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. 

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.