posable figure

i was a wooden darling 
on the shelf of your fascination.
i begged for you to come here & give me 
a posture. your knuckles
like skirt hems. your paper
rolled from the tree. 
the human figure is measurable.
a series of careful spheres
stacked one on top of another.
you foraged for my geometry.
pulled my nose from the grave.
sharpened a pencil 
with a steak knife & put
a thumb to my mouth. 
all the lamps in the world 
own your secrets now about shadow.
i'll keep my head lifted
so you can scoop the dark
from beneath my chin.
how did you know you wanted
to be a puppet-keeper? i knew
i wanted to be a figure 
from as little as a twig. i stood still
in the woods, hoping 
to be turned to stone. 
keep me this thin & believable.
make a beautiful portrait of me
with the long hair i don't have.
shave me down to the elbows.
leaning on tables. writing 
an iris on a napkin & wiping 
your mouth with it.
the truth was my femur.
all the bones inside a blue.
what will you use to measure
my wing span? you spend
too much time staring the ceiling 
to pieces. i want you 
to crave that image of me.
stay up all night 
to get me perfect. discover me
in the depths of your own mouth.
pluck my leaves from the floor
tracked in the house 
by your own aimless shoes.
oh, will you keep me then?
will you try again. move me,
i want to mirror 
the fancy dangling behind you face
like a scheme of vines. 

a map of yesterday & last year 

i've been curtain frolicking.
now you see me & now the living room
is severed in two. i'm stealing ice cream
from god tonight & not caring
what his plans were for it.
a great party is being postponed again.
the boy with the flute is queer
& i love him so i dm him on instagram 
but he never responds. how does anyone
find the right angel? i have tried
harvesting feathers from 
the graveyard. my dog's teeth fall out
one by one. i'm saving them
to construct a backup dog.
the machine knows my name now 
so i walk the supermarket with 
a black bag over my head, 
feeling the apples to make sure
they're good & glossy.
the execution was seamless. no one
noticed a thing. winter dries 
my heart out into an apricot thumb.
how long do frogs sleep? gnats?
the rash always forms in the shape
of pennsylvania. little geographic
reminder. nothing is real 
but especially not states.
a cake in the shape of rhode island 
arrives on my back door step
& i enjoy it with a tiny spoon.
birds are singing in a dead chimney. 
i make an extra place setting 
for the bear i'm afraid of.
he sits down & eats with perfect manners.
here's my grandmother
coiled like a metal spring 
in the living room. i tell he
i need my own space-- that i'm not
that kind of grand child.
she leaves dolls on every shelf. 
i've taken to bathing 
in boiling pots of water.
tuck my knees in like
the other eggs.
the tub is full of oranges anyway.
when you arrive, will you 
check on this mirage?
shake me like a tube of sand.
there's a gold ring somewhere
i'll be stepping through
to make an exit. 
tell jupiter i'm sorry. tell the backdoor
the cake was delicious. 

ShopRite

on a friday night after work
i let the gps pull my green volvo 
from the driveway of the house on grant avenue.
i never knew anywhere by heart
so used the device for 
mundane locations: grocery store
school gym laundry mat.
dull yellow headlights. the streets 
always bulged in mineola.
do you really live somewhere 
if you can't move without directions?
stoplight after stoplight.
collecting turn signals. i traveled
alone & wondered what my life was.
i would do anything now to crawl back
into those early nights
when the sight of the train 
still ignited wonder in me.
drifting through long island towns
with wider questions.
the strange excitement of 
that tiny shoprite parking lot. stray carts
nudging into each other. 
cracked pavement. looking for
a caramel swirl pint of ice cream.
wandered aimless. an 80s pop song
crooning over the intercom.
crinkle of bags being loaded into carts.
a grocery store 
will always be my favorite liminal space. 
clutching my phone.
wonderfully alone. a bag of 
frivolous groceries in the backseat 
driving back to the sound
of my clattering engine.
stop and go. a right turn.
a left. lines of cars on the highway.
opening the window
just a sliver to feel a slit of air.
sitting in the driveway 
much longer than i needed to
feeling too old at twenty-two. 
friday night deepening
like a well of wanting or needing.
i can never tell the difference
between the two.

