the future.
rowing down a river, moon-white. 

human hair

for my birthday i would like
a lock of everyone's hair. in my purse i have
a bag of my friend's hair & i am not 
yet sure what kinds of witchcraft would be
appropriate to do with it. 
i considered getting into victorian hair art
but i don't have enough pins. 
when i was in grade school my music teacher
grew her hair as long as her waist
& then one day came in without it.
she explained she had sold her hair
in a hotel room for lots of money. 
i wondered if there were farms where
people were trapped growing their hair.
i think there might be but i am selfishly choosing
to not know about that kind of horror right now.
isn't that nice how i can decide,
oh that is enough terror for me. i mean 
sometimes i can't. sometimes my hair
stops growing & i begin to be concerned
that i am somehow more than dead because even
the dead grow their hair for years
in their graves. that is a lie it's only
for a few days but did you enjoy the image
of a casket full of hair? i did. i would jump in.
hair & bones. i would definitely be 
a skeleton hair braider if that's what
they wanted. if that were true maybe
our loved ones would make wigs of our hair
& impersonate us for years after our deaths.
my plan is to find someone willing to pretend
to be me so that when i die they can 
pop up & scare my loved ones. they will think
to themselves, "am i seeing a ghost?"
you are always seeing a ghost. when i brush
my hair i find lazy curls & my mother's 
hair clips. she always just put it up on
& i really get that. it's exhausting to try &
keep your body out of your face. 
my family were the kind of people who
could not keep at it long enough 
to sell our hair. instead, we went to
the hairdresser with the uncomfy sink.
i loved her crooked teeth. the books of 
hair cuts in the lobby. once i picked one up
& found only pictures of caskets. she yanked
the book from my hands & said,
"sorry, wrong one." 

tip jar

thank you for the fire money.
i am hoping that by the time
you see this that there is a god 
& he is having a really big party.
i want a goodie bag. i want 
my hands to be easier to hold. 
instead, i am opening bank accounts
& filling them with frogs. i am 
shooting at the moon in the hopes that
i'll win the big prize. there is a carnival
in a bad way up the street. it's been
spreading & now even in the night
the little booths glow with chances
to hold a big stuffed elephant. 
i remember smelling dollar bills
with my sibling. i stole from their 
bedroom once. i think it was quarters.
i needed a heavy payment method.
something less noticeable when 
the fairies came in through the cracked
bedroom window. i learned to bait
the tip jar. honey & a tiny airplane.
am i home yet? am i home? a mail box
is a mouth without a throat just like
a tip jar. i am working for your happiness.
tell me, do i translate to coffee or blood?
once, in the jar a got a man's phone number.
i've never known how to seal the deal. 
lots & lots of pennies. the man never
picked up no matter how many times
i called. i wanted my money. i have 
poured out as much butter as i could.
could he not see me, melting? 

stick shift

the dead do not concern themselves
with teenagers. lately i have been trying to 
pick up survival skills for when there is
no more gasoline. we're on a bad highway 
by which i mean there is no coffee. if we follow it forever
we'll just end up back at the graveyard (not a metaphor).
as close as we can get to a hotel room. 
i do not reminisce much but i do miss
the ghosts who used to talk back to me.
these days i have to really stir the pot
to get a monster to look my way from
the cornfield. i loved to drive my dad's old jeep.
it wasn't stick shift but the story would 
be better if it was. i remember climbing a mountain.
was he with me or was i alone? i hope i was 
with him. i did way too many escape-room choices
when i was a girl. so much pasta & too many 
gas stations. there is no more gasoline so 
we don't have to worry about any of that. 
i put on walking directions to my hometown & it's 
only about 6 hours. that is not really that long.
i have been on longer flights. i start walking 
in the hopes that i can drive stick shift 
with time. squeeze the land & shrink all the distances
between be & a trauma pit. the graveyard opens
its mouth to swallow my aunt. they had 
an open casket funeral which i would have
approved of if they didn't do her makeup so much.
i miss her bathroom. i haunted it for just
one summer. everyone was blue. a fire
up the street turned them into butterflies.
i stole as much as i could from grocery stores. 
don't feel bad for me. i was hungry in a way
jello could to salvage. the jeep is scrap now.
i begged my dad to keep it before he got rid of it.
i said, "maybe we can plant flowers in its eyes."
he laughed. i was serious. i saw the jeep becoming
a yard monster. dirt & stray cats in the guts.
we could have laid it to rest. instead, he bought
an ugly truck with a rusted frame. 
now i drive stick only when no one is looking.
barefoot with a bag full of candy spearmint leaves.
i promise i'll still get there. even if it is just my bones
in a little amazon box. 

