spider plant

i ask to be taught proliferation.
how do you decide an arm should become
another arm? walking future children
on leash. a length of rope
short enough to prevent mischeif.
in high school my friends sat amoung 
spider plants. finger-fed them dead flies 
& removed bug nets from the closet.
all night hunting morsels down
for the garden. barefoot, i sliced my heel
on a roaming dread. here i am just about real
though occasionally i slip into
that old pattern of ghost conversation
where your mouth doubles. question 
& answer. call & response. sometimes
i create an extra hand just to hold 
my heart like an apple on a golden plate.
i'm interested in what it would take
to reach sainthood but not interested enough
to pray. the spider plant never dies
because she has five perfect replicas
waiting just around the corner. i want
to have sculptures of children. little angels
poised around a dead fountain. that is likely
good enough for me. i often say 
"we should" when i mean "i know we won't."
it is better that way. lies can be 
less severe than they seem. in sunday school
i was always fixated on the question of
when it was okay to lie. i invented scenarios 
in which the only correct action would be lying.
the spider plant on the other hand 
has never lied once. he's taking his children 
away from this scene. he's telling them 
the hard truths about the world. you will
grow wild & rancorous just to find another leg
supposedly yours. the pots on the porch.
staring right up at the sun & learning to drink.

the hot air balloon operator's requiem

i used to want to fly fighter planes
but then my eyes turned to olives.
laid on mother's kitchen floor, cool tile beneath 
my spine & asked the sky to tell me 
the secret she tucked behind her ears.
birds would fly in my bedroom
whenever i opened a window. gently, i'd cup them
in my hands like rain water before
pouring them into the yard. lawns are terrible.
my father cared for ours with surgical tact.
i saw him kiss the green once & another time
watched as he tore a dandelion up by her heart.
all day i see souls slip upwards 
like tossed pantyhose. sheer & eager. 
reach a hand over the side of the basket
& feel their air. the first few times up
i had thoughts only of plummet. a plane is a scissors
where a balloon is a ladel. unlike a plane
the balloon lives in the air. i learn to drink
sky's specific colors. sliver of yellow.
freckles of orange. often, sitting on the basket's floor
i dream of flying higher. balloon pressing atmosphere.
balloon prying its gentle way into space.
i have company here. my loneliness breathes
with feathered gills & fire lit under each lung.
if i ever do bring someone along, not a patron
but a friend or a lover, i will ask them
to lay down with me. coil like cloud embryos.
i'll tell you my names for each ghost.
i feel the spaces where buildings used to laugh.
texture of a long dead hawk. tall tree's 
footprint in the breeze. the sky is a new dirt.
finer than sand. fertile. handful & pocketed.
together we will learn to swallow sunsets.
hold hands & kiss messily as storm greys. 
shovel on the ground. you can watch me
dig holes to slip the thinness into. 

meteor diet

waiting on the mountain's lap 
like an already-dead nestling
feathers still wet from shell-breach.
the cars thread themselves through my veins.
pull the needle. hair on my arms.
mom's blue station wagon parked 
sideways. a dor handle. my best friend
& his water-logged eyes. light the candle.
trace the bone. i have been trying to learn
how to eat for this long. are there birds
who eat like this? want to become 
flight itself. my hometown was a button
on my wrist. all the girls grew & cut their hair.
i haven't loved myself. i still haven't
loved myself. this is why i talk to planets
because they don't bother with love.
once, my father saw meteors above his factory.
said he counted nineteen. i thought i was
married when i was that old. nineteen is
a gravestone carver's dream. i bought
a wedding dress & i intend to wear it
when i'm lost sock burried beside 
too many other people. i'm in love right now
which means i can forget about bowls
& replace them with hearts. a bowl is of course
just another kind of heart. i don't want 
to be checked up on. could i try again
i think sometimes. it's a question to god
but god emptied himself into the lake
& now just looks up at his making until
the end of time. one will come soon & it 
will fill me for the rest of my life.
nothing but space rock from my throat
to my ankles. no calories to add up
just the heft of another planet's face
balled up inside me like cotton. i've always wanted
to feel full. not like eating full but full
like the way a gasoline tank can claim 
completeness for the time being. i blow out
the candle & don't worry about the dark.
once i saw the real dark in the pocono woods
but now the dark is just a suggestion
of forks scraping the bottom of a pie tin.
we could go on forever. i hope we do.
i don't want to think about the bird skeleton.
pocketbook beak. i'm not falling i'm just
taking the long way back home to 
a slumped sibling bed. the necklace clasp
is stuck. don't use my spoon. 
there meteor will be here anyday now. 

