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?

corpse candles & velvet dinner

at night the roads around our house
fill with corpse candles. 
you can never see them & so i pretend
i do not see them either. when you fall asleep though
i go out to witness. each light is different.
some the size of fireflies & others 
like burning soccer balls. the legend goes
that each represents a death. a ghost
holding up a candle just behind the veil.
i try to talk to them. sometimes they put a veil
on me & i wander barefoot through the corn. 
the foxes & the deer walk on two legs. 
i wish my life were smaller. contained to 
a candle or maybe just a graveyard.
instead, my life spreads out. there are phones 
that dance. letters with teeth inside.
i draw blood & send it to the hungry place.
never manage to eat enough. the corpse candles 
move slowly. on the lushest nights,
almost like a waltz. i sway with them.
once, starving, i went out & the corpses fed me.
blindfolded, i ate with my hands. velvet texture.
the feasts of the dead. i heard their voices.
each light, a little mouse hole. they gave me
no answers. instead they handed me 
a candle & told me to walk with them.
i blended in. almost stayed. would they notice
one body among dead? instead, i went home.
i had missed you & the dogs. it was so bright
that night that the windows glowed like midday.
the ghosts coming to witness us. washed my face.
i stood bare in the shower before turning it on. 

walk-in freezer

i would take off my meat gloves
& pretend i was becoming 
an ice sculpture. the breath of the 
walk-in freezer at the dining hall was
bright & wild blue. on the shelves 
were cases of drink mixes & broccoli 
& broth. sometimes i would place my
warm hand on the surface. leave a print there
like the walls of cueva de las manos.
the ancient impulse to leave a little mark
in the belly of a creature bigger than you. 
i could never stay too long. counted each second
until i had to return to a cutting board.
chicken breasts that needed to be sliced
& sandwiches that needed 
to be painted with mayo. a drop of panic
at the thought that maybe i was locked inside.
i would rush to the door just to make sure
that it still opened from the inside
just like it always did. the contrast between
the hot & chaotic prep room hallway 
& the freezer always gave me a pause.
i considered receding again. just one more minute
before i emerged with a hunk of flesh
or a bag of ciabatta rolls. 
the portal shut behind me
like a spaceship door. 

zoo horses 

they used to have a herd here.
ten or twenty creatures. 
wooden fence. the valley's eyelashes. 
when a storm came through 
a god would pull the horses into the sky
to run & make thunder. the last two 
are slow now. they stand far away
from where people can come 
to stare. take pictures. squint.
they are keepers of a threshold between
dirt & rain. body & blood.
they tell each other the same
stories from their previous lives.
stepping through clouds. hoof & lightning. 
the fields that still bear milkweed flowers
this time of year. the sun has become
more merciless as they've aged.
i want to join them. to kneel down
& feel my hooves arrive clapping. 
i wonder if they wait till we are all gone.
gates closed. yolky sun sleep. then,
maybe they run. never racing, always
pounding on the door of a next life.
one without a fence or a sky. one where
we are both bright & boneless.
we'll keep our manes. one lifts her head
to me. a flick of the tail. a light breeze.
hush of the branches still full of leaves.  

ice house

i buy an air conditioner to save you.
then another & another. i am prone 
to buying ice houses like you. i cannot help it.
i meet a bird who tells me, "i have a place
for you to dream." then i am following them.
the ice house is always bigger than 
i should be able to afford. i make concessions.
i can live with the chill & the weeping. i can
make peace with always having a cold shower.
your chandelier falls. i turn the air conditioner
to as cold as it will go. wrap myself 
like a stuffed grape leaf. olive oil on my lips.
you are coming apart. i am drinking the stairs.
the attic full of all the dead people. 
my bones, made of ice too. i grab cups 
& vases to fill with your windows. i beg you,
"try to hold on just a little longer." it is summer
& i am afraid to sleep bare toward 
the wild night sky. i knew this when i entered you.
that there would come a day that the roof started 
to bleed & i had to sit in a field of buckets.
i stop strangers on the street. i tell them,
"there used to be a house there." all they see
is a lake. my clothes float on your surface.
i pluck them out like a body fisherman. 
the rain comes & i cannot tell what is house
& what is home & where you went. 
to sleep somewhere is to let it claim part of you.
i hope wherever you have gone that 
your walls are wide. that the fish learn 
to sing just like i used to in the bath. 
i knock on doors. their houses blow away.
i turn all the air conditioners on just to feel again
what it was like to sleep stone-like inside. 

turkish coffee

you turn 42 which makes me 45.
to have a sibling is to always measure your life
in distances between one another.
we drive the car (which is on fire
& has been since we were kids) to the 
turkish place we went to after you 
almost graduated. the sky is full of flashlights.
we drink turkish coffee from the mugs
with little faces on them. their soft
clay tone. a tooth. a lip. i remember
when we were younger & you told me
that your dream was to have a job where
you could afford to stop here & drink
this thick warm coffee each day on 
your way to work. there is a flood warning
again. i have never known how 
to be an oldest sibling but then again 
i do not think anyone does. you certaintly
have not known how to be a middle sibling. 
once i called you later than i should.
ran a stoplight. the sky was full of turkish coffee.
sweet & bitter. i take you back here
as a kind of ritual towards hunger.
that which has never been satisfied.
neither of us have jobs we want. the earth
is warmer than when we were children. 
sometimes i still feel like we are children
only now we drive cars & sometimes
get on planes alone. i never can finish my cup. 
my hands always tremble after.
we sit in the restaurant until they settle.
cold coffee. the hole where the snakes
pour out of the sun. it will have to be enough.