McDonalds Funland Birthday

i want to be settled for.
i don't need to be a first choice
for anything. it's okay 
if i'm not craved or coveted. 
in the end, 
all those immediate yearnings vanish.
like a mcdonalds, 
i will be reliably melancholy
& ready to celebrate it.
paper party hated & sent 
into the wilderness. my childhood 
was thick as frosting.
neighbor kids with their 
paper wrapped hands & french fry tusks.
the plastic blue slide 
intestine twisted. we went down
on our backs. arms crossed
like coffin-bodies. celebrate each
miniature death. swam the ball-pit.
spat out the planet.
gum-balled our way between each other.
i liked to pretend
the mcdonalds was a space ship
& we were all (thankfully)
going to blast off soon. no impending
teenageness. just children
with all our children judgements
& children sadness. did you know
i used to cry over the moon?
reader, i still do. 
if it weren't weird
i would probably still visit
mcdonalds funlands & plea 
for lift off. it's okay 
if you never think of me
past noon-- only wake up 
with an inkling i might 
be only a few tongues away.
keep me in a back pocket.
i can be the backup plan
when all other celebration fails.
turn over the hyper drive lever.
spill the ice cream.
sing the song with the candle halos.
how old?
how old are you now?
how old are you now?

animal crossing fireworks 

it's november & the world is tired
of its mistakes. my brother & i 
talk on the phone about 
going to sleep for a whole year
to see where that arrives us.
he's just bought tea cups. he sets 
the vessels in a line on the windowsill.
soon we will both be home for thanksgiving 
where we will pass the some worries
back & forth & call that siblinghood. 
i am laying on my back 
on the matted lavender carpet 
trying to keep talking to him
while i video game dream 
about animal crossing. 
my sandwich-thick blue DS. 
it's dim glow in the dark 
of my childhood bedroom. shutting
the music off. silent miniature town. 
shake a tree for peaches.
a mouthful of fish. 
butterfly glinting in a jar
on my desk. nothing dies 
inside a digital. i go
into the game settings & change 
that early winter night 
to july 4th. i move the time ahead too.
wake up in a refreshed town. 
ready for fireworks. cross my legs.
wish for futures full
of stone & river. the fireworks
red & yellow glow. a promise
of malleable time. i can tell myself
soon it will be july & the air
will notice me again. 
i ask my brother how long
winter will be & he lists 
the months. sits at his desk.
glances out his own slightly fogged window.
without me, my town is alive.
my town is august & june &
morning in april. my town is
harvesting tulips. oribiting
a may pole. on my last walk of the night
i check on the stars like you might check
on a sibling. 
they are there. 

how to repair a vein / good girl genesis 

the grandmother comes
to help my root cellar. eats a staircase.
uses her nose to cut walls
like a shark fin. what do you know
about heredity? about what is 
slide from bone to bone &
from blood to blood? she drums 
her long fingers on the window
to signal she wants to be let in.
i close my eyes. we must never
see the grandmother lest all our genes 
come undone. i'm already 
unraveling enough. leave a thimble
on the porch. collect
stray strings for her workings.
i dream of a grandmother gift--
that one day she'll find favor with me
& leave me a new door i can sneak
into summer with. warm knob.
on the other side of a fire
i'll be a girl again. 
in my teeth i'll clutch a wrench.
spend all night mending a vein.
how am i supposed to be 
a child still with all this glass?
i cut my feet every day on 
the sharp edges of my desires.
a tree grows from the sink 
& spits pollen into the air.
rain washes the windows over & over
to some unknown end. 
an adult tooth falls out 
& i flush it down the toilet
so that the grandmother 
doesn't see i'm deteriorating. 
she does her puzzles on the ceiling:
picture of a mid-day park. picture
of a baby's hand. i say a prayer
to her-- tell her i'm trying
very hard. i knit my own vessels.
i drink only water blessed 
by a planet. still i am sinking 
in the floor boards. 
she braids my hair while i sleep. 
a rope to clutch. a trap door 
into my skull where the rivers 
do nothing but weave. 
i talk to the grandmother,
i say "will you tell me a story
about when you were 
only a sliver?" 

sickness

i would do anything for another fragment 
of fig stories & bare shoulders.
my teeth are cluttered book shelves.
i cup my ribs in the palm of my hand
like a little sparse clam. most mornings 
my fingers are their own instruments.
a piano chews on my gloom with only 
its black keys. i want to run 
like a marble down the big hill. 
please give me another elbow 
to swing from. i take my vertebrae off 
one at a time like harmonica vestibules. 
what is wrong with me what is wrong with me what
is wrong with me.
even my lamp is a doctor. even my 
windows are mirrors. let me tell you 
a song about when i used to have 
muscles. it starts with a clattering 
of kitchen pans & ends with 
just a picture of jupiter. 
i eat hunched over, back bent 
like a wailing flower-neck.
please. i just dream of 
thick afternoons with no pain.
early mornings where my body
used to greet me. my skin is my own
lost lover. a sheet pinned to 
a clothes line. rain coming down
on a november day. a veil across
a doorway. i take a clothes pin
through my collar bone
to hold myself bound. where
will i carry my three spheres 
of motion today? an orbit from 
kitchen to mailbox from bed 
to light bulb. all i crave
is a melon mouth 
& a seed to appear beneath 
my tongue. who should 
i send in my place? who is going 
to plumb my dark for what's left.
only me with a flashlight 
& a half-size phillips-head screwdriver.
i get on my knees. i get on
my back. open myself
music-box wide. hear 
that little metal tune as it says
what is wrong what is wrong what

