i want to be a tarantula 

you tell me you've been watching videos
of tarantulas molting.
so, when i'm alone later that night
i find one to watch.
i cup the iPhone screen in my hands,
moving it away from my body,
as if it were a tarantula.
unable to look away,
the spider crawls out of itself,
like a glove emerging from 
another glove,
soul crawling on eight legs
out of its last body.
is it a new animal?
i wonder if maybe the molted
tarantula has vague memories 
of the other body's life, 
but, never quite remembers
having been a smaller creature.
the other body: 
crumpled like a coat 
in the corner. 
i imagine a row
of all the tarantula's skins
hung up in a closet,
the tarantula perusing
them, & forgetting that
those had been him.
i watch the video again,
over & over, fast forwarding
to the part where the spider
makes it's last tug 
& is free from the old husk,
the husk falling back,
the new body more vibrant,
orange bright fur around
each knee,
deeper black body.
i have the urge to touch 
the tarantula, i want to know
if its new body is damp,
if it's slick from bursting 
out of the first.
there must be a human equivalent
to all of this.
i sit on the hard wood floor
of my room
& inspect my skin
for points where i might 
fissure, where another
boy might come out of me,
maybe taller this time,
maybe with glowing skin 
& straighter teeth
& bigger hands. 
i open my closet,
find all the hangers
hold tarantula skins, 
a range of sizes.
the smallest ones
are crumbly from age 
so i put my arms into 
a middle-sized one, get down
on the floor & try to 
amble like i saw the spiders
do in the videos.
i pause & recreate how
they molt, slowly & deliberately
rising from the skin
heaving forward,
i worry about being caught
in the act,
like masturbating but
somehow more personal, more intimate,
i worry about you seeing me
like this,
a creature with eight legs 
on the ground
eight legs into two
i molt from tarantula 
to human & i cry 
because it felt almost real,
like i was coming out
of my skin & into a new one,
like the body i would
stand up in would
be glistening & vibrant.
i leave the skin tossed 
on the floor & watch more 
videos of tarantulas molting,
rewinding, trying to see
what it is they feel that moment 
they step out, 
regret? fear? 
whatever happens there,
i think it is something
that i can't have.
i make piece with that,
ask the tarantula to come 
crawl out of the screen,
tell me what its 
new life will be.

alone in a hotel room i don't miss home i think 

i think of what all i could fit inside
the tiny hotel fridge
two rows of bottles clink against each other 
when i tug on the door
rain turns to glass
glass to rain
smaller versions of wine bottles
each too small to climb inside
i could fit maybe four books 
inside the hotel fridge
if i laid the books sideways
or maybe all the clothing
from my suite case
all folded up like i never do
because i hate folding 
& i hate packing 
i prefer to crumple t-shirts & pants 
each like a carnation 
pressed under textbooks
it makes traveling feel less real
like a sleepover
a commitment to going home 
& i am going home just not now
open the door of the fridge again 
a cold mouth full of glass
i take out all the drinks 
& line them up on the soft floor
my guests
a little parade
spread them out so they don't touch
they make a wall
they hold hands without having hands
i could empty them each
in the clean white sink
just to see the pouring
just to have an empty fridge 
to climb into 
i wonder if it could lead somewhere
putting my whole head inside
the whirl of refrigeration
blue taste 
dull white glow
i imagine the people who clean rooms coming
to ready my room for the next guest &
finding the fridge door open
getting on their knees to peer inside 
& finding no one
just a small tunnel in the fridge
where i would sit on the other side
in a room full of television screens
playing videos of everyone
who ever stayed in the same hotel room
not just images of them living in the room
but their whole lives
pressing hands to windows
climbing inside fridges
the room still cold 
the walls still fridge white
& in the distance 
the ever present gentle sound
of bottle clinking against bottle
fingers clinking against fingers
taking off my clothing 
& stepping on my shirt & pants like carnations
but i don't go inside
not tonight
i put all the bottles back
on my knees
they clink as i set them in their rows
lay out on the bed
try to imagine the other people's bodies 
who've laid there 
night after night

