how many queers does it take to ____?

a corn dog hovers in the hallway 
barking all night. i stroke my finger
across the golden surface.
i tell the animal to hush hush.
one day, there will be a plate 
to catch all the birds as they fall. 
chicken nuggets are made from 
all the pieces of the bird. 
most feathers taste like sage. 
i meant to ask you a question 
about a hole growing in the closet.
purple & swelling. a tunnel 
through the mountain. each day 
it asks me to come inside.
i am curling up in the head 
of a needle & never coming back.
we all have to eat something.
i take a handful of grass
& then another & another
to stuff myself. i want to be
a good teddy bear for whatever
the next life holds. one theory 
amoung witches is:
if you were a female in your last life 
& a male in the next 
sometimes energy carries over.
this is how you get a gay man.
how many queers does it take
to microwave a tulip? 
we are all standing around
the radioactive bond fire. 
the dogs are with us 
in their hunger & their wanting.
have you ever seen a man
beg for purple? we smear each other
all over the green backdrop.
in the forest, the steepness 
asks all the questions.
trees clutch rocks. i clutch 
everything i have forgotten 
to tell you. how will we live
in a world without air mattresses? 
soon enough it will all leak out.
i cut a row of gills. i plunged 
my head into the bath tub. pink is coming
very very soon. after that
we will have all red. the sun 
round & red 
& cherry cough syrup flavored.
the burning throat 
of tonight is blinking 
on & off. where are your shadows?
what are they doing without you?
i whistle. mine doesn't come back.
he must be doing the god's bidding.
do you trust your own mitosis?
i do not. i'm still hunting
a clone of myself. he sleep
in the tiny backyard.
i feed him corn dogs 
& blue water ice to try & 
make him different from me.
his face though-- his face is
the same as mine.

my brother & i wear burger king crowns

printed jewels on cardboard.
the two of us try to discover 
what we might be kings of. i scale a rock.
a church crumples into a paper crane.
schoolyard oak tree bends down 
to kiss my forehead.
birds land on my brothers shoulders
& carry him to the roof. snakes glide
underneath my shoes to lift me there with him.
our kingdom ranges from the driveway 
all the way down to main street
where broken glass is known 
to assemble back into bottles.
i adjust his crown. he adjusts mine. 
a dragon meanders down the road
with a cigarette in his mouth.
we divide the corn fields between each other.
i say i want to the one 
with the huge collapsing red barn.
he wanted the one with the silo. 
we point to what we want. i want
the old school house. he wants 
the water town & the house on main street
with the turret. the mailbox 
whispers so we go recieve our messages.
it tells us our people 
are displeased. they want 
a king with a metal crown. something
unchangable. we run away 
to beneath the pine tree 
where all our pets our buried.
amoung the ghosts of goldfish 
& chickens & frogs we hold each other.
we wanted too much too. 
in the distance, an arby's sign glows
& an burger king dazzles radiant.
everything we notice is cardboard.
mom's statin wagon & the grass
& even the tree we're sitting under.
we crawl through the center spiral
of a curly fry. it's a vortex
down into the basement: cool & damp.
there, we lay our crowns down 
amoung broken beer boxes. 
we vow to keep this life secret--
to lay on separate bunks 
& dream ourselves back into children.
the dragon pauses at the corner 
a block away. a fire engine 
rushes past & send red flickering
through both of our mouths.
in bed that night we cannot sleep.
in every direction the walls
tell us we are hiding. 
i tell my brother to close his eyes.
he drifts off to sleep. i stay awake
for us. for a moment
i sweat the jem in the crown 
burn heavy & real. 

