bat box

we mistake them for night birds
but then we see veins in their wings 
through the moon's swollen light. 
a reminder that a silhouette is not a mirror. 
they swoop back & forth, eating other wings.
flight, no matter how integral, is always 
a process of falling. when i was small 
& we had just moved into the old house
i used to see bats all the time. once, sitting
in the living room, a sick one found her way
to my feet. i crouched down. did not 
touch her. instead, i talked softly.
i told her, "my father said he is going to build
a box bat for you." my father never did. 
they screamed when they saw me & the creature.
i do not think she survived. in her honor, i decided 
to become a bat. cut wings from trash bags.
tried to sleep upside down. none of it worked.
i made terrible unconvincing silhouettes.
above our house these days there are 
still bats who eat the sky. when i am really manic
& i need an escape hatch, i do join them
to varying degrees of success. i ask my father
in the middle of the night, when he is 
a ghost & so am i, "why did you never build
the bat box?" he says, "because i would lose you
to them." i do not think he is overprotective.
or, maybe he is but maybe he was right to be.
it is such a relief to discover your father is just as
frightfully human as you. a man who once lived
with the bats. once slept with his toes curled 
around a branch. for most of my life, if i could join
a new colony of creatures, i would do it.
practicing the taste of beetles. their crunch
in my mouth like the click of a keyboard. 
i lift my arms up to the bathroom's bold light.
see the veins beneath. most of the time
when i call my father he does not answer.
i know where he is. he is in a bat box, singing. 
 

directions

we stop & ask the doves for directions.
they are not reliable because they just
want us to end up in the sky.
at a gas station in your father's beard
the man tells us we have to keep driving.
his eyes are cue balls & they ricochet
off the walls. in the grime bathroom we write
our names with sharpie. i leave an ex's phone number
with the words, "call me when you're lonely"
written below it. we are all breadcrumb leavers
in one way or another. who doesn't want
to find their way back into the mountain?
you bought pajama sets for me from 
the department store. no one else was there,
not even at the counter but the place
was bright & pristine. i considered 
hiding in the wracks until i was old enough
to seem harmless. i'd rather be an old woman
than an old man. we wind up in basement train set
of someone i do not know. there are too many
bakeries & not enough payphones. in the last months
of being together i was trying to run from you.
i would pick up hitchhiking bears 
& feed them steaks from applebees just so
we could have some time to talk. they insisted
that i keep driving north 
until i could feel the cold through the walls
of the car. then it would be time to sleep.
there are very few people who want you
to find your way home. i ask the wrongs ones
on purpose. it is a way of controlling how
& where i will be lost. once i made it back
to the lot where our old house used to stand.
a pipe stuck from the earth. i peered inside
& saw a miniature of my childhood living room. 
boxy television with a scene from a the future.
you were standing there with a map 
burning in your hands. you always told me,
"keep your eyes open when you kiss me."
only when i shut them could i see a map of stars. 

philosopher's stone

i used to be (& still am) an alchemist.
a child by the creek. i would carry
beer bottles & rusted nails down
to the stone. it was nothing like
the old sorcerers thought it would look.
covered with graffiti & river muck. 
i turned them into gold. sold them 
for quarters. the gumball machine
by the cvs knew my name. sent me enough
planets to survive a summer. sugar 
on my tongue. between teeth. occasionally
i would transmute more wildly. 
i once brought my father's knife & watched
as it changed. a golden blade. i used it
to carve my name into the shoulders 
of a beech tree. it was cruel & ugly of me.
i have returned years later to find 
my old name twisted & healed by time.
my favorite creation was on a night
in november. i was considering 
if it would be too hard to run away & live
in the woods by the creek. i had seen
a man there before. he lived in a scheme
of blue tarps & bungee cords. 
i visited the stone. imagined lying my whole body
against the surface & watching as my skin
make a statue of me. i have tried to find
the stone again but it is not there. 
i don't know what stopped me. 
instead, i lifted a dead bird to the surface.
it did not turn into gold. instead, it burst
into a dozen dragonflies. i realized i was
the wrong kind of alchemist. too worried
about gold to remember that change
is often the art of survival. i never touched
the stone but if i did i think i would
have become a holy swarm. 
bees or maybe just fat pond flies. hungry
in all the ways i never let myself as a girl
without a gender. it took me years to do the same. 
every time i see a dragonfly i wonder if 
it is an offspring of that rupture. 
the stone is somewhere else now. i hope
it makes someone shine gold at dusk. 
i like to imagine the man by the creek had it.
that he made golden leaves & built 
a dazzling tree before leaving. 
maybe elsewhere, maybe gone.