3 different bird calls &  a car alarm 

pours a bag of feathers
all over me
the sun & the whole thrum
awake without me
i turn over like a sausage 
in a skillet, 
like the ones mom made
every morning
a browning edge &
grease softly folding
alive under skin
the spatter & crackle of heat 
i ask the brightness 
to keep on going out there
to reflect off hoods of cars
to kick up dirt 
& scoop the voices 
of the birds nesting in the garage
make lives out of them
send the birds to college
& miss them when they move away
i am a red glow & i thought
for a moment i was waking up
in my parents big queen sized bed
with the black ceiling fan overhead,
a spider to twirl 
they had a painting of two rock fish
on the wall above them 
i looked to see if it was there 
& there is someone awake
in the ceiling
maybe just a pair of feet
maybe there's only upstairs
& no sky
just white drywall 
& flickers of dreams
where we were in disney world
i think only
you all had forgotten 
each other
besides me
i remembered &
i tried to remind each 
family member 
of sometime we were up 
too early together
there are so few people
who see us wake up
what do i lose when 
someone sees me, if they
watch me decide when to 
pull myself up?
this might be why lovers 
have to share beds
to watch the other emerge
from a warm murk
blink & shut eyes 
the bag of feathers poured
over head
the rolling of bodies 
in a skillet
the whole family 
all turkey sausage links
i'm full of grease today
i ask the birds to come in
& sit with me

Lingering

My feet touch the cold sidewalk
as I take out one bag
of trash to the curb.

No one else is out there 
but me and my feet, 
and there is a light,
hesitant rain that
reminds me of amphibians.

I want to find toads
on my porch but I haven't seen on
since moving to Long Island.

My bare feet want to walk
the whole street,
a pair of toads,
soft as their white underbellies.

I wonder how many feet
there are living around here, 
and if anyone else ever
thinks about the feel of cool sidewalk
on a night in April or otherwise.

I'm imagining everyone 
stepping out and standing still
just for a second, 
barefoot, looking around
at their street
in the shimmery mist
slick on stone sidewalk and asphalt
that hold up our houses.

Standing over the pile of trash,
I try to make out the shapes all inside
and I find a paper plate
folded in half.

There is no moon,
so I decide that the moon
is the paper plate hidden
under the plastic skin
of the trash bag.

I think about what
my feet might feel like
ambling on the surface
of the moon, if it might
feel chalky and warm,
and, maybe, its glow
feels on the skin
like wanting to speak. 

I want to tell someone about this,
but it's late,
and I should go inside.

But it's late 
and I should remove my feet
from the ground,
fold them in blankets,
dark and quiet,
tell them to hold their breath,
and no be so dreamy
when we're trying to inside.

Each body part, then, seems
like an argument for lingering,
for asking sensation 
what it means for the whole,
for asking if everything
can be felt underneath us,
or if there are objects 
we have to know less intimately.

Inside, I take a paper plate
and stand on it. 
It sticks to my toes and heel.
The plate feels loose and shifting,
un-sturdy as I would assume
that moon too might feel. 

five hours away  

in the airport bathroom stall next to me
a man is on the phone &
he's saying that he only drives
five hours to find a river 
where there's so many salmon 
the water is practically red with their scales
he laughs & the stall clinks
as he puts his hands up against 
the walls
which makes me think how 
close together bathroom stalls are 
he says that Hannah never wants
to go fishing with him 
& i wonder who Hannah is
a sister? a daughter? a wife?
a neighbor?
why doesn't she 
want to go fishing five hours away 
to a river where the water
is red with salmon?
then i wonder if he means
five hours away from the airport 
where we are or five hours
away from wherever he's from 
& he could be from anywhere
just like i could be from anywhere
& somewhere salmon are five hours away 
& they're rushing into the water
& Hannah doesn't want to go 
because she's tired of all this red
the red like sunburn on their backs 
they're rushing & the water is
hot with their scales
i Google videos of salmon 
from the stall next to this man
i watch salmon
i hear salmon in the pipes 
bodies jostling
i've never seen a salmon 
in real life but i hear them 
approaching ready to come out of the sink
when i wash my hands 
the man still in the stall next to me
i want to wait for him to come out
so i can know what his face looks like 
after listening to his voice 
maybe he wasn't there 
maybe it was all the salmon 
collaborating to speak to me
all the salmon somewhere five hours away
& i'm just here for a layover
this isn't even where i'm going 
the salmon will miss me 
the salmon want a plane to get away 
the salmon want escape
just like the man in the stall
& Hannah who won't come with him
who he lives & wants to throw
to the salmon 
& the salmon want to get on 
a plane instead of filling a stream
with their thrumming souls
they want to fly five hours away
to a new river where
this man can't drive to 
where no one can find them
& i leave after washing my hands
because i'm scared the sink might
burst with their scales
spilling out on the bathroom floor 
& thrashing 