no one knows the moon's birthday is tonight

not even her. she goes about her duties 
as usual. combs the hair of every field.
sets tea lights in lovers' chests. strums ribs
like mandolin strings. eats a handful 
of galaxy light & licks her fingers clean.
in the oceans her reflection stares back at her 
like a phantom self with its own yearnings 
& its own needs. centuries ago, 
she used to dream, like a mermaid, of legs. 
any legs would do but she especially enjoyed 
the movements of millipedes & salamanders. 
while the sun is responsible for administering exitictions
the moon is charged with the elegies. 
she has sung so many reptiles & insect to sleep.
writes their names on slips of light 
then hiding that light under rocks 
of her surface. tonight she gives a lat lullaby
to two un named insects of the deep amazon.
she sheds two tears which glow gasoline kalideoscope.
if she knew it was her birthday
she would likely only invite venus because
venus has no moons & has always secretly
wanted the moon for herself. it is best
to be wanted desperately. the other planets 
know their birthdays & usually celebrate 
by wishing on the sun. they plead the wish 
all day hoping for his ear. 
he's never granted a wish yet & doesn't plan to.
still, he wants the moon to wish like everyone else.
knows he isn't powerful enough 
to make dreamings tangible. just craves to know
what the moon might want. she no longer yearns
for animal limbs but maybe water. maybe she would ask
"i would like to trade places with an ocean."
but it is only a migratory thought. 
like so many creatures, the moon treats her desires
as passing boats. onward to another stop.
she is older than anyone could count.
celebration is out of the question for 
a being of her age so she sits. imagines rows
of dinner plates. tonight she is a mother
who sets the table each night. her children 
are patient & quiet. she wants to touch 
her own face. watches all the fingers on earth.
earth, what a busy structure. she lays 
on her back & watches sun spots until 
the night is over & it is no longer her birthday.

snake skin

i shed the power switch.
legs gone & planted like windmills.
stockings hung from the poll 
like invitation or banner. a nation 
loomed like a sive. cheese clothe 
for moon rocks. i'm milking all i can
from this reptilian affair. hopscotching 
my scales all the way home to the egg.
a tape measure for judging chicken
from lizard. shucking socks
like skin. sweat thickening to rubber.
bounce ball off bricks until 
the brink is heavy & visible.
taking my fangs out & sitting them 
on the kitchen counter like knives.
ankles escaped & escapading all the way
to the underworld. i'm drawn to 
starting new only in disastrous ways.
deforest the playground & dig 
barehanded in mulch. 
goodbye goodbye & white hankerchief
& dressing room mirror that makes 
you look thin as a branch.
i collect the old skin in mason jars.
float them out to sea via river.
bobbing old carapaces. what's the point
of moisture? in the end 
the dry finds every wallpaper.
curling at the edges. your snake 
[insert intimacy here] is more ready
than ever. fresh playground 
of flesh. i knew green before 
anyone else in nowhere. belly 
to soil. sun on my back.
i'm looking for the perfect rock
to graze across. test the tear.
turn ribbon by the dusk red.
leave another sheild 
melting in the dew. 

butter 

pre-schooled handed we made hole-punchers 
of our mouths. dotted the menu with 
portals. butter is aways waiting
beneath the surface. a few muscles away.
we all pressed fingers to our forearms 
to feel our digits working. pianoed,
i waited for the factory to arrive
like grandfather or a railroad. 
sweetness, like all pleasures, is manufactored
in hell alongside bright orange cows 
& croissant platters. my father drives away
when we take our shifts. his shifts 
is in the bunker with the other men.
he's got blotches on his skin from
spilled grease. i used to beg him
to turn himself in but he said he couldn't.
i will understand when i'm older i guess.
for now there are jars to be filled.
butter to be sung from the faucets
& butter to draw into the right reservoir
for safe keeping. this winter promises
frozen butter on the rooves & smudged
street light. some morning when the cows 
knock at the front door like traveling salesmen
i consider a world without the substance.
what it might mean to talk to cream
in its slipper form. wild butter.
abandoned butter. everyone on my street
is hard at work at any given hour.
there is never enough. the quota is
as wide as a life. what would happen
if we just stopped producing. watched world
melt around us until the trees gasped
in delight at all the lack of productivity.
a signal they heard in space suggests 
butter on other planets even. 
i stand in the yard & pause for a moment
to wave up at them as if to say
we are making butter down here too.