infinity piece puzzle 

on the floor of the living toom 
we build the puzzle. maybe a million pieces.
do the border first, a frame. 
moving the furniture. the couch 
sprouting hooves & runs to hide
in the attic. there's only so long
until the puzzle evaporates
& we all become pieces. i picture myself
with three little arms fitting perfectly 
into a circle of four other dead boys.
the image is coming into focus.
a bird? yes one huge great bird.
all those green & black feathers.
no, maybe it is a courtyard. 
i should have mentioned earlier
a puzzle is something only a family
must complete. we woke 
on this yellow saturday
& found stacks & stacks of fragments.
a voice came from the windows 
& told us loudly
we had to assemble. my father 
got a screw driver from the garage
& tried to unscrew the house.
all of us on our knees. frantic.
sifting through corners of an unknown image. 
we take more guesses aloud. 
my brother thinks it's the beach house
from that one year in chincoteague.
he sees the channel & the kayaks.
i see now a great snake wrapping itself 
around my arm. the black rat snake 
we found in the brush. its scales 
glossy in sun beams. my mother thinks
it might be a loaf of breaf. steam pouring.
free from the oven. the whirls of soft white 
beneath the crust. i start to wonder
if an image is every stagnant thing.
i think of my favorite photographs 
of my younger self 
& how the tree in the background
tend to move with the wind-- how occasionally
one photo of me on the beach 
will appear with thick blankets of snow 
coming down around. my bare feet. 
the photograph self shivering. 
the puzzle blooms up the staircase
& into each of our rooms. 
it cannot stop itself. another match.
other paring. i find my face 
small & palm-sized on one piece. 
i found my brother's feet on another.
somehow, we all finish. sweat on our foreheads.
we are carefull. we move around the parameter
of rooms so as to not disturb the puzzle.
we say nothing of it to each other
just share a glance & go sit on our beds.
all the windows chatter about us.
they spread rumors that we are 
a strange family with too many fingers.
a tree outside yearns to be a puzzle 
& a bird feels the places on his body 
where the lines might be drawn
to turn him into one. before we sleep,
my brother comes into my room.
he says nothing but together 
we stare into the puzzle. a new image.
yes, you were waiting for me to announce
what the image really was. a new one emerges 
at each glance. this one is of us.
my brother & i stand on the porch.
rain pours down around us. 
we are small & barefoot. the rain turns
to gnats. the rain turns to pine cones
but all the while my brother & i
stand still in the picture.

once i had a rainbow machine 

two prisms. a window. the sun
all watermelon in its september.
college students with fingers 
like coat hangers. all the door knobs 
in the world turning at once.
our dorm room was microwave humid.
a bracelet of ants made its way
across the wall. i lied to the lamp lights
& told them i needed to astral project 
somewhere else each morning.
really, i ran on a treadmill. 
sometimes a rainbow would join me
with all its shivering but 
it would never stay long. rainbows always have
somewhere else to go. i imagine
a whole world exists dedicated to each color.
i like to think my violet self 
is wiser & that apples taste vaguely
like bruises there. the rainbow machine
visits all these fragments 
& returns with only their light.
i put my bed in a tree. i put a tree
in the basement. a refrigerator
blooms from the carpet. a rose
opens on the windowsill & is consumed 
by the ants. we sit on the floor.
my roommate visits the violet world 
when she sleeps. i sleep walk once 
& end up in the bathroom 
on the floor below us. our building 
grows long hairy legs & attempts 
to walk away. we read books 
at our desks. she is gone
& i lay on the floor by myself
with only the company 
of the rainbow machine. the machine
tells me a story of when it was first
harvesting wave lengths. i tell the machine
i want to be in love all the time
but by "love" i don't mean "love"
i mean rapid acceleration. i'm willing
to open my window & crawl out on the roof
for the next boy. i'm willing
to slip into the red world
& steal a slice of the color for him.
my body need a fun house mirror
to look assembled. the rainbow machine
moves faster & faster. whirling color.
i tell it i need more time. the days move
across my roommate's face & she doesn't seem
bothered by it. she goes through her routine
& i go through mine
all the while the rainbow machine
is culling us for color. i lose 
all my yellow one saturday & the next week
there is no green to be found. 
i search out the colors 
in the surrouning town. walks on the trail.
sitting in a target parking lot.
the rainbow machine eventually dies.
it falls from the window 
where it perched. i do not try
to fix it. i feel relief & fear.
will it haunt me? yes it will. 
my roommate sleeps heavy. 
she doesn't notice it's gone.
the air conditioner does little 
to strip the orange from the room.
we wake up in summer & the room
folds back down into 
a slice of printer paper.

fireworks &/or boys 

please don't tell anyone 
but i have zoo of fireworks to come home to.
some people have husbands & children 
but i favor the volatility 
of sparks & ash. the smell of sulfur
& black powder. i am careful 
when i open the door. my fireworks 
are excitable. one rapid movement
& i might find myself in the midst 
of a show. the brightness 
& the pounding flashes. white hot light.
i close my eyes. i never tell my fireworks
i'm not in the mood. it takes so much effort
to explode & they do mostly 
just for me. you could call me 
a keeper of the fraught & turbulent.
but fireworks are so gentle sometimes.
if i take my shoes off slowly enough
& steady my breath 
they will come up to me 
& nuzzle my body with their colors. 
they will fizzle 
like orange soda. 
a trickling sensation
fills the house. i tell my fireworks 
stories of the first fireworks i watched
from my backyard & from the fairgrounds.
fragments of light palm-treeing 
across a early night sky.
they are eager to know 
why i love them & i weep 
& tell them that it is hard to explain 
why flesh can often love
to be startled. i tell them 
a story of how i used to love boys 
but now i love only fireworks.
fireworks of course
have no gender. 
i used to let boys detonate
in my bed & leave me covered in ash.
house smelling of sulfur. i used to
let them borrow my body.
their footprints pulsed neon. their teeth 
like stairs towards 
a new fresh eruption. but no 
now i have the fireworks.
all gathered in a vase by the door.
quiet careful fireworks. singed hair 
on my head. the back of my hands.
hair all over my body
just like light sprouts
from the bodies of fireworks.
i say "alright go ahead & give me
a show." let the raptures take hold.
a spattering of flicker & fold.
shadows brief & heavy
in the wake of each flash. 
the memory of
a boy's shadow 
stuck to my wall. 