you might have a puppet

dad & i used to make puppets
from the sleeves of his old shirts 
but now we just talk through them
he holds up a dragon in one hand
& a rabbit in the other
i choose the crow & the turtle
for myself
we hold them up
sit at a diner booth in town
make them talk to each other 
dragons don't like crows 
the crow would smoke cigars if 
we'd let him
it's more common than you notice
people bringing their puppets along
all day
you're probably a polite person 
so you just go along with it
i'm not so much polite 
as i am ready to accept 
the terms of a situation 
the waitress today 
also has a puppet
a goat with a tuft 
of hair on the chin
we order & i can't decide
if i should be looking
at the puppet's eyes or hers
i choose the puppet
because it's the one talking
the crow is also the one talking
the turtle doesn't talk
just makes realistic movements 
i always go places with dad
with something i want to talk 
to him about but end up
giving in to what the puppets 
want to talk about
which is almost always 
the weather or what time we got up
that morning 
i let the crow talk about 
cloud formations
dad's rabbit says he loves me
& nods his head 
dad's rabbit picks up
a fork & feed him 
triangles of his club sandwich
getting crumbs on his fur
dad's dragon sits & stares
at me sometimes
& i stare back at its glassy eyes
there's something judgmental there 
like he's waiting for me 
to slip up
& talk with my own mouth
i narrow my gaze 
as if to say that won't happen
i worked hard to talk 
with puppets
everyone works hard 
to talk with puppets
you might have a puppet &
not even know it
dad doesn't
he thinks he has two free hands
he drives with the puppets on
the puppets kiss my cheeks 
when we leave
their cool glass noses
on my skin
my puppets love his puppets
just like between them all
i love him 
& his hands buried 
inside animals 
& my hands buried inside animals 
at home i take them off
look at my own hands
put the puppets back
on before going back out

John 14:2-4 

what we didn't know was that heaven would be lonely
& how much we'd miss wanting things.
a plate with a scoop of whipped cream,
four of us huddled in the center,
barefoot & asking each other 
if anyone has seen an angel.
we don't talk to each other because
heaven meet every need we could ever have.
we're grouped together because we 
all like the same temperature & humidity.
none of us remember where we're from
but i remember that when i had a body
i used to burn my mouth on hot french fries
& now when i eat french fries i never
burn my mouth,
i can't, it's impossible.
everything here is smooth
even the stubble on my face
like a forehead of a rabbit.
sometimes the plate grows
green vines all around
& i follow them
hoping they might lead me away 
from here to a different heaven.
when i first got here i thought
i loved the others more
than anything but 
it is tiresome to love everything 
about other entities,
we have nothing to talk about
we nod to each other
& we ask each other's names
even though we know
none of us have them.
i once wanted to be disobedient
& ate the green vines by the handful
but they turned to licorice 
when they touched my mouth.
i wish i was a terrible human
in the bone life because 
now i'm terrible in heaven
& i have no where to go.
i crouch alone & pretend
it's afternoon,
which i remember as being
like the sky dropped
a spoonful of honey
on herself.
i sit alone, 
walk on all fours out of curiosity
& occasionally i love the loneliness 
how everything is what i want 
& what i want only, the unbridled
selfishness of it all.
i scan the sky for angels 
& remember insects with with colorful wings.
the vines grow 
& i lay down on them,
overhearing two of the bodies in the distance
ask each other 
what is your name?

