on swallowing

red tail lights reflect off the ceiling
of the holland tunnel. rows & rows. 
a necklace of light. in the back seat of my car
all my books try to sleep in their boxes.
my apartment folded into a trunk.
all last summer, there was a tree 
that swarmed with bees. we stared at it
through the bathroom window. a train horn
blared like a ghost. i left 
a mark on the wall from where i tried
to pull off a little painting of a seahorse.
it is never a good time to leave new york.
i wanted to cross the george washington 
but my GPS took me under. a reminder
that there is always more beneath.
that october night when
all the subway cars were held still
& we looked at each other & out 
the dark windows. dense traffic 
in the tunnel. choking on vehicles.
i grip the steering wheel
& try turn off the radio in my heart.
listen to car calls ahead & wonder
how long i will sit here. 
aloud i say, "please please please."
there was no air. i am becoming
a fish. i am becoming a brick.
i feel all the necks of the buildings
peering down at me. no movement.
ceiling's necklace of red lights.
above i walk
like a fragment. car moans. 
do i want to leave?
no where to turn around. the tunnel
narrowing into a throat. 
regret is an easy motion. arises
ready as an obelisk. take me back
to what i know. i am always aching
for an old life.  
did i leave the light on in my bedroom?
will i miss the little benches
outside the post office? 
slowly, cars move forward,
one at a time. a little nudge of escape.
i cry & wipe my face
with the back of my palm. i don't know
where i am pushing. take me back
to june when i thoroughly believed in green
dark of the tunnel. the length
expanding in the silences 
between car horns. 

GPS 

i said i want to go home
& the GPS carried me to the mouth
of a river. drove through the mountain
& back down & into a vortex of blue
& through the head of needle & in & out
of parking lots & through 
the front door of a walmart & back
to the deep tall woods. all the while
the GPS said, we are almost there
we are almost there. the radio
looked for a hymn & spun static. 
windows peeled
like lips. everyday 
is a sunday from now on.
i miss the way my doorbell sang
like a tin bird. right there is where
the mailbox would be & here
is where i'd tie a pink balloon
to its neck. who is going to try
being a woman with me? the GPS 
is dainty & she wove map.
she pointed to a cliff & said town hall. 
she found an abandoned church
& said this is a university & now
here i am at a river 
in no country at all.
do i want to have an address? 
who sends me letters anyway? 
the junk mail is sulking off
into the ether. the sky is bruising for me.
or, maybe that's selfish, it could be
bruising just for the sensation.  
i am dreaming of those signs that signal
you are crossing into one state 
from another. we passed eight 
welcome to pennsylvania signs,
prying back the state's layers.
will anyone miss me if i never arrive?
oh, GPS, what do you know about 
home? i could drop you like a rock
into the river & walk myself to dust.
i miss every place i ever was--
even gas stations & parking lots.
the river is widening now. no horizon
just water. the GPS is saying
arrived arrived arrive. cold water.
floating like a leaf. 
take me somewhere bright,
are you listening?

bleeding heart dove

o phantom bullet where did you exit me?
all the trees turn into hands reaching
to pull down a curtain. soon it will be night
& i will count street lights & guns.
a dagger floats nearby ready to carve flesh.
fish lay on dinner tables with their eyes
all glossy & afraid. 
i find a stream to look at myself.
if i'm not careful the mark will turn
into a true gash. a wound is often
originated in the mind. that's where it turns red 
& blooms. i have seen deer shot & stumbling.
i have seen boys fall limp in open fields.
a scab forms over the sunset. 
i'm preening myself of saddnesses
& dreaming of the right kind of weapon.
bow & arrow maybe or a spear.
someday, i hope to return as a poet
or at least a diamond. something sturdier.
on the forest floor everything 
is stretching above me. find a berry.
find a grub. whistle to myself. 
ache is spreading across my wings
from the blood mark. soon i will nestle
in the brush & try to think of nothing
but feathers. feathers falling
from a tree. once, a friend told me
every death becomes one of our feathers.
i tried to count mine but fell asleep.
there must be a tree that grows guns.
o gunpowder. o fire. o ambush.
o man trekking through the wood. 
let me be your omen. 
guard your colors. bleed alone. 