patron saint of the trash 

i am unsure to whom the city makes
her offerings. i come by the highway's throat
to tend the garbage. i always bring
a plastic shopping bag to harvest. 
it would be a lie if it told you this was
anything but penance. i have made
the offerings too. the soda cup i left on a curb.
a pen i tossed in the parking lot. 
i see my funhouse face in the shine 
of wrappers' silver bellies.
strange fish in a waterless river. the cars
have can openers for eyes. a streetlight
dies & the darkness comes 
like a hole in the window screen. that is when
i am visited for the first & only time
by the patron saint of the trash. he has eyes
made of bottle caps & a black bag over
his head. in the u.s. it is common to not know
who you are worshipping. horror nesting dolls. 
we have mask shops on every corner. i put the news
through a sieve & there is never gold.  
i find finger bones & glass eyes. 
i ask the saint if he is who the people venerate
with their handfuls of firecracker dust
& chew tins. he is also unsure.
he eats as much trash as he can. he says
that one day he woke up & his house
had turned to cellophane. he could not breathe.
he still cannot breathe. he asks why i am
taking his offerings. i explain that they hurt
the land & us because we are part
of the land. he is confused. he asks,
"what land?" the street lamp's glow returns
& it is just me & the bruises on my knees
from when earlier i went to kneel & lost my balance. 
at a stoplight, a men taps his cigarette on the door
of his car. the ash is devoured by the saint. 

pill to swallow

i unhinge my jaw for you.
take a horse pill & go to sleep
for seventeen years. i wake up
without any teeth. it is prom night
& we are running from our parents.
they have butterfly nets & i am
trying to get married without 
a throat. my friend asks, "what is wrong
with me?" i tell her nothing when 
really i mean, "most love is paper."
i fold an airplane with mine
& it almost holds us until we reach
the planetarium. there is a show playing
about planets without real names.
the ones who might have children on them.
my mother takes medicine disguised 
as helicopters. my father refuses
all kinds of good medicine. instead,
he buries skulls. lays out in the sun
until he turns back into clay. 
we build a candy machine
in the middle of a vacant lot.
people drive from all over to get
their special kind of healing.
the pills taste like sugar. they might
just be sugar but sometimes you need
a symbol. this is why communion wafers
taste like satellites. when we get home
i need to call you. i need to put on
the dress again so we can dance
without our faces on the roof.
all the nameless planets & their nameless moons
watching us in stadium seating. 
i was never cured of anything. thank god.
i love to be sick & bright. 

they can't find

i buy the most expansive search light.
it comes with a little manual that asks,
"are you okay?" i feed the manual to the goats. 
i do not need anyone to check on me
especially not something cosmic.
i have given up talking to fate a long time ago.
i point that ugly light at the earth & summon
the biggest moths you've ever seen.
their shadows bring more places for 
my hungers to hide. i call you even though
i shouldn't then i burn the phone. 
there are so many things i cannot find
that i have a little vacant room in my house
for them to return to. by them i mean you.
i would take it back, i would grow 
the basil in the window that you wanted.
i would burn the bush & talk to god.
i have been a lost & found keeper. a scarf that smelled 
like butter & a water bottle with stickers
from national parks. no one ever came to search
for that which was gone. i loved knowing
that we would not last. that you were
going & i was going & the window was
brighter than it should have been.
we did not watch any of the movies we
played. instead you let the moths inside.
they ate socks & car keys & my beard. 
i loved it when once you called me 
an ex's name. i had become something
that you had lost. what an honor. the moths 
turn normal-sized whenever anyone else
tries to talk to me. it is morning & they choose
the sun over me. my phone returns
in the beak of a crow. she asks for a tip
& pay her in polaroids. the ones we took
that never developed. black little squares. 
my face beneath a blanket. i am making
a lost & lost room. just a shrine. 
i swallow the batteries from the search light.
let myself glow. fireflies in my eyes.
you are somewhere else. you are
not looking for me. 

tunnel breath

i miss driving beneath the mountains ribs
to reach you. we do not talk anymore
& it is for the best. hundreds of years ago
white men saw the mountain & thought she needed
a hole in her guts for all 
of us to walk through. that is the threshold
i used. the car was falling apart. once i pulled over
& called you. you did not pick up.
there were flowers in my throat. i picked them
as vigorously as i could. there should really be
at least eighteen words for love. ours was not
the kind with roots but with needs. 
i was lonely & so were you. the mountain 
is known now for her wound. sometimes i would
call you before the tunnel on purpose. 
i wanted to see if the call would get dropped.
only once did the signal carry through.
it is so human to try & test the limits of our voices.
from how far away can you hear me? i wish the tunnel wasn't
a passing place. i imagine it at night when a car
only slips through every hour or so. 
i wanted to walk with you there, the whole mountain
breathing above us. as a child my brother & i
always tried to hold our breath when we drove
through any tunnel. the longer ones resulted 
in gasps & desperate air. i had a dream once
of you & me walking in the tunnel. no flashlight.
just the moonlight on either side. you shook me
& begged me to take in air. i refused. i laughed.
we were underwater. i do not miss you 
at all which feels like a betrayal to 
the summer when everything felt urgent. 
i wonder why we learned to see tunnels as
always stretching? longer & longer. my favorite part
of the dropped calls is that most of the time
i didn't notice it. i would come out on the other side
of the mountain, dusk light orange & crashing,
talking to myself talking to you. i would pause,
knowing you weren't there. i would ask,
"hello? hello?" other cars spilled out behind me.
each one of their drivers gasping for air. 