paper confessional

i build a confessional from
old newsprint & cardboard.
bless it with juniper smoke &
a bowl of raspberries. coax a coyote
from the fields to serve as a priest.
i used to want to be a holy person.
when i was in elementary school
i thought often about becoming
a nun as a way to escape the prospect 
of marriage. it seemed much less
terrifying than having to sit inside
a man's mouth until he died. 
there are different kinds of confession.
there are confessions for yourself.
confessions for "god" & confessions
truly offered to someone else. i remember
the "god" kind. it was a performance.
i emptied my pockets of low-level sins.
kept the big ones in a lock box
& hoped they would be forgiven
along with the rest. i try to avoid
confessions for myself. those are always
too much to handle. why not just
park on the side of the highway 
& buy some fireworks? i confessed once
to my mother that i was using her credit card
for years without her knowing. 
there was a priest in the corner of the telephone
taking notes. i hope in the coming years
to reduce my need to confess anything. 
it is better to live like a coyote & save
all the truth for the velvet dark. call out 
like a cracked star. that is why they make
wonderful priests. the coyote hears
my confession & gives me penance. 
he says, "run as far as you can from 
your own mouth" & starts counting
down from three. 

skipped reincarnation

when i come back i really really 
do not want to be a bird.
i know this contradicts popular opinion
but i do not think i can handle
seeing everything from so high up.
looking down on the bomb place
& the turtle graveyard. on the war
machine & the smoke. let me stay
down here where our lives can be
swallowed like hard candies.
a honey drop in the sugar street. 
if i am called on to be a bird
i think i will not show up. i will 
hang out where the ghosts do & instead
haunt whatever family member 
i have left. i will wait in their closet
& whisper to them that they should
build a house in the wilderness
& never ever come down. that they should
go back to where we're from
& hold the land like it once held us.
they will ask, "where are we from?"
i will explain that this will require
a knife & a boat. ears in the andes. 
fingers in by the big river. tongue by
the mediterranean sea. they will of course
not listen to me. the next life will knock
at my spirit but i will not come. i think
i have been a bird before & i cannot handle
becoming one again. leave me where
the dirt talks easy. i would prefer to return
as a pill bug. i am certain i have never
been a bug before. i would welcome
the close-up. a mouth made for 
turning death into stories. the mushrooms,
all of them with my name in their gills. 

dim the lights

i was eating in a lunchroom 
of dreams. someone said,
"dim the lights" & all of a sudden
we were ice-pop september kids.
in the u.s., a death & a sale
are the same thing. i am getting
much cheaper. i am willing 
to do a lot for twenty dollars. 
sometimes a movie comes on 
the tv without any warning. it reminds me
of being a girl in the pocket of
a really big man with round
fingernails. maybe he was smaller
than i remember. maybe he didn't
love me like he said he did. still 
it felt nice to be devoured. curled up
in a lightbulb. i prefer the softer rooms
where we don't have to be all
spot glow & monologue. i miss 
my cues. i fail to break into song.
in high school i was in the musical
which was as close as i'll come to 
being in a cult. there were girls
with voices & boys with boyness 
& i was neither. in dimly-lit hallways 
i practiced a few faces. turned
the sun inside-out & shook it for quarters.
stole my dad's car to visit a drive in
theater. there were birds behind the screen
telling their own version of events.
i preferred their show. less promise 
& more pantomime. the ghost 
in the light bulb was just me 
& my little gender. i get a hand pie.
bite done on sugar neon.
get back to a classroom without
any windows. a boy on the ceiling.
a boy, like a bat, in my hair.