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. 

common ancestor 

i took a wrong turn
on the phylogenetic tree. dear god
let me skip the chordata.
a spine is so overrated. i mistake
gunshots for fireworks & fireworks
for gunshots. i want a house in the city 
full of spiders. 
i am good with the life of a sponge
or even maybe an annelida. 
i have always afterall had an affinity 
for dirt. sometimes as a child i would
burry myself & wait for someone
to dig me up like treasure. no one ever did
& so i grew an egg hand to chip
myself out from beneath the shale.
once my father took a wrong turn
on the highway & ended up in baltimore.
he called us from the side of the road
as a chimpanzee. i was so jealous.
i wanted to cup the receiver & whisper,
"keep going." if he ended up a cnidaria 
i would still love him. i would make him
the best huge salt water tank &
on fathers day we could all get inside
& let him sting us for old time's sake.
i have long ago accepted that choice 
is always fleeting & unruly. the ancestors 
whose bodies turned into flowers
& those who became false gods. 
i travel with an oar in the car just in case
i end up having to swim upriver.
in the mirror i can see both my grandmothers.
they have rivers in the wrinkles
of their faces. i am on my belly. i am a salamander.
i am a snake. i am not getting out of this. 
a branch is where the fruit comes from.
i open my mouth & no apples come out.
the common ancestor we share
with orangutans, gorillas, & chimpanzees 
is standing there with a face full of persimmons. 
i feed her pasta. she digs a hole
in the yard for us both.  

guillotine farm

i go out to the orchard where
there once were not enough legs.
some of us ran. others stayed in the shade
of a soon to be felled tree. 
we did not plant corn. we did not plant
squash or even beans. 
i wish i could understand what exactly
this kind of pain sprouts after years
in a body. instead just have the fruit.
my eyes sick with sugar. the first instrument 
blooms by mistake. i see the blade glinting
in the hungry sun. i let it learn
by cutting off my hands. they are now free
as toads to burrow & to sleep.
in the night they wake up to bead. 
they bead flowers & sometimes write 
apology letters to the selves i have never
managed to be. the next plant burst 
from the dirt. it was angry. then another
& another. when my hands grow back
each morning i go out to feed 
the flock. my beautiful little guillotine farm.
every once in while someone comes
& takes advantage of the "pick your own" sign.
they leave with their own monster 
in the back of a truck or a station wagon.
i want to be less afraid. the field gets larger
each & every day. in the dark though,
my hands work. i go out in firefly light.
i whisper to the machines all the uses 
i might have for them. the so-called gods i want 
to slice in half like melons. the leg eaters
& their clean houses. the knives weep.

wax houses / glass houses 

i have lived inside places that shrink.
the sun wraps a fist around the door
& crushes it into throat choke. 
which is another way of saying
i have had landlords & i have had boyfriends 
& i have slept inside blue candy wax bottles. 
there was that summer of the sepia car
& the heat that ate all the alley cats. 
i want to live somewhere that doesn't
give me up to the authorities. 
we board up our windows & put "x"s
on the doors just like the demolition house 
off wyandotte street. when i see broken places
i think, "i bet i could sleep there
if i needed to." i am a squatter at heart. 
a perch seeker. once, an ex showed up
on my front porch with a boa constrictor 
in his arms. he was pretending the snake 
was me & he cooed, "yes, just like that."
i don't call the cops on people so i had
no one to call. he could see me inside
like a little terrarium turtle. the next day 
i painted the glass black. needless to say, it chipped off
& then i was just as visible as before.
only this time there were spectators. onlookers
who came & said, "wow. wow. wow."
they spoke in lower case. i looked on zillow
to see if there was a remote house
in the wilderness that i could afford 
if i sold some of my less useful organs. 
i stand on the roof & wave at a plane
like i'm stranded in the middle of nowhere.
they keep flying. they are also made of glass.
the pilot is having an affair which is
mundane. he talks to her on the phone.
drops me a care package before he goes
with chocolate bar & a camera.
i take pictures of the clouds. 

mouse hole

when the mouse left, i started using
her hole. first to rid the house of dimes
& then to shout through. i put my lips
right up to the crease & cried,
"please please please no more." there are
not enough days to rest. there are not
enough hours to sleep in. sometimes 
i go out to the sun & feed her eggs
in the hopes she might get to lethargic 
to spit the big noon light. in the apple fields
as a kid the trees were never as tall as 
i wished they were. i picked as fast as i could
my fingers becoming mice. all the holes
my desire slipped through. i sometimes ate
as i worked. i was allowed to eat as many
apples as i could. they had never seen
a girl consume so many mice. one night
i tried to escape out through the hole. i went 
thumb fist. shoved & shoved & i only 
got bigger. i wept, imagining all the times
the mouse had passed back & forth 
with ease through her fissure. the world
is always bigger than it should be. when it's
not breeding season, toads only travel 
a hundred feet or so in a day. i have met several
in the yard. i ask them why they don't use
the mouse hole & they skip away,
terrified of what i might mean. i have considered
that closing the hole could provide all of us
some comfort. after all, the mouse sewed unrest 
through our utensil drawer. still i can not bear 
the thought of laying down to sleep
without a little portal of moonlight 
spilling into the space beneath the sink. 
the only way out. no, i cannot shut it. 