i associate my grandmother with pussy willows

there are pussy willow growing
from the walls of her little apartment
i imagine her harvesting them 
& plucking all the little grey fur buds off
each of the buds mewing 
like her generations of cats 
turning into cats on the soft vanilla carpet
i'm not sure how many times she had pussy willows
in a vase on her dining room table
by the antique brass scales weighing
a fake pear & a fake apple
apple always heavier
i'm not sure how many times
but it had to have been more than once
i was maybe 7 or 8 years old &
i would 
when no one was looking
pick the branch's greyish fur
pinch the bud in my hand
a new kind of mammal
as if newborn mice were seeds
crawling on the arms of a bush 
as if we
my grandmother 
& me
were also born 
with soft grey fur
perched on a wooden limb
i know very little about
my grandmother
she's a spoon on the side of a metal pot
a milk carton shaped magnet on the fridge
pink & green checkerboard shoes by the door
i think of her alone
sitting on the edge of her bed
the small grey kittens 
ambling towards her
her collecting the cats in her hands 
like a bowl of blue berries 
or on heavy peach 
her kissing each of them on the forehead
maybe i'm one of them
pink paw
mew scratchy pollen tongue
returning to my stalk 
to be quiet & soft
all day in the light 
through her dining room window
climbing down once or twice
to pick up the fake pear
& the fake apple
to check which one is heavier
i'm the apple 
always heavier
i'm also the pear

11:15pm Portland/ 2:15am New York

on the first night i've ever been to Portland
sleep starved from from a day & a half traveling
haunted by plane windows
i walk alone away from the hotel
i want to be eaten maybe
or inspected
i keep my watch on New York time
the deeper i get in city the more 
i want to walk until morning
& never sleep again 
rain full thick with hour 
bluer & bluer 
night asks what art
i will use to collect its memory in
& i answer with whistling 
each note turning
into a swallow-tail butterfly
or a song bird
i wonder to myself
are song birds the same on this coast?
do they have cardinals 
& blue jays
or am i alone here 
i grow more feathers
& pluck them off
littering them on the damp sidewalk
are they leaves or feathers?
did i take the broad leaf
forests with me 
am i born out of dead leaves?
the forests here a jagged
a colony of needles
pine trees jutting from 
the earth
i cut my finger
on the angles
suck the blood which
tastes tired
i am
the bluer i am 
the more i walk the more i want
to forget i'm
visiting the more i want
to be a brick
inside the wall of a strange building
or a water fountain outside a different hotel
clusters of misty people 
laugh loud for a Wednesday night 
i buy an ice cream bar 
& eat as i walk 
chocolate shell sweet
vanilla ice cream 
soft down my throat 
i don't take my time
i must look strange to someone out there
a man stepping in blue 
followed by song birds
whistling to make more 
hand bleeding 
leaving a trail of vanilla 
blood ball of yarn
behind him

in mom's car

the floor of
the station wagon collected us:
white grease-stained fast food bags
handfuls of sand
smashed pine cones. 
held our relics close
and asked us to bring more,
opening all doors
the trunk gaping mouth
seats giving into soil.
together on long car trips
trees would have time enough to 
sprout tall
the car imagining a world
for us 
folding us deeper inside
her blue metal skull 
the doors miles away,
did the car plan to keep us?
my brother and i, 
meandering in 
different forests and deserts
losing a bracelet 
a ring
a kazoo a clementine
we ambled
seat belts slung over our shoulders,
sometimes, calling out
each other's names
just to hear how deep the echo would go. 
forgetting this was our mom's car,
that, somewhere, 
she was holding
a steering wheel like a sun hat. 
did she wander too?
barefoot maybe did she
forget that she had children?
we never talked about it 
when we found our ways out
back to the doors
brushing dirt off legs
from the jungles 
and prairies the car build
from our own discharged items 
we were going somewhere
there was somewhere outside
the car
i wonder though, if, sometimes, 
she took long rides alone. 
if on those rides 
mom might have wanted to stay there
bringing sandwich wrappers to her car
like offerings 
asking to go away somewhere
with a faint breeze,
wearing the steering wheel on her head
as a sunhat.