shell

we made a practice of saving the shells
after the yolk made boredum in its stuck.
thumbs for implements. nails to sunlight.
here i come here i come. you ask me 
what it is what it is. heaven in the fracture.
ostrich sharp i came down. bathtub 
for the blue bird. you never let me be
fragile. i mistook eggs for bulbs.
house reaked with dark. i blame the yellow 
& the absent infant. a cord could be
pulled for the trap door or a mother.
in the living room i plucked from my feet.
you cut the eyelids off the house. dressed
in nothing but deep. blood pact after
blood pact as if they were going
to fix the open. a scar the length 
of manhattan taking up space in my hard drive.
if i could drive backwards i would find a way
to return us to the dead grass & 
the don't worry. dead flowers by the stove.
rustling not of leaves. egg forest
always waiting behind another door.
birds working like factory--no like
soldiers. everything is battleship
but especially escape. i make hatches & handles
of my bones. you once sewed my likeness
into the membrane. it looked nothing like me
but what is an "i" from the other vantage
but also the same "i" ? what will be left
after the shells are tamed?
made necklace or contraceptive?
i wore a ring around my neck 
like a trophy case. you said it looked
as if i were trying to make new friends.
the yolk was beautiful though. thick 
& ready for density. ready to feed
the non-existent chicken. my feathers
are dew-damp & not drying. nail clippings 
in the mix. i'm not going to use the stilts 
when i stumble back. i'm going 
to eat well tonight. 

raising awareness

the first time i was aware was second grade.
levels were high. we all got way too aware at once.
some children covered their faces. a boy 
kicked me in the shin until i became a boy too.
that's how it works.
outside the snow turned to palm sized 
glass minitures & then no one at all was looking at me.
i saw this swirl of fabric light.
blinked & blinked. the color was purple
or maybe red. i took notes in a start-stop diary.
always got too scared of someone reading it
so i wrote about boy-love & then 
ate the pages. the trouble is i have
spread myself pastry thin. i should have 
waited years to become aware but instead
it kept pouring. the bathtub full. 
my mother told me it was embarassing.
i needed to cover it up if i was going 
to walk around all aware & all. breathed 
into a conch shell. the ocean gave me tips & tricks
for eluding my own heart. it's not easy 
remembering the geography of the largest bruise.
little continent. tied ribbons around
all the girl necks i loved so no ones head
would float up & get stuck on the ceiling.
so aware & so tired, i would often
fill my mouth with marshmallow & just
try to rest a little. marshmallow is
the opposite of awareness. soft 
& prone to melting. i left my hand prints 
on the bathroom stall next to 
some writing that said "tell me 
i'm not the only one." i muttered
"you're not" even though for all i know
they might be. i'm the only one who saw 
what i saw. or at least i'm the only one
with the home video. it's not even really
something raised-- it's more something
severing. there's the me before
& the me who reads every turn 
as an omen. i try to ensure safety.
i guard all the glass animals 
& stroke their stunned skin. my awareness
of my body is like a static TV
in a gymnasium or a bowl of milk.
it rearrives this time each year
along with the alien flowers & the rain. 

superficial blood vessels

measuring interval between 
skin & blood. me, the map table,
you the protector. i spent mouths 
like cans of gold. click of
metal. pistons of your neck.
took the paddle boat across a canal
where beneath the water clams 
traded stories of ship bellies
& their own pearled hearts.
an island can hang around for 
only an evening or two but it's neccesary
to dock & find what you can.
in your hair i picked out onyx 
& ameythyst. made a necklace for
a passing tree. put a key 
under my tongue till it sweetened.
there is always more eating to be done.
more packing. more promises to knit
one after the other. why is it 
i want so quickly to be loved forever?
several times i have etched this
into skin. told a boy or a girl 
or a lover to turn over & try to guess
what i'm writing on across their backs.
i trace their name & then mine.
i turned over like a lighthouse beacon. 
find the ocean everyone keeps secret.
you make a wind tunnel 
of my voice box. i turn radio.
antenae curled into aluminum root.
i hold you. cuff you to a glimpse.
a chain around my neck. when we sleep
i dream of jungle gyms in the surf.
teeth & tongue. clam pursing their lips.
a shovel slid into sand. my mouth
on your neck. the telephone poll ringing.
i want to always feel like this.
give & take a breach. 

roller coaster tycoon

we built execution amusements 
in the dim moniter's light.
key board like a school of teeth,
my brother & i took turns crafting
half-finished loops & foot-paths
to nowhere. watched our patrons
inspect our handiwork with fear 
& curiosity. their generated skeletons
like the future frames of coasters.
one spiral into another & another.
days passed in the snowglobe.
the sun, a pixel dream. blinds drawn
outside summer sweat herself to sleep.
our hands slick with anitcipation 
as we built a hill that scraped 
they moon's chest. i thought to myself
how much i would like to be a guest
in my own pleasure. would like
to wander the park grounds
as too inexperienced gods 
placed & removed the ground beneath me.
stand in line for a ride to oblivian.
emerge again at the gate. before bed
after our showers my brother asked me
"do you think hurting video game people
hurts real people somewhere?" i said
"no," even though i was unsure.
the older brother's job is to 
eat the young brother's doubt.
i laid awake after he fell asleep
in the bunk beneath me. i felt 
the sleeping computer. our broken coasters
spitting bodies into the grass.
knew something was wrong with this
& felt the need to fix all our wrongs.
turn the computer on & complete
each ride so that nothing catastrophed.
i heard cart after cart spilling. our severed loop
like a steele half-smile.