vacancies

all the fish bowls are empty 
on the counter. they ring like clocks.
the last fish visited in the depths of the night.
might have come in through the window
but i'm not sure. goldfish are selfish.
they come & go without warning.
they take their names with them.
somedays my name peels off & goes elsewhere
while i stand here keeping watch over 
my fish bowls. i am waiting for 
an aquarium to visit me in a silk tie
to offer my sustainable employment.
air has currents just like water. air is water
in some senses of the word. fish don't 
breathe water they breathe air through water.
i think about the prickled curtains of gills.
i walked through a gill once 
& got scrapes all over my body. do fish
have blood? i have no evidence.
i could fill the fish bowls 
with all the blood that's escaped me.
i wrap myself in tin foil 
in an attempt to look like a gold fish.
dialing random numbers
i pretend to be a robo caller selling
goldfish. everyone hangs up instantly.
everyone is too smart these days.
i want to be tricked more often 
than not. sell my something warm.
all my windows are open. a thunder storm 
is shimming in the distance & soon
it will be all red outside 
even the moon. i see silhouettes of goldfish
pass across the whites of my eyes 
& then across the moon. everything white
means the same thing. eye. bread. 
wall. fresh teeth. moon. when they finally arrive
i will make them play black jack with me. i have
a deck of cards waiting. the cards vibrate
with luck. i am going to win
so much money. my mouth tastes metallic 
as a penny. fish taste like pennies because
they are full of them. they swallow any change
they can find off the street. i put 
a cigar in my mouth & don't lite it.
water pours from the tip like smoke.
what can be done about lurking? not much 
i assume. you can only wait
& listen. i trace the rims of the fish bowls
to teach them how to hum.

pigeons germination 

the pigeons take turns daring each other
to dodge cars as they rush down 6th avenue.
the pigeons are large today, some the size of 
capybaras & some even bigger. one passes me 
& it stands a few inches taller than most people.
pigeons are daring animals. my boss is a pigeon
& sometimes he takes his lunch break perched
on a lamp post cooing at women as they pass.
they find him endearing with his iridescenct feathers
& his little pouch of bird seed. i've caught him
poking holes in garbage bags before though. 
no one is a clean animal. i've seen humans too 
doing terrible things with their feet 
& their mouths. in broad daylight someone is 
almost always fucking in an alley way
if not on the sidewalk. keep moving. keep moving
i don't wish i was a pigeon but i do wish
i had a way to stand on rooves more easily.
there's one pigeon i pass everyday on my block.
he can't fly anymore so he just sits on the curb
waiting for people to leave trash bags there
so he can pick them apart. we're all eating garbage
though when you think about it. he prefers
pizza crusts. when i was a little girl
i caught a bird with my bare hands.
i held the bird tight & i asked 
will you please give me hollow bones. 
the bird promised it would so i released it.
i don't know whether or not i actually do
have the promised bones. each gust of wind
does sometimes feel like it will destroy me 
but i am not a bird & this is something
i have to cope with. the pigeons who dodge cars
die often. their bodies lay sprawled out
like art installations. sometimes people stop
to take pictures of the bodies. police come to check
they aren't human. their meat melts away
until there is only bone. i have resisted the urge
to pocket a bird skull many many times.
i'm scared the brain will still be there
& i will touch it somehow. what is inside 
should stay inside with the exception of blood. 
a car runs over the bones 
smashing them into glass fragments.
pigeons are terrible drivers
i think to myself even though i didn't see
who was driving. those could have easily been
my bones. another pigeon tries to sell me
a bag of roasted nuts from her street stand. 
i say no thank you & i keep walking. i hope tomorrow 
the pigeons are even larger.
i want to see a real pigeon. one to
pick me up & carrying me towards the sweet hot sun.
i want to test out the weight of my skeleton. 

