opportunity

my battery is low &
it is getting dark

who did the mars rover imagine
in his last moments crossing 

the scabbed ground? the god 
of war lived round & copper 

beneath him. we should pray 
him into heaven like we do

each year for my aunt joan.
15 years ago when he first landed

she was still alive & dyed
her hair the same color as his rocks.

his sphere-attic world
laughing under his feet, she held

the counter to make her way
through the kitchen. i see

myself at 15 walking mars:
a girl in a purple halter dress 

& blue hair, perched
on a precipice looking over 

the relics of a martian sea. 
she draws starfish in the pie-crust

ground before the darkness 
encroaches on all sides. taste

of dying sits in the back of her throat
like chewing aluminum foil.

what angels does she meet?
what other gods did our mars rover know?

building shrines in his machinery,
a solitary worship, his altar of red giants, 

each a candle lit by the bold &
stubborn death of a star. he sings

to himself like i do, like 
my aunt joan did, even as she was dying,

her voice leaving her body
as a ribbon into the ceiling fan,

even farther above the rover hummed.
did he pretend that he had parents?

a normal life? high school years?
a first love far far below?

the 15 year old me up there buckles
& falls like the trunk of a tree.

my aunt took years. her gaze always
drifting farther & farther above our

heads as she forgot us more each day.
did she know the rover somehow?

did they talk? did she tell them
her life stories as they left her.

i know he listened, kept those stories, 
repeated the details to himself for comfort:

a green wave on the jersey beach, 
two white shell-shaped clip-on earrings.

the rover's eyes go dark slowly, 
the thinning of throat, he hears 

the transmission commanders as they call
for him, all his fathers, 

hears Billie Holiday singing 
"I'll be seeing you

In all the old familiar places,"
thinks of everyone else who 

died too young & says to himself 
"what good company i am in."

how tall is

i walk on dark stilts 
in the parking lot, back & forth 
what kind of bird?
my guillotine shadows saunter  
removing the heads of plastic bag ghosts,
slicing parking spaces 
like pound cake. 

the top shelf is not 
all that far away now & 
then i won't have to ask you 
to stretch your talons up
to pull another bird's nest down
by the neck 

each day i add another foot
to my new legs, teach 
myself how to stumble
taller & taller, as high as
the water tower, mouth full
of mouth: 
a water balloon tongue

when the cars scream their horns 
i shout back, dead cranes
calling out with both of 
our beaks, we have
a conversation about 
the sadness of driving 
in new york with the rain spitting
to remind us how unclean 
we still feel

you wouldn't recognize me
so elevation.
head bumped on the hot-faced moon,
is this how tall is a man?

i slow dance the lamps 
in the parking lot, call
them sweet names like "dearest"
& "doll"
each almost as tall
as me

a waltz sound crawls 
on all fours from the grates
so i sway alone, circling 
the carcass of my car 
like a condor, soft
green meat of 
a passenger seat 

i call out again 
to no horn in particular,
it's loon & lonely
out here

add another foot,
steady myself 

at least 
i'm tall now

after 3 days i give up on sleep & give in to everything else

an 8 is a 3 with it's
mouth all closed & i laid
awake thinking of how it feels
to put your thumb on the not-sharp
side of the knife.
i peel myself up, some kind
of rind fruit, my stuff 
all orange & sweet 
cantaloupe or tangerine:
with necks like puckered eyes.
somewhere my mom was snoring
& my dad compared the noise
to a chain saw. it cut holes
in the drywall. 
it gnawed a silhouette 
of everyone, haunting 
a house by nightlights,
dad & his living ghost.
do i talk in my sleep?
i might & if i do it's 
not me but a string 
of previous selves desperate
for a mouth to make
promises with. 
listen to them & write
them down, this 
is where the knife 
comes in again:
cut the language 
into the bed post 
or the wall. no i don't
have a bedpost. i have 
a twin
sized bed & most days 
its size feels coffin like,
i hope they don't bury 
me with you, there's 
not enough room & 
if i'm going to 
be an 8 i'd like to 
have room for decorations.
a bowl for a cave fish,
still hearing her snores
under the earth
i ask someone if it's
just an earth quake.
no answer just the house
crinkling & reptilian,
metal-scaled & shrugging 
off a playground insult
making its way through 
the pipes.
i ask the house 
if it will dig 
the hole for me, 
not too deep, not six feet
i need to be able to crawl
out if i change my mind.
a gust of wind rattles us.
i put my thumb to the back
of a knife, stand there
by the sink just caressing,
ignoring the other side. 
i open my mouth to talk
with both of my mouths:
one to laugh &
one to ask for silence
& sleep. 
 