poem that ends in a snowglobe 

i am holding an envelope on stage
& someone whispers "you should open it."
instructions are never for the benefit 
of the executioner ( or is that executor?)
i do open the envelop & out comes 
a spew of dandelion fuzzies. this stage
will soon be all yellow. inaudibly yellow.
the winner is somewhere laughing at me.
the auditorium becomes an arborium.
trees instead of seats. old old trees,
the kind with musket-handle brothers 
& knots thick as mixing bowls.
the spotlight follows me as i try
to escape. hands are clapping 
just out of reach. i climb one of the trees
until it's a lighthouse. salt water.
televisions bobbing in the surf.
a conch shell presses its mouth
to my back in a kind of rigid kiss.
what if it rains from now
until the end of time? my windshield
is a watercolor. my memory is a school
of dead fish. take a little oil 
& anoint the forehead. the third eye
blinks & waters. it's just a marble
& a surveillance camera. the "veil"
in "surveillance" cloaks me.
i am receiving first communion 
all over again. hands pressed together.
a little girl
in a white dress. i taste 
like a breath mint. someone bites down 
all my bones gone chalk. 
the veil in a paper shredder.
we only keep records twenty-five years
after the patient has seen us.
i am the patient & the doctor
has cold hands. he is a robot 
& he forgot to put his skin
in the microwave. i am afraid of:
corners, crevasses, & my own
believes in the dark. 
a cirus is coming to work
underneath my bed. the music 
keeps me up at night
but i never say a word. i let them
have their fun. eventually,
yes here it comes, i am standing
in a perfect town surrounded 
by glass. just me in my pink shorts.
barefoot. have you ever seen
a figurine like me?
probably not. shake the snow
to swarm me. a single flake
pinned under my foot. 
the blizzard brief 
& releasing. do it again.
do it again.

my teeth & your teeth turn to a fireflies

i pass an angel chewing a rock 
to make sand. those sharp teeth 
& eyelids. the carcasses of jellyfish 
lay around like dabs of grape jam;
we are barefoot & careful not to step on them.
a man flies a kite too close to the sun.
it's bound to catch fire any second
but his sun glasses are so strong 
he can't see anything.
the ocean is close to the crease
just like the mountain & the closet.
a fear can grow if you add water.
like this video for more dissociative content.
i could stare at the moon 
until like eyes turn to hard boiled eggs.
i am missing the feeling 
of salt water air. i am missing 
the bells of dead horses. 
a donut pulls apart to reveal 
a ghost or a puff of steam 
who can know the difference?
a butterfly net can be used
to catch just about any spector.
i stand poised & ready.
five locks on my door & i use all of them
to be safe though i know 
an ocean could break down 
this barrier if it wanted to. the half-hour 
is as strong a unit of measure 
as the brick. i could build a house
from half-hours. this house
is made from watching 
each & every minute. everyone
wants to live alone. i don't 
& i do & not anymore. do you know 
what i mean? i mean this is 
that most knee-caps i've ever had.
i mean my teeth are more slippery 
than ever & the sink & the refrigerator
are my companions. when you call me
the signal is weak, not because 
i live in a mountain but because
the closet forms a seed pod around me.
is my voice the same as it was?
i count my fingers
to be sure. a door knob 
becomes an elbow. i am interested 
in going on a date with a strong oak tree.
collecting his leaves, i might
make an album of our hands.
do you know what i mean when i say
it is impossible for me
to remember your teeth? 
send me one in a jar. 
i want to watch over it 
until it turns into a firefly.
i don't know how i'm speaking anymore--
what with a mouth full of bugs.
knock my door down. break my tongue
in half. i want to be entered 
& remembered harshly like 
a storm that uproots a backyard.
forgive me for being blunt. forgive me
for my itchy windows. come here.
i have a jar ready.

