my burger king toy

was a tall man with a buttery nose
& sea horse eyes. 
didn't fit inside the reccomended plastic.
told him to lay down in the back seat
& cover his ears while i chew.
i try to avoid processed boys
but sometimes it's inevitable.
in dusk i always float like a pickle. 
blimping & goose flesh. nothing much to see.
it's better not to resist this kind of coupling.
on the way home, i got him a fine china plate 
he can carry around to feel important.
really, i wanted the wooden top.
wooden toys make me believe
we were once cut from trees or at least
that we were once more organic. 
trees faint when you tell them
just how much waste is happening 
right now. the consumer is always
thinking he-she knows what he-she wants.
when i am in a consuming mood
i watch youtube until the videos
mash together & no longer make any sense.
plastic is basically organic though
like tomatos or beets. used to be
dinosaur brains & now is smooth 
& blue. science is sometimes
nothing more than instructions 
for how to make the best soda lid.
my toy asks for chipped ice
but i only have cubes. he doens't appreciate
how many stop lights i had to endure
to meet him. the fries 
are cold as tombstone letters.
when we go to sleep i'll tie a balloon
to his wrist & tell him "get lost."
not like in a rude way but more like
a "not all who wander are lost" bumper sticker.
really, my preference is for 
men the size of pockets. i pat his head.
i fold the hashbrown in half 
like a bible to take a bite. 
tell him he tried his best.
nothing free is neccesary. well,
except maybe air. but even that 
might be up for debate. i once
held my breath for twenty-one years 
& nothing that bad happened to me. 

rapid onset gender 

the needle was a mother closet.
brushed my teeth with salt.
ate ice cream in the fire elevator.
knotting my heart like a pair of socks,
i don't take mondays for granted.
i pull them taffy-like from 
underneath a fresh lid. milk the moon
for nourishment. turn up the heat 
in the bathroom to sweat myself
free of all my hair. thighs are
the most important muscles & 
here i am with not one but two.
brotherhood on a coat hanger.
spit spikes in the sink from
the impending collar. 
i'll walk on all fours
if you hold the leash. beard blooms
like daffodil & blue bonnet.
i'm making a thicket of my face.
attaching burs to your back.
i want to be the lover who is 
hard to take off who years later
you wonder "where are they?"
my pronouns are very worn out 
so i wash them in the sink 
with orange dishsoap. i have a hard time 
correcting people when they call me
a prophet. i just saw god's ankles 
underneath the dressing room door.
i'm making a bumper sticket that reads
"supernatural = natural." nothing much else
to say about transformation other than that
it should be more hourglass flip
& less medical waste. though not my fault 
everything blue needs to blink 
itself awake. praise my scabby elbows.
praise the shed snake skin in the sink.
wasn't mine wasn't mine. purse me
to the graveyard water fountain.
let's talk about the gender of a knuckle.
mine is amethyst beneath the skin.
i'm having all my bones surgicall replaced
with crystals as fast as i can.
bones are really too heavy for this
kind of lift off. fill my shoes with dirt.
plant tomatoes. red comes so fast 
i can barely catch.

come on eileen

between wracks of overalls & ratty coats
in the flatbush thrift store 
we talk about our future apartment 
that will never arrive. 
but we don't know that yet, we're eager.
we're swaying to come on eileen playing
over the store loud speaker. 
am i wondering if we're in love or am i just
sifting through our bodies like parking lots?
i need a winter coat 
even though the sun on the asphalt 
suggests the potential for spring.
what a january can do to you. 
with this constant blushing.
dandelions gossiping underneath the sidewalk.
holding hands & releasing them.
your knuckles like knots in a wooden door. 
you show me three two bedrooms on your phone 
& each building we pass seems like
it might hold a future bedroom. 
christmas lights wrapped around 
a lamp post. a boy on a stoop playing
a slightly out of tune acoustic guitar.
i can still hear come on eileen 
from the thirft store speaker up the street.
we're looking for another stop 
& another. being in the city is frantic.
always feels like we're missing so much 
we're missing so much. i used to think the song was 
about the singer trying to get eileen 
to come to bed with him but 
in between buildings with you 
the song was about time. how you can try
to pull forward. you can try to push over
a month or two. come on come on.
we are far too young & clever. 
but it never arrives any smoother.
my new coat had a hole in the left pocket
but for then i thought it was perfect.
stood on the subway platform with you
as you told me you had found
another apartment & another. 
i decorated my heart 
with our impending windows.
Come on Eileen, 
oh I swear what he means.

tell me someday about plastic bags.
about where you took your legs
that night after we got home. 
does it matter if i loved you 
or if i needed you? At this moment, 
you mean everything.
 