dream

we had lawns made of water instead of grass
in my dream where me & you were traveling 
far from where we belong. i swallowed a bee
in a thick forest of staircases & inside me
i felt the honeycomb's hexagons multiplying.
i was a sugar doll. you were a lawn 
which is to say you swallowed houses but no
you were you as you always are only
slightly slanted. we were at a fairgrounds 
they forgot to charge us or we snuck in.
the fair was on a hill or a forest.
it was october or june. you were
small & made of twigs or tall & oak-leaved.
we watched as all my money evaporated.
it must have been counterfeit. 
i had hid my wallet in plain sight
& was distressed to discover someone
had stolen my twenty-dollar-bills--
replaced them with jokes. before disappearing
one bill read be careful next time. 
the thing about dreams is i never get to
see things through. our car was a shack of wood
& i pushed it off into the lawn.
it was evil. you believed me. we were
very haunted in my dream. almost as haunted
as we are in real life. we stood out front the fair
waiting for a way to drive home.
bees climb out between my teeth. i spat them
into the palm of my hand. i pet them
with my pinky-finger. little soft pets.
you told me to call an uber & i insisted
we wait for someone we know.
under the earth was a gymnasium. a competition
was being held. we could ask any of those people
for a ride, yes & we could finally go home.
i don't know where home was 
in the dream because we never got there.
we paced & you were disraught & i was worried
you would leave me & jump into the lawn. 
my dreams are always asking to be poems.
i wish i could lay on my back 
& unspool my dreams to an interpreter each morning.
i wish he had thick glasses & told me 
with assurance what every symbol means.
then again, a symbol never means
only one thing. take for example,
the water. do i want to drown 
or be baptisized? is there a difference? 
i loved you even in a world of deep watery lawns 
& hills that arched higher & higher. 
your skin shifted.
you were several people. a quilted lover.
did you want me for my sugar then?
to taste the golden of a different world?
my mouth dripped with honey
& you drank. our car rattled like bones. 
none of this matters because it is gone now.
the world has collapsed behind me but
somewhere you are waitin for instruction
& i am sorry for waking.
i check my throat for bees in the still-blue dawn.
only one. it crouches like a thumb.

self-harm recovery methods 

i found a neon orange bandaide
stuck to the sidewalk. there are bandaides
everywhere if you're looking for them.
i stopped to look at it too long. bright
& blaring color. i thought maybe
if i pulled the bandaide up
a spout of blood would spring up 
from the hot cement. 
the world is full of managable wounds.
i didn't pick up the bandaide. 
i kept walking & felt the presence of
my skin as a veil or maybe an truly an organ. 
when i was little i fashioned my own bandaides
from toilet paper & scotch tape.
i scratched scabs open at night
to watch the blood make the cut or scrape
an entrances again. i was 
so full of blood. i can't live here
much longer. there are too many
details. it depends on who you're talking to
what is or isn't a controllable lesion.
skin is everywhere & not just 
in the city. cows' skin dies & becomes 
pairs of shoes. the city is full of
pairs of shoes. no blood with that skin
just the blood of feet.
stuck here on the sidewalk. a remnant.
was the scrape on their hand or 
on their knee or on 
the back of their neck? have we 
been severed in the same places?
i prefer to let my cuts dry 
in the open air. i like to watch 
them becoming maroon seams. me, a great 
table clothe or maybe a bedsheet.
how do you imagine your skin?
i want it tidal. i want the texture
of apricots. whoever was held together
my the neon orange bandaide
might be totally disappeared.
people come & go in this city.
people evaporate into their wanting.
there, a cloud of bandaides & next
a whole skyscraper & then i sleep
underneath one. healing presses 
downward but has never rid me
of blood. it is summer in manhattan 
& i believe in swallowing.

i couldn't pick up the snake while you were watching

garter snakes have 
one long yellow line 
down their backs like a seam of light.
the snake stares at us, uncoiled &
unblinking. the length of my arm.
basks in a slat of warm sun 
projected on the creek rocks.
we crouched under the little stone bridge
by your house. cool grey stone 
& our flip-flopped feet. i recalled
a moment where my dad taught me
to grab a snake right behind the head
so it cannot turn to bite you.
you always grabbed me 
by the throat. you had thin but long fingers.
only to myself i called them
"snake fingers." when my hands were smaller
i would not hesitate before 
plucking snakes from the water & the grass.
one in each hand, i once walked to show them
to my dad for him to determine their species.
the snakes would gaze dark 
& fearfully before i'd let them go.
this snake, the one under the bridge
stared cold & void. i could see
my relfection warped & miniature in the animal's 
black glossy eyes. the sun would soon set & 
we'd lay in your bed talking to each other's bodies.
your tongue a ripe snake. my face a pile
of rocks. my tongue a ripe snake
your face a pile of rocks. you wanted me
to grasp. to grab the garter snake
right around the neck. what did you want
to witness in me? fear? 
you had seen fear. you had seen all kinds 
of my movements. why this one. 
you begged. you said you couldn't do it 
not without me. now we were talking
about something else & not the snake
though still the snake. a promise ring
is a kind of snake as is 
a window & a day running out of itself.
i talked loudly to scare the creature off.
i wanted to say 
go & be free. get away from us.
instead i told you 
i think it's scare. look how scared. 
the snake slipped away & all night
to made me promise to go back again
in search of another.