put your feet up in my climate change mystery

i plug the air conditioner 
into my mouth & wait for october.
we stood in a circle & clapped out hands 
waiting for the echo. a pile of leaves 
is the same as a deck of cards. 
shuffles itself. was this 
your oak tree? in art class 
we tried painting leaves with a serum 
designed to make the flesh fall away 
& leave only the veins. we bent over 
these leaves brushing & brushing.
i imagine someone doing the same
to my body after they find it in a school yard
fallen from a great tree.
all the veins in my body are gutters.
summer will be hotter this year
than every before. i can feel it now
& it's only june. my car runs on 
melancholy so as i drive i play 
sufjan stevens in my earbuds & try to think 
of my childhood on the wharf.
ocean of golden corn. my ears 
are ears. the kernels dripping.
a single earring falls 
on a long one-lane road.
when god runs away he leaves us clues
as to where he's gone. or, alternatively,
no god has run away & the clues
are all illuminati prayers.
a triangle is always waiting around
the next turn. you can count on geomtry 
when every other belief system 
falls apart. we want a book 
made of ice. read it faster.
we want a north pole 
lush & green & ready 
for the first strip mall.
i have a pair of high heels
that i only wear at night. 
i clop around like a deer but i never
leave my house. 
there are hunters around here
& they hang trump flags 
where their tongues used to be.
none of this is a political poem.
i am just living & documenting 
what i see. i am just 
a forest creature. a fox even.
with a long soft face.
the climate has always been changing.
here comes summer. here comes fall. here comes
fire raining down on a plastic swimming pool.
here comes an avalanche. 
in the rocks of afterwards
i'll tell you a story about
what it was like we the field parted
& let us walk to the other side.

in uncertain mirrors

you shouldn't let a mirror have
a taste of dark. it will want another face.
my mirror sometimes tranforms me
into one of my dead great uncles.
a priest in long black robes.
am i holy yet? magenta sash.
hands pressed together. in my head
a man crouches & whittles down 
a stick. i feed him twigs & branches
to keep him occupied. dungeons & dragons
is, at it's core, a game of mirrors.
i am now a dark elf with a mouth
full of dice. a computer rises
like a zombie, in the center
of my living room. i tell the computer
i have nothing to offer it & it shows me
a video of myself on youtube. 
i am speaking like a cricket
& then i become a video
of crickets devouring a rotting apple.
mandibles working the carameled flesh.
all those legs & all those angles.
the face of a priest on the head
of a cricket. all that praying.
computer then blank with overload.
i turn it on & off again 
on & off again in the hopes that it will
become the one & only television.
a commercial plays in my heart 
& i see a doctor about it via zoom call.
the doctor is actually just a professor.
he furrows his brow & says that
my writing is lacking but everytime
he tries to explain what is missing
the connection cuts out.
i unplug my finger from the wall.
the house goes dark. i am waiting
for a load of laundry to emerge 
& fresh new clothes. we used to
be lost is great huge stores.
we used to hold hands
with ourselves in dressing room mirrors.
all my dreams have price tags.
one emerges on my wrist. i yank it off
& blood leaks all over the floor.
a line-break once saved me
from my own staircases.
i am not radical enough to have
an "i" so i have several 
& i keep them in mason jars.
a film of sugar form beneath
the lid. i place one in my mouth.
this self tastes like honeydew 
& is yearning for a year ago
when you might be able to have
a conversation with neighbor 
about the shingles falling down
& turning into cardinals. 
now, i talk to spiders. we have
bargins. i flicker the face
of a priest. my fingers 
turn to yarn. pink thin threads.
i want to learn how to knit.
the spiders are social distancing
until they eat little speckled beetles.
a beatles song is playing
on the last cd player. my brother
is a priest now. his pockets
are full of crickets & communion.
i don't let him in 
through the mirror.

soon this house will be torn down to make room for another hotel.

tiny soaps arrive outside
each of our bedroom doors. 
a super 8
is weeping by the side of the road.
my dad would talk about 
taking us on a trip to go look 
for fossils
but we never left 
& the fossils have all dissolved by now. 
our shoes became our feet 
or was it the other way around? 
we even bought sifting trays 
to cull the bottoms of streams.
the urge to stand 
in the middle of the creek 
is over-powering me.
i count to ten. 
cool clear water up to my waist. i count
to twenty. smooth stones beneath 
my feet. i need to wait
until it stops raining
to drive through the center 
of another nectarine. my friends 
are all waiting for me 
on a Zoom call. i won't be joining them.
what happens if everyone i knew
forgets i exist? 
if a tree falls
in my heart will i hear it?
probably not. i am not the best listener.
i put on a sound machine 
just to try to sleep.
artficial rain is better than 
real rain any day. nothing wet
just the sound. 
i record your voice
& make a sound machine of you.
i am no longer lonely. 
i miss 
everyone. i cannot wait to be 
alone. soon all the pizza places
will open up 
their crampt little booths.
soon the virus will be a song lyric. soon
you will arrive on my doorstep 
as a tuft of onion grass
to be eaten. i will pluck you 
& cradle you like a shell.
wash you in the sink
with tiny hotel soaps.