narrowing 

by nightfall, buildings were as thin as string beans.
i took your hand & pulled you through
our favorite wreckage. funny how 
every little destruction can be
coated in bronze & saved for future fingers.
dead trains shook like hampsters in their holes.
we needed a method of transportation
so, by flashlight, we made the teleporter
we'd always talked about. gum & dimes &
a little stage to crouch on. i asked
where you thought you were going & you shrugged
& said you'd let the trade winds decide.
every body might as well be a molecule boat.
press a button. gone you were. absense expanding
were your bones used to vibrate the air. 
the river had been toxic for a long time 
but in the dark then without you 
it glowed a new green. i dipped my feet
to watch them swim free. two pulsing golfish.
thinner still, the towers were wide as tooth picks
& people still managed to clock in. swipe cards.
slink into breath-sized room. i ran my fingers 
across the walls like bars then strings.
a city is a strummable thing. thumb 
to window. you were so far away. 
i couold tell you put a latitude
in your heart & spun with it. why hadn't i 
asked to leave first. then again,
i think i feared the techology. 
it's possible you didn't teleport anywhere,
just dispersed like a blown dandelion skull. 
there was only one way out. a tunnel
the width of a pinky. i sucked in.
surprised myself with how much i had 
to be drawn closer. in a past life maybe
i was a corset maker or a may pole weaver.
once out the girth of structures terrified me.
so much room. everyone was a bay window.
no sign of you anywhere. the device
winking in an alley elsewhere. 
the city then behind me, 
a single coarse string dangling 
from a cloud. waiting to be pulled.

patterns on men's shirts

i'll be blunt, 
it was all for blue floral
& forget-me-pleases. 
skipping buttons in the river.
your shirt opening like eyelids.
i can see your heart made, 
like a bird's nest,
of dismantled dawn. 
polka dots ride your spine.
we drove the car 
into a manhood monument
& hoped the impact might solidfy
our cause. i first learned 
of undone in the back of your car
where all the repetition is stored.
tell the paisley to come back
& get comfortable. 
perching our shirts 
on coat hangers
they make little half-men
who want nothing but 
to leg themselves across
the highway. i always 
line the holes up wrong.
lopsided blinking. 
zipper eyelashes. here comes
the returning stone 
to knock on a back door.
how did you get in
& how long do you plan to stay?
i'm asking you with your thumbs
gyroscoping us steady in reality.
soon i'll fly off &
not worry if the flowers
have names or not but for now
i'd like to know where 
to find a men's dressing room
this late at night.
i need a full-length mirror
& a bench & a price tag
to clip to my ear. we used to
close all the doors in the house
before we kissed. kitchen 
closet coat room. then here
we went asking each button
if it wanted to flick its wrist.
turn open the light
like an iris. button
my eyes shut. i want to walk 
in this marking. 
the ornament repeated
is my idenity. here i am
dressed for you. 

teen spirit 

we smell pink tonight
in our bedroom with our
dollar store deodorants
& cheap flip flops. i love my friends
in twist-tie ways. braid & unbraid 
bra straps like ladders. a chest
is a kind of skull. we eat
sugar from a bag using mis-matched spoons.
a television becomes a girlfriend
& briefly so do i. i consider
toes like tulip bulbs. want to
ask if anyone needs to be kissed.
let the pillows fill with leg hair.
a razor on a windowsill. back swear.
tired socks & shed feathers.
smudging nail polish on carpet.
we ponder july & pool water 
& boxers. shoot hair ties
at mars who is too visible.
exchange tips for talking to boys.
i go to the bathroom & try to 
wash my hands in a way that might
clean my whole body. put lotion
behind my ear because i saw it 
in a movie once. all my girlhood
is imitation. how a mirror 
asks the same question backwards:
are you sure? vs. you are sure?
most of us want to be something
we are not. it's about how wide
the distances grew while we're
no looking. applying more deodorant.
pink cap. pink gums. brushing teeth.
our spit in the same sink. 
i'm going to be first 
to fall asleep. 
i can already feel it. 

we left the disco ball out in the rain

glimmer spored & planted sway 
all over the dew-spat yard. 
the house we stood in front of
was not ours & it glitched 
when one of us wasn't looking.
pruney fingers tried to untangle 
knots of hair. tree pasting leaves
across skin. map gutter crumpled 
& trading roads for red vines.
our festive clothes were ruined
by our own calliope. damp 
as a drained dream. teeth chattering
with a cold rush in from the west.
plucked ripe sweaters from a bush.
itchy & knitted by elderly angels.
how could you go to sleep like this?
all the unfinished ruffle & 
the mouths we still needed 
to enter? gone we make a statue
of you to remember what we forgot.
your arms crossed we make you 
out to be a good father instead
of a passing spine. priests 
will survey this mess & deam us
unworthy of feed bags. the disco ball
swelled. you should have seen it.
you should have wrapped the towel
clockwise around the wound. 
blood is a kind of egg timer.
the bread is done. the bread's been done.
all i need is the right insulated glove.
we should seek shelter
in the nearest dead car. a skeleton
is always a little human. 
shining flecks of leftover. 
i fill my pockets & i get greedier
by the moment. i'm sorry i would
keep it all for myself if i could.
would pour others recollections out
& jar them for new camera angles.
i wasted my tokens on a train
to the drug store. they were
out of marshmallows. can i borrow
a rain coat? the sweater
is reminding me of sheep standing
like enemy-less soldiers
field-standing & ready.
we depart but i still want
to reassemble the thing. find every
fleck & freckle & re populate
the ground with future suns.
it's no use. we wasted the last circle.
now it's just rough around edges 
all the way to the end. 
keep a piece for yourself. 