house of franks

last summer the apartment swam
with house centipedes. their feathery legs
carrying them like bird fragments 
across the ceiling & walls.
we named all of them "frank" for 
a reason i can't remember. there are
a few people who have called me "frank."
it is exciting to tell someone your name
& have them use it. i was trying out
names. i was asking 
how do i trust myself to know
what i should be called?
benny tells me i don't seem
like a "frank" & i wonder if there are
inherent qualities to names.
no-- more like if there's something 
a name gives you.
what did we give the centipedes? 
i'm sad to report i killed a few of them.
some out of fear & others more shamefully
out of anger. this was my rooms 
what right did they have scouring them?
i would tell benny i killed
a frank or there's another dead frank
on the bathroom wall & she & i
would gather together to stare 
at it's mangled shape. it's crooked thin legs
& distorted body. i'd take a lysol wipe
to remove the body & i'd feel guilty 
for hours. did the frank have baby franks
who were waiting for his return?
the last time people called me "frank"
was a barrista job. i had a nametag.
i'd sit on my breaks & stare at the tag 
clipped to my green apron. it's job 
was to make me into a frank. am i still
a frank? could i be one again? autumn came
& it tookthe franks with it. winter came
to harvest their ghosts. now it is april
& the bugs are coming alive. i am still
a frank in some corner of my body
& there will be more centipedes soon.
i tell myself i will become 
a more peaceful person this year & that 
i will try not to kill them when they arrive
with their speedy legs & near translucent forms.
picture me, holding one up by its leg
& looking right through it like a blurry 
pane of glass before releasing it
to the cool stone alley.

sarah's cooking show

on the television i watch as my younger self
instructs me on how to cook an invisible soup.
she chops onions with 
a flat hand. she minces garlic 
by rolling it in her palms. i had never known
all my childhood was being recorded
& broadcast each week. i had 
an audience then or maybe no one watched
& i danced in the dark quiet 
of the television box. she is a bright girl
wearing a flower print apron. i know
when she is holding a wooden spoon 
by the way she grasps. i make the same gesture 
to hold one as well. the smell of the soup
fills my apartment. it has fresh ginger 
& hints of indistinct spice. 
there are no ingredients to invisible food
so they come out different each time.
this was all supposed to be a poem 
about my mom. she is in the shot too.
she is making real food in the background
of every recording. she is stirring
silver pots on the stove. steam or fog.
heat or oven. the clang of metal
on metal. i used to believe her bones
were made of utensils. i learned my motions
from hers. immitation is often
a form of self-making. so, tonight
i immitate my younger self who is
just mirroring our mother so in a way
i am stil mirroring my mother
to make myself an empty dinner.
the soup has butternut squash &
invisible chicken which is 
vegetarian. the soup has a remote control 
& a pencil & a lock of hair. i was 
so small i had to pull a chair up 
to reach the counter. i look
into the camera. the camera is rolling
like a boil. i have nothing 
in common with my self at six year old,
not even gender. not ever teeth. 
nothing other than maybe
the creases of our hands & our need
to make nothing out of nothing.
somedays i feel like
a poem is delicious wild nothing.
she is finish now, pouring the soup 
for all of us to eat. my mom tastes it
& tells me it's delicious. i taste
my own soup & it is too bitter
or maybe too sweet. all over my house
are mounds of invisible sugar
so you never know when some might
snow into whatever you're making.
i don't have a video player. i don't have
a tv. so the show ends & my little self
marches back under the sink
cradling the tv with her. 
i tell her she should sleep now
for a few years-- that she should become
a soft memory. one of the memories 
that only registers in texture 
& sadness. i am sad about past 
as a whole. all the salt we taste
is from a time we cried. there is only
so much salt for each of us.
i try to save mine so i don't
waste it on the soup. i finish it
even though it is bitter 
& syrupy & really about how 
i love my mom & how loving her
makes me weak with yesterdays
& years & years agos.