glitter
-After CA Conrad 

was it this year or the last
when all my blood turned to glitter?
standing at the bathroom sink
i watched quietly the glint
of each reflecting speck 
as it trickled from a nick
in my thumb. i imagined
what i would look like 
with all my skin shed off, 
a crowded constellation 
of a body.
i tell everyone i can find 
that there's no such thing 
as blood, at least not anymore.
does that count as a prophecy?
maybe not. i roll up my pant leg
to show the shimmering scab
on my knee & i say
look i have proof.
most people who pass are 
confused, they quicken 
their step as i add 
you have it too 
you have it too.
i think a lot about how
salt turns a slug inside out
& what ingredient that 
is for humans. i'd like 
to lay down in it, pour 
glitter, gush glitter, 
stain the side walk
with all my glitter for 
someone else to clean up.
an inside out human, would
anyone recognize me or
would a gust of wind work fast to scatter:
colorful ashes, 
metallic hands clapping at light. 
until then i sneak into
the kitchen. dull flicker 
of dusk. a pairing knife. 
a cereal bowl. i make a small
basin of glitter from
an incision in my side,
yes i go biblical but i bet
jesus wasn't full of 
glitter like us.

wolf hunting

"who would want to hunt a wolf?" you ask 

& i say "no one of course."

at night i set a chair by the window

& i recite all the methods for hunting a wolf

like a prayer. 

1) blind: a husk of skin where the hunter crouches. 
the corpse of a leather stone. camouflage everything 
but the eyes. i make one by peeling back the wallpaper
& crawling inside. i wait. 

2) calling: imitating the wolf's howl. i find the sound
deep at the bottom of my throat, a well strangled mouth,
i grow canine teeth just to yank them out. spit the blood.
keep howling. a mouth of amethyst: jagged & bone.

3) fladry: encircling the wolf pack with a long rope,
little red flags tied all around, tongues lapping up
the freezing air, speaking languages of the dirt 
that won't try to learn.

4) luring: the pig. the football waiting for teeth.
tell the wolf, "here in america we play." the pig staring
out the window as well. the wolf will come for the pig
& nothing else. 

5) poisoning: mix in with lard or tallow. a handful 
of once animal. yes, eating gently. this is the best
way to hunt anything, feeding them a cup full 
of fat till they drop. delicious drone death. 

6) trap: then there is the pit, where the earth gives
way beneath us. i build a pit in the front yard, maybe to 
catch wolves or maybe to catch someone else. i'm here 
waiting for the snap of wood. for the rush of plummet.

but i don't hunt wolves.

other people hunt wolves.

i just count the ways they use to hunt wolves.

i love the wolves, in fact some of my family are wolves.

i can still see my father: his long snout sifting

in the brush under the pine tree behind our house.

we should let him. 

i open the front door: wince of the hinge
& i whisper. "i'm sorry wolves, i'm sorry."

the wolves slink in & sit next to me to watch
out the window. i tell them about the trap

& they drool, puddles gushing on the hard wood floor.
they let me pet them. i start the prayer 

over by saying, 
"who would want to hunt a wolf?"

 the phlebotomist's lover

as he puts the rubber band around my forearm 

i explain that i sometimes faint 

when i have my blood drawn & by sometimes i mean 

that once i went with my mom in 8th grade & 
the nurse tried to tell me that she once took 
Jerry Seinfeld's blood & i didn't know who that was.
i felt as if i were crawling, hands & knees
through a tunnel & then i woke up
to the coral green waiting room.

as he puts the rubber band around my forearm

i want to ask him what his lover thinks of this,

if he or she or they know that each day

he takes the cool sharp needle, tells 

boys like me to "talk to him" & to

"tell me something about yourself." 

i imagine telling him that i associate needles
with family. that each time i have my blood drawn
i see all of the standing in the corner 
of the sterile white room & i mean all of them, 
i mean aunts & grandmom & brothers & mom & dad,
all of them watching me let this man plunge
the needle deep into my arm, blood filling his
vials quickly, a quick gush & nothing more.

as he takes the rubber man away from around my forearm

i try to remember what i told him in that moment

& i think i said that i have a little brother who

is 6 years old (which is a lie, he's 10)
& that he misses me while i'm at college which
is also probably a lie because he doesn't 
know me any different, i've always been in school.

as he takes the rubber man away from around my forearm

i want to as him if it's really over

if all we were was an exchange of blood, if 

at night he lays next to his lover & tells 

them about all the bodies he entered,

holding up his fingers to count them,
maybe stopping as he remembers me. maybe
he skips me because what we had was too alive
to have just been 8 vials of blood.
does he keep one & tell no one?

on obsession 

i have recently discovered
the powering of slamming doors.

maybe i had always known, 
but yesterday it started by accident,

just a desire to shut, a thrust,
the swing behind me,

the rattle of the hinge like 
clenched teeth, the slap of 

wood against the frame, the front
door & its gold knob nose

aching because of me. after
that i had a need to do it more.