 

exoskeletons

i cut a hole in your face
for the birds to come out.
first the little song birds
then a raven & a vulture.
we were all garbage that night,
leaving our fingernails on each other's
windowsills. i caught a fairy 
under a water glass
& told no one. left it there
until it turned into a smudge.
who will we trust with our
puppy-dog stories. i sold my teeth
for a few dimes. my pocket
had a trap door & i scattered
all my gun powders away.
the sand is aching 
with skeleton-thoughts.
oh that moon shadowed us
like cutouts. i caught your birds
& kept them in the closet
where they writhed & asked
for a key to the basement.
i thought... what could a bird
want with all that dirt?
you eluded your own mouth
so we talked writing to each other
on a chalk board. light bulbs 
turned tulip. all that pink.
what could i name knuckle for.
we ate shaved ice 
from the floor. i told you
it's not that clean but you 
waved me off. after everything.
after everything. fuck dishes.
fill the sink with syrup.
wash out feet from the lip
of the tub. your ripe talons.
my fresh paws. the fairy isn't dead
don't worry. i saw her awake 
on the other side of the window.
she was smashing gnats.
what a good creature. 
the basement instrument rattles.
i can see you. all of you.
your turning inside out. 
a bone. a plastic slide. 
a soup ladle & a sweater.
all glimmering with pink sputter.
remnants of the birds.
our fingers whittled down
to the bud. 

finishing 

i can't remember the last time 
but i know it was on your bed
lit by a lonely string 
of wall-pinned christmas lights. i was trying
to give myself over in pieces. here is my leg
here is my hair & my teeth. i instructed myself,
trying to relearn a threadbare need. 
i said "take off her shirt" i said 
"pull free her belt." even coming apart 
becomes a sequence or, in the best circumstances 
a ritual. in the kitchen fruit bowl, 
clementines bruised each other. skin to skin.
mothered by a lonely apple. 
when i moved to new york, i said "all the fruit
is smaller here." we grocery shopped together
with separate carts at first & then the same.
your window looked out at the grey brick
of the building next door 
& it barely even betrayed the weather.
instructional conversation. "yes like that."
"can we switch positions?" "now." "less." all the while
i wanted to ask if she felt 
as strange as i did-- like i was piloting  
a ghost plane into an old chasm--right 
where i knew the plane would crash.
can you love someone & no longer know
what to make of your bodies?
closed my eyes. heard the smell
of her oil. clawed my nails into her back
as if she were the side of a cliff
outside it was raining or midday 
or night-- deep lamplit night.
an ambulance singing. a shout. 
her bedroom getting larger for once.
counting the poetry books
on her far shelf. the fruit we won't eat--
can't eat soon enough, in the kitchen
harboring infant flies soon
to hatch & waltz. when we were done 
i kissed her shoulder & she kissed mine.
sat at my desk in my room
with no window-- my clothes feeling 
unknown & desperate on my skin. 

pho

my boyfriend used to float me in the broth
between cubes of tofu & green scallion ringlets.
he'd take his fork & stirred the soup
like a fortune. so much about having a lover
is about watching them eat. i can still
conjure his mouth wide. patchy teeth.
pale-ish tongue. a kiss soon
spiked with siracha & beef.
the noodle shop on the other side of town
had a water fall made of christmas lights 
& a television playing a koi fish pond
on repeat. we ate there a few times.
i loved pho. the soup a little garden.
a pool i could look into & see no reflection.
ceramic white spoon. damp chopsticks.
at the bottom of the noodles
maybe some escape. a tiny trap door.
a little latch. he sometimes stood up.
circled the table 
& pressed his still soup warm lips to my neck.
me & him were the only people
in the whole restaurant. i always wished
it were crowded. bustling. more couples
at every little wooden table. his hand 
touching my knee. 
him, pointing to the broth
& begging me to slip inside.
no my dress will get stained. no 
i'm hardly edible today. 
all the while the loop-bound koi 
did their dances between each other.
i always gave in at some point.
he'd say, no one is watching
& if you can't do this for me
how can you say you love me?
i would save my crying 
for once i was submerged.
let myself shed rich tangy broth
between a soft mushroom 
& a bright orange carrot disk.
little fragment i was
looking up at a boy through
the miso murk. now, when i eat pho
i dig for her just to be sure
she's not still down there
hiding between tangled noodles.
cilantro on her forehead
like a crown.