the lake dried up last night

an act of sublimation-- 
instantaneous heat. no one knew 
what to do. sirens dislodged 
from their emergencies. i shut my door
& plugged my ears. a thorough singe. 
i'm staring down
the head of a pin but it's a dream
so it's alright i will soon wake up
at 4am & stare into the quiet dark 
of my bedroom. my dresser 
is a man full of clothes. pull
panties from his mouth. thank you thank you.
i don't wish i was a girl
but i do wish always to be more dainty.
give me a lace fire. give me 
a bow on my Armageddon. 
all my shoes are glass now.
i swim through a house filled with water.
i'm in a bikini & everyone can see
& they like it. my breasts turned
into helium balloons long ago 
& they still skirt across the ceiling. 
about the lake:
there are animals mourning.
birds pluck along the parched edge
looking for dried worms. 
a shriveled snake curved 
like a question mark the in dust.
he's asking what what what &
who did this?
freeze dried reeds. i've stopped
trying to drink water & now i just
inhale the ash. there is a wind chime
where ribs were. the pin
enters my skin smoothly. there is no pain 
at all in being set in place. 
who am i going to take down to the river
now that i am alone & now that
the river is just a trail of rocks.
a gender is the loneliest thing. 
why did i make myself? 
i miss my bleached hair. i miss
the makeup i wore three nights ago.
& blush why don't i have any blush.
give me acrylics i want 
to dig in the dirt like a monster.
the lake is sleeping now
where no one can touch it.

when the rivers turned to stone

we hiked over those rocks
looking for a scab of water.
you licked the surface of a boulder
& told me you could feel the rain.
none of us had drank for years 
but we remembered vividly
the feeling of cool blue
rushing through us. once, when i was small
my father bathed me. poured water
over my head & scrubbed me clean.
my skin glistened like sliver. 
now, there are children 
who have never seen water. they float
an inch above the ground, nothing
tethering them to the dirt.
so they will disappear
through the clouds & we will only have
their shoes. instead of water at the river, 
we found snakes 
all knotted in their dens. 
they were telling
mother stories & singing 
a low hum. i could have joined in
but it might have been rude.
they were mourning their limbs.
the rocks trembled 
with their intonations. 
walking further you told me
the story of a frozen waterfall nearby.
said it used to rush so harshly
all the surrounding woods
were cloaked in mist. 
laying on our backs i said
i might float away too if i don't find
a drop soon. you said 
you wondered if the future 
might be better off without
all of our needs. i am a creature
of cravings. i do not know
if i could exist without them.
would i even be animal?
no, no i think i would be stone.
you covered your face
with your hands & the sun 
did its daily shrinking
to the size of a pin-pick. 
rock, shivering, i swear i felt
a minute drop of water
on my forehead. i did not tell you,
i just looked up at the shadowy sky
& briefly believed 
in my own personal micro storm.

poet 

my tongue fits through the head 
of a needle. my sewing machine
wants to make me a new skin
so i collect the pelts of roadkill:
a fox & a raccoon & a rabbit.
their souls dance like jello all around. 
soon i will be a cryptid & children
will invent legends about me
& my patchy fur & my fish eyes.
hopscotch squares draw themselves
on the sidewalk. a rock falls from a tree.
i'm talking about gosh not god.
here comes the aching again.
if they took out all my blood
& funneled it back in again 
would i finally be alive? 
once i found a leech on my ankle.
a bug bite bloomed on the back of my thigh 
between my leg hairs. everyone 
& everything is getting hungry.
this autumn i don't know what to wear.
the sweaters have moved on to clothe 
more beautiful people. i need
a sleep bag to hibernate in.
in my fur, i'll eat poison berries
& blur into a phantom. 
my silhouette is a folklore.
lock the street at night
or you might become a piece
of one of my poems. all animals 
have their poets. big foot 
is out there somewhere stringing 
words together in his mouth.
even the wood pecker has a love
for caesura & the lantern fly 
over uses the emb-dash 
just like me. i want to give up
my pens & typing machines so that
i can only write poems 
in the dirt & the sidewalk chalk.
poems under feet. do i miss
being human? should i bury myself
for winter? is the ground already frozen?
latex gloves grow from a new tree.
i put them on. one blue. one opaque.
let us be sanitary with our love.
i go to the river
to witness floating. 

hush, the claw-foot tub is coming

metal paws & pink bubble. 
sloshing water up the street.
a footstep is sometimes not just a footstep 
but a faint warning. i walk barefoot
into the jagged morning & cut my ankles
on the edges. tin can mouths
gape like fish lips. who is going to pick
the turnips from the asphalt.
who is going to call my brother
& tell him i remember the pocket
he left in his bedroom wall. 
we are all hiding something 
& me mentioning this made you locate something
in your own depths. the ocean will be replaced
by a replica. i'm squeezing the alleys shut.
the less coves the better. sea levels
are rising & with them they bring 
syringes & bath toys. i'm not ready
to scrub, give me time. i like my dirt
& my grim. when we were little
we used to dig holes in the yard.
craters. we were asteroids or comets.
tails of fire. the attic abused us.
the basement slurped our names 
from our ears. i do not love anyone 
as much as i love a good suite case.
take me somewhere else where i can be
a lingerie girl. i'm selling 
a different kind of fantasy. 
who are you going to trust?
your mother or the weatherman
who writes his predictions in video?
the next storm that comes 
will be pink soaped. the claw-foot tub
paws at my front door. i turn off the light
& whisper, "no one is home." 
the beast sits there & i peer
through the peep hole. 
i've made puppets of all my socks already
& soon even my bedroom will scar over.
i need a stenographer for this.
a little man in a jar to jot down
my unraveling. i look for him
in the blackberry jam but no one.
alas the sunset has come complete 
with a swiss army knife.
dissect me, Monday evening. 
i'm a thing to be scavenged. 