bread clip

we collected. held plastic between
thumb & finger. determined to build
disposal. aquariumed & swimming,
all the plastic in their paradise
to look at with hopscotch-eyes.
counting. where does the number go
once it's passed in its place.
a valley of sevens for the keeping.
breadclips are not recyclable 
in the blue sense but yes in 
the way that anything can be used 
for inspiration if you put it
in a cage. darting plastic. winking
plastic. we visited the plastic 
to ask our fortunes. i took 
my dandelion skulls to the morgue 
for an autopsy. death by thumb.
when the ocean is oil i'll go there
& make the evolved & ugly fish 
how to breath fire precipices. 
until then we have to ask containers.
the hallway. the shelf. the sink.
the pocket. hung a bread clip 
on my earlob & started hearing
ancient plant-matter talking about
unionizing. i don't explain it's
a little too late, i just listen.
hearing used to be my antidote 
but one day it just turned
stale & the crust peeled free 
as feathers. there's enough rations
to last this flag pole or so they said.
we stole some & stuck them
in our back pockets where all secrets live.
traded colors. blue being rare.
blue being sacred. the sky having
long been replaced 
with a late-night show set.
i keep a blue till this day.
no you can't see it. 
when you share a color 
a bit of the wave length is lost.
i need all i can get. we released
the breadclips in to their 
natural habitat. a million.
a million. the mud river.
trees, who knows which are root
& which have long been 
men in costumes with 
sound recording devices?

mopping

never learned the propper technique.
at the malt shoppe 
the red & white checker board floor
caught ice cream smear & scuff.
i loved working there because it felt like
acting-- i would imagine a young girl i could be.
simple black heels. picnic table print dress. 
red lips. mind gathered cloud-like in tulle.
but, by closing time, that game would fade 
& i would want desperately to escape
my uncanny dinner-plate face 
reflected back at me 
in the ice cream freezer window. 
one college girl i worked with said, "like this"
& she'd rub the mop 
in circles across the ground, 
dragging the bucket behind her 
like a tired dog. she'd stack her tips
in adjacent piles. i always thought
they looked like row homes.
another boy told me 
i rung the mop too much. instead,
his mop slopped on the floor like
spilled chilli. he left puddles behind
&, while he took apart the soft serve machine,
i'd go back over the mess he'd made
using a dry mop. what is being a girl 
but always trying rectrify? once, i closed up
with the owner. a bald older man.
he watched me while i mopped & corrected me 
as i went. he said, "ring it out more."
"squeeze it harder." "no softer."
"you have to press down." i did 
everything he said. we had closed later
after a rush of post baseball game players.
finished, i walked home up the street
towards my parents house. moved 
in circles. in the shower, scrubbed
cream from under nails. a check board 
unfurling in my heart. skipping
white spaces. perched on red. 
dragging the bucket.

culpability 

i blame the moon for shifting.
wearing manhole cover like mask.
the tide rose last night & lifted me
from my clothes. dough wandering for oven.
i blame the night for leaving me
moth-eyed & eager. i blame the sun
for siphoning color. he fills jars
with bruises & noses. i track the moon
on an app. the app alerts me when
the moon might come down & cut
all the buttons from my clothes
or might press a dream of you 
into my head. i'm not hungry at all
it's just the waxing. inhereitable swell.
take my shoes off & fill them with rocks 
so they won't float. rise my mouth out
with salt. read the tea leaves
that say exactly what i knew they would:
he is not the lover you want him to be.
so i re-arrange them to say: you are not
the lover you want to be. if it is my fault
then there's less to mourn.
the moon is known to gnaw telephone wires
during tense conversations but sadly
now most of us talk through satelittes.
i'm blaming the moon for how long it takes
to stretch from one year to the next.
this time last year i brought each planet 
a flower each night in the hope that one
would take pity on me & make me a moon.
all i really want is to move water. to glow
in a non-threatening way. to play i spy 
with the distant dirt. kiss a boy
in the dark who thinks nothing
of celesitial alignments. we all cried
last sunday as venus entered pisces.
it's just a sea shell you know? the moon
used to be worn by a creature before
it got all bold & glorious. if she can do that
i can certainly move on. my heart is full
of water. i don't want to be an ocean.
i want to be a creature whose body
runs on glass or sand or even just soil.
anything but all this tug. water damage 
from the sea. kelp clutter in the bathroom.
moon taking a bath. kneeling down
to grandmother-clean her. darling 
it is alright. do what you want with me.