crochet chickens

i tell you i am going to get us a farm.
i walk until i don't have legs to the hips
of the mountain where the crows
are born. there are ponds of black feathers.
i watch the creatures emerge one by one.
catch a huge one & ask if he is willing 
to become a chicken. he is not. 
i can't save money & i don't know if that is
a personal flaw or if the system is rigged
against us. at an outdoor market, i buy
one crocheted chicken. the vendor has
a whole flock. at home, the chicken lays eggs.
the eggs are warm as fresh little suns.
when they hatch i have seven more 
crocheted chickens. to be alive is
to always be asking, "what should i let go of?"
none of my other stuffed animals want
to come alive. i consider feeding them to the rats. 
we talk about all the animals we'd like
to have at the farm. you say, "deer"
& i say, "a stegosaurus." i don't want to own
the land, i want the land to really own me.
i want it to put a leash on me & teach me
how to stop being bipedal. feet were a mistake
we could have had hooves. we could grow
enough huckleberries to make the chickens
into crows. i beg the crocheted bird
to stop laying eggs but she cannot. a room fills
with chickens. i think to myself,
"why did we have to want?" to try to throw them
out windows & chuck them from 
the front porch. finally, the house is empty.
i got rid of all the furniture too. the window
has a place to rush. i ask you, "is this a farm?"
i can tell you want to lie to me but you don't.
"no it isn't," you say. when it rains next
the crocheted chickens in the yard get damp
& mildewy. they cease with their laying.

unlanguaging 

i cut my tongue out with 
the pairing knife & plant it in the dirt
beside where the dead quails are buried.
you are angry again & i don't know
how to stop being a child. 
water my tongue with nectar & broth.
you tell me, "you are always thinking
in extremes." i know you'll be furious
when you see i cut out my tongue again.
the last time i did i mailed it to the government,
wrapped like a butcher cut. 
if i could knit a language
from the ground up, i would get rid
of pronouns all together. no no this
has nothing to do with gender but with
how we refer to one another
without touch or time. maybe instead
of "we" we would point to our teeth. 
instead of "i," a handful of wild onions. 
i imagine our new arguments. 
the smell of onions. teeth shining
in the lamp light. after pronouns i would
undo all the words for, "meat" & 
"love." no more, "i love you." mountains
i would take you to. the words in the air
like moths. i open my mouth
to show you the damage. you are not
as furious as i thought you'd be. 
you run a finger across my teeth
as if they are a piano. as always, 
i play for you. the fireflies speak in their
light switch talk. for the first time i hear
what they're saying. "are you there?"
"are you there?" "are you there?" 

bird flew

on the day you turned into a bird
i was in the city. the buildings were vacant
& all the hotels were full of birds too.
i searched, hoping one was you.
knocked on doors. opened windows.
my lover begged me to stop. i believe may
that you could find me somehow in 
a different state even though i looked
nothing like you remembered. 
i always carry bird seed in my purse
in case i need to ask a flock if they 
have seen you. they never want to speak
to me. the thing about cycles is that
they cannot talk. they cannot say,
"now you are a ghost" & "now you are
a grandmother." when i try to explain 
my family & the removals & the escapes 
& the gaps, i always falter. it is like
skipping a stone across the sky. you drank
decaf coffee from the christmas mug.
you said, "when i am a bird, do not
look for me." your sister, said,
"i'll never be a bird." i always intended
to betray you. to look for the dead is 
a sacred walk. i think of the plague doctors 
& their masks like crow faces in the night.
making birds with their gloved hands. 
they say if you talk to the birds too much
you will become one. i select feathers.
the blue jay & the swift & the barn swallow. 
often i will lay down in the peach-juice morning.
wingspan wide. pretend the ground
is the water or the clouds. beat my wings.
i have not seen you in years & i see you
every day. your lungs, my pairs of shoes.
your call like the door hinge doves
& the chickadees at daybreak.