september 

in the desert a violin grows like a tree 
& no one sees it. a bow too, coming up
from the sand. horse hair is abundant
around my organs. from the freezer, the ice cubes
chatter about escaping to a colder place
where they could live in the wild.
winter is coming soon. i left my jacket
in my last apartment. broken buttons 
& a wonky zipper. thrifted from from place
in Brooklyn where me & you felt really cool.
i left the jacket before that
at a hotel room in Portland. i don't think much
about the violin but if i got in my car
& drove & drove & drove i could reach a desert 
full of string instruments. the nights would still
be cold & my bones would still freeze up.
look at me, i'm a statue now. we talk about
how we can live anywhere we want in America
but somehow all the places seem 
like doomed snow globes. winter is 
coming soon. i'm scared of tornadoes. i'm scared
of a hurricane arriving with my mother's name.
why should i learn to play the violin?
i am too old to pick up new things. 
besides, i have all the desert i need.
a bag of sand & a sense of aimless wandering.
there have been a lot of dead trees.
maybe this year i won't wear a jacket,
i'll just swaddle myself in my worries.
a stream of light is peering through a fissure.
i take my tarot readings too seriously
& sometimes not seriously enough.
i could be a polar bear if i tried harder.
i could grow tadpoles in the sink.
nothing is alive anymore. when was the last time
you saw a bird? the vultures don't count.
i do live in the desert. cactus blossom 
from my forehead. windows open. hallway
filling with scorpions. the violin--
where is the violin? if could just play something
a single song then the neighbors would know
i'm not just a quiet man-- i'm an artist
worth contemplation. i can tell 
no one is thinking about me. 
it might be better that way. 
a stoplight bursts from the ceiling.
red light red light. porcelain raven 
on the mantle. i don't have a mantel
i just have a house i've built
in my heart. there is no city
just a desert. tuning the sky.
four strings. dry skin. blue morning. 

autumn 

all the moons are out tonight at the ball field.
glow on the dirt. ghost boys
bring the skeletons of their fathers.
run the bases round. i send my pennies to hell
because they won't add up. a jar 
of strawberries shrinking into stones.
my angels have bat wings 
& they kick pumpkins down the street.
mums bloom from each of their footsteps.
for the longest time i've staved off septembers.
slept long & deep. closed my eyes.
plugged my ears so i didn't hear 
the leaves loud oranging each day.
i am not as into death as people might think.
by my front door i leave spell jars
to keep him away from this house.
no one is dying anymore. we're all just
going to play forever baseball.
we're all just going to lay down
for a long long sleep. wake up in a green month.
the moons flap one-winged. i use eyeliner 
to carve a crescent. wolves walk
on hind legs. they chat with each other
& window shop while i let the season
do its worst with me. i'm all bare branches
& rain slick sidewalk. the ghosts are
asking for something to eat
so i bring them fading bananas which they share.
i want to be less scared of the cold.
the bees hum their final hums.
all kinds of farewells. i take notes.
it is not easy to learn how to leave
but the animals know best how to.
i'm saving up to buy a coffin or at least
a red wagon. someone parade my body
through town. tell the townspeople
"look here is your neighbor the scare crown."
all the wolves howl. the angels disperse
& perch on the eaves. one pumpkin is growing
in my kitchen. it's already the size
of the dining room table. the moons
are hungry. i'm out of pennies. 
all i can here is orange. 

medusa redux

i'm sewing a dress of pins.
i stole the pins from my grandmother's sewing bag.
just kidding i don't have a grandmother.
she became a cloud last year. 
a grey angry cloud. gave us a loud rainy day
& then she departed. in my dress, no one
will be able to touch me. i'm inventing a prom
for only boys like me which is to say
a dance for doilies. this is a great
dining room table for us all to lay down on.
if i could reinvent the sky 
it would be sharper & more treacherous.
i want an angel to arrive to tell me
what i'm doing wrong so that i can ignore him.
i could point the needles inward
& make a cushion of myself. press the pins
into my skin & call it fashion.
put me on the cover of a magazine
& call me beautiful pain. i'm going to
photoshop out my blood. retouch my skin.
beautiful blur of needles. 
leaning in close to a mirror 
is pure disaster. sweat collects on my face.
i am an alien planet. who is going
to feed me visitors? the truth is 
this dress isn't a statement
i just don't have any fabric. i just want to arrive.
i can't walk outside in a dress
or i think someone might shoot me.
no one believes my fears are founded.
around here everyone has guns 
coiled around their hearts. 
no one understands how glamorous i am.
they're scared of how acute
a dress can be. they're used to girls
in summer skirts & bows. i could show them
femininity like no other. touch me 
& discover your own blood. 
look at me & turn to silk.