sundae

at the end of each middle school year
i remember a tradition where students got to
make sundaes of chosen teachers.
writing this poem, i discovered 
there's a difference in spelling between 
sundae & sunday. etmologists think
"sundae" used to refer to ice cream left over
from sunday. all of my life
is left over from the week before
or the year before or the decade before.
i can still smell the middle school gym.
tarps on the floor.
a man kneels while three 7th graders
pour chocolate sauce all over his head.
the sauce drips slow across his shirt.
in my memory, all the teachers 
are dressed in their everday clothes 
though i know this isn't true. 
there's no way they just let their 
short sleeve button-ups & patterned ties
be ruined, or maybe there is &
everyone was un-worried about 
streaks of chocolate & globs of 
strawberry topping. i know i sat
on the bleachers. other students
stomped their feet to cheer 
as our teachers were covered. i am a ghost
even in my own memroy. what were we
trying to do? was it about power?
what kind of display? how should i make sense
of the scene now that i am older & 
have forgotten more than i thought i would
when i was thirteen & picked dandelions 
from the backyard? 
i imagined the sundae textures.
the caramel in between fingers. sweet residue
on lips. standing in a bathtube once
i poured a can of diet coke
across the tops of my feet & it felt
cool & bubbly. chosen students scooped 
mounds of vanilla ice cream & piled them
on our teachers' heads. one had four scoops
balanced there before they slopped down
onto the blue tarp below. grimaced faces
of teachers. clenched frists.
math teachers & social studies teachers
& teachers who were cruel & teachers who were 
forgettable. years after these displays
doing dishes at the restaurant
i made a point to grab handfuls
of uneaten ice cream, trying to search for
this sensation-- the one those teachers felt.
i think about waste & hungry people & america
& the nights at the end of the week 
when our cabinets where haunted with only teeth. 
do i want to be made into a sundae?
no, not in the same way though. i wouldn't want
to be seen. i would want it to be private.
by myself on a cool night in june
right when school would be ending.
dripping with syrups & sprinkles 
struck to my skin. the sweet creamy melt
of skin. the moon an empty bowl
through the window.

travel guide for midnight streets

here is where i watched the moon
stretch her legs & where 
the street lamp went dark above my head
& made my feel loud & alive.
my whole body becomes a piece
of cutlery, a wandering fork.
i think of this street as a series
of dining room tables. reaching out,
i try to feel for a table clothe.
everything is tulle.
dresses come back to life & stand
in the hollow of each alley.
i put up a hand to let them know
i am not interested in wearing tonight. 
each gust of wind flickers me.
everyone is a candle light. some houses
want to burn & other truly do.
a car is a carridge is a pile 
of horses. the birds sleep 
in mid air, hovering. trees full
of climbing. i try 
to keep myself inside at night.
it is best for me to head in early 
& dwindle in my own corner of things.
outside my sadness gets wide.
grows legs & wants to be walked.
i walk my sadness as far as the world goes 
but it is never enough especially not
on a clear night like this 
where the moon is comfortable
& the stars are also candles are also
a sea of eyes. blinking becomes impossible.
a whole lot of staring. i stare so hard
the images all turn photograph.
i have albums of my midnights.
a bat is traveling without beating 
its wings. moves like a love letter
between buildings. the road becomes 
a creek. i take my shoes off & set them afloat 
like little funeral rafts. i watch them 
rush away towards the ocean.
in the ocean it is always midnight
& in the ocean it is always a street.
i write too much about cool colors 
but trust me it is so blue outside
you might mistake a daffodil 
for a telephone. how does anyone
get home so late. another body 
strides with purpose towards 
his own quiet. i take that as a sign
i should go too. my legs carry me,
a heavy arch of bones, 
away from the spiraling street.
i lay awake all night lusting after 
the shadow drenched sidewalk. 

land of thread & tangle

i search myself for threads to pull.
a finger across a hip
around a wrist. the ridge of my shoulder.
the seam where my neck 
meets my head. 
my skin is made from a bolt of fabric
that changes patterns each day.
this poem is not about 
unraveling though it could be.
i pull out stray strings all the time 
from clothing & from my body.
once i pulled one out of my hat 
slow, as if i were extracting a tooth.
still, the whole hate peeled apart.
a severed heart. i keep both halves
in the closet in case they 
return to each other. but really
most of the time nothing happens.
i want to know where the threads
come from & what their purpose is
if not to hold a body together.
i'm picturing a realm of only loose threads.
all different colors serpent in piles.
the sun is loose golden yarn. 
sometimes i think about how
without muscle we would just lay like 
unassembled tents. i pulled 
one fiber from my ankle this morning.
i held my breath. green cord
from my body. i thought
haha maybe i'm a trap door.
i saw all my lovers falling into me 
& towards the world of thread.
who else is there? 
maybe my grandfather with his rickey cane 
& maybe mounds of trinkets:
horse shoes & book ends &
plastic spider rings. the cable
exited my skin easily. no blood.
just release. i checked my body 
for more but found none.
i inspect each day. i guess 
in a way i kind of hope one string
will sunder me apart. me: reduced to
swatches of clothe. neatly folded
i would like to be a quilt maybe
in my next life.