404 dire wolf skulls from la brea tar pits

what do you know
about resurrection? 
we used to sing until the moon cracked open
& all the little gods came out.
on the television a movie plays
about our bodies. sharks & blood
like silk in the water. every story
is a story about wolves. the two-legged come
& feed their children
into a video machine. we wait
& hope they get on all fours &
say something that makes sense.
instead, they run. harvest
our skulls from the tar pits. we were
not collectors. there is a legend
in our language about one great wolf
the size of a monstrous tree.
it became so restless that it broke
into thousands of us. still, we are always
seeking that union. the moment when
together we will walk the whole continent.
when all the winds will point
in one direction. pull the grass 
like wild hair. sometimes i wonder if 
the humans are wolves. if maybe 
we are farther than ever from resurrection.
in the dark of the museum, we howl. 
sometimes one of them will hear us.
they'll stare into the glass until 
their skull is one of ours. jaw 
& ragged teeth & tar-black bone. 

good sheep

i would love to have two stomachs
instead of just one useless one. 
then i could put all my fears
in the first stomach & the second
could just go wild with all the dandelions.
sometimes i wake up with hooves. sometimes
the day shears me down to my pale flesh
& i have to look at the wool. 
snakes shed their skin themselves. no me.
i need blades. i need to be held by the legs. 
often it is a lover who offers to do this for me.
lately i have tried to do it myself. 
i fade in & out of reality. there is a piece of me
in the sun's eye & a piece of me raining just
over my childhood home. 
in the wild sheep turn into clouds
after a certain number of years
without a shepherd to tend them. 
on my worst days i look up & consider
becoming a shape a little girl points to & says,
"that looks like a face." i graze. 
once my grandmother said, "black sheep"
& i thought it was my name. i got
on all fours in the courtyard 
of the apartment complex. i ate as many weeds
as i could. she smoked. she lived alone
with cats which are just sheep who escaped
becoming clouds. you pet my head.
it is dark & the moon has just died. 
you open up a bag of lettuce & we eat it
like potato chips. i ask if you can shear me.
please please please. i want to see 
the weight of the year as a pile of knots. 
you tell me, sadly, "but you only have skin." 

egg shells 

i put on my plastic feet to go walk
& ask the window for a pear.
i am hungry & you have your teeth on. 
the tree on the side of the road is sick
& spitting its guts on the asphalt. 
car kill is up this time of year. 
squirrel & boyfriend & grease & cardinals. 
you taught me all the shades of red. 
the neighbor's apple tree starts
to grow fruit & you tell me, "don't
even think about it." i am guilty
of all thought crimes. i imagine the details. 
plucking all the apples
& leaving the cores in the grass. 
i sometimes wonder what it would feel like
to not have to wear a siren on my head.
i know i am loud but i never meant to be
like this. that one time we drove to new york
& the air bnb was locked i cried 
& the sky tucked all the stars beneath her skirt.
i want to live in a marble house. i want to
be in love without geese or needles.
just a place to run. the cabin we stayed in
had so much floor i got down on it. 
did you kneel too? i remember grappling
with you there. i wanted us 
to get married with a tree as an officiant.
it was too soon & what i really needed
was you to say, "i am not going anywhere."
ugly grocery store flowers grow 
from the sink. i keep my egg tooth 
just in case there is a wall to break.
when we kiss sometimes i see ghosts. 

allow cookies

i tell the internet machine
"you can keep my hands
if you give me something bright."
my face screen glows & i cut off
my fingers to feed the ghosts. they feast
like foxes. dens in the floorboards. 
over coffee, we talk about what government lists
we are probably on. i start leaving
the windows open
when i talk about god. i buy a gun
& then do alchemy on it to turn
it into a chimney. burn an old cell phone
& all the tiny pictures of us 
as mall children. i want to be kept
in all the places. to press footprints 
against the ceiling. in the old parking garage
where we used to kiss 
there were handprints above our heads.
we imagined people crawling up there
like spiders. i grew up in a town
with unlocked doors. once a man
wandered into our house. 
he fell asleep on the couch & my uncle 
found him. i don't think as much
about privacy as i should. when hansel 
& grettle went into the woods 
they thought there was a way out.
the birds ate their breadcrumbs
& along with them, their secret 
youtube playlists & even their emails with
a boy they met in a chat room. i have a birth mark
in the shape of a search bar. i have
to get on all fours for anyone to type
into it. i tell them, "allow the cookies
allow all the cookies" by which
i mean, "do not forget me." 

he/him

my shoes never fit. 
i remember walking in circles 
around payless 
hoping that i could mash
my toes enough to make 
the cool kid sneakers accept me. in the summer
i cultivated my callouses. 
road my bike barefoot to the creek.
found everywhere in town
where i could get away with not wearing shoes.
the hardware store & the fabric place. 
sometimes me & the menanite kids
compared the dirt on the tops
of our feet. it was an achievement to have
the dirtiest of the day. i have never
had an easy time with pronouns.
if i am being honest, i want people
to guess. hair grows on the tops
of my feet. call me whatever comes to you.
i want to be a purple thing. a crepuscular self.
it is summer & i am not barefoot enough. 
i use "he" pronouns like the tight shoes.
a gym class kind of word. i imagine 
the "h" like a house with a chimney.
a place to go & take everything off.
i still have most of the callouses. 
my self-made slippers. i walk on stones
& through the grass. wear the dirt
in all its glory. what do you think i am?