you have to understand this 
isn't out of anger, this is a way

of existing. have you slammed
a door lately? i do it whenever

i have the chance. in & out
of my bedroom, the click, 

a mouth with the teeth 
all fallen out. i collect 

molars off the hard wood floor
& slip them back into the frame.

i slam my mouth like a door,
my nose gone golden. 

freshman year of college 
i had a roommate who would 

shut the door loud again 
& again late into the night.

i thought she was insane,
in the dark i pushed my eyes 

shut as she threw the door,
the thick heavy door, banging our 

box of a room. i understand her
now, i think. i want to ask her 

what it felt like to stand 
outside in the dorm room hall

pushing the door again & again.
had she been angry? had she just 

needed to feel real? i understand
i do. i wish she would had 

shown me then so i could
get it out of my system young. 

i can't stop now.
i try to find a new door each day,

ambling up to strangers houses
& asking politely if i can open 

& shut their front door.
each type of wood, each house 

has a different pleasing sound.
i lay in bed shutting my mouth

like my roommate once shut that door.
again & again, i collect 

the teeth from my pillow
& put them back in.

this is how/ 
i cut/ myself
with a spoon/ the edge dipped
into wrist/ where everyone starts/
im ice cream/ im sherbet/ pink
& i eat/ 
& there's flavor/
like cut finger nails / & metal.
a chewing gum/ named
"aluminum." spoonful 
by spoonful/ behind
a locked door/ where 
i like to eat/ everything/
& there's nothing left/
for you. i want someone/  
to love me/ so hard that
i don't come back/ here
& stare / at the sharp hems 
of spoons. oh dixie cup/
i devour/ alone so /
you don't/ get to see/
what face i make/ with each
cool slip/ of silver
into skin/ pint after pint/
i cut/ myself/ 
with spoons/
delicious/ melt/ 
a whole drawer/ of options 
for ways to/ make
this body/ i want to/
love/ someone /
who lives like
i do/ spoons/ 
in backpacks/ lodged
in their bones/ surgical
tools/ a memory 
of a boy holding/
a spoon/ over my/ mouth
like a bowl/
don't/ stir/ me

strawberry window  

voice all thumb print 
on the open window:
outside someone is singing
& their voice comes in smooth
like a hard caramel.
sweet saliva dew. i want
to crawl into that mouth
& feel each note hum through me.
i'll be her handful of harpsichord.
i'll be her plastic kuzoo.
this winter's gone strawberry 
with bouts of mud.
i reach my arm out, hoping
to clutch a fragment 
of that ribbon-ing melody
but instead catch 
a blue robin's egg
as it drops from a bare tree.
cold planet pluto, a melting
piece of hail with a glass bird
inside. the trees, 
like adam & eve, realize 
on this strange
night that they aren't wearing
any leaves. they reach for 
shirt. i give them away
each one button at a time,
one for you
one for you
& this is not enough
so the one takes 
my floral print button-up shirt
& the other takes me teal pants,
draping the garment over a branch.
they weep, knowing that they're
still so naked. they don't
pay attention like i do
as i hear the singing
getting farther away.
what song is that?
i ask again & again
but there's only me 
& the sobbing oaks &
the melting egg still dripping
in my palm. i could follow
the voice, i know,
but that would ruin 
the mystery of it. i crawl back
in through the open window
& lay on my own voice,
the floor of my office
where the egg turns 
completely into liquid
& the glass bird is too 
small to speak. i let 
the singing fade out into
another laugh of wind. 
what song was that?
what song?
& how would it feel 
inside that mouth, under
a warm wet tongue
as the tune trickled 
& clothed me.

individually packaged 

everything's wrapped up
around here, the cellophane
round the dead trees,
standing bent 
as dried sea horses,
try to find the corner
to undo them,
picking with my nails.

then of course there's 
the tupperware with whole
houses instead. i approach 
but there's no way i could
pry off the clear red lid 
on my own,
is this where you live?
behind a dull wall. 
does it keep you all fresh?

do your parents tell
your to lay down on 
press & seal: roll you up.
you make a crinkling body.
i but you smell like 
cilantro & lemongrass. 
you stay young.

outside someone comes
by each day to wrap birds
in foil, twisting up each
in the shape of swans.
they perch all across
the yard, occasionally 
rustling & i say 
ssh ssh
hold still, you'll spoil.

TEAR HERE
says a cloud. i reach for
the plastic corner, pinch
between fingers. i think
for a second that maybe 
i shouldn't. that maybe
i'll ruin everything if i open
this all up.

i think of you wrapped up
in bed & your parents in their 
own separate tupperwares,
everything so crisp.
i will eat you someday,
i mutter.

i pull the corner 
& the sky lets out a sigh,
like taking off pants
like spilling a glass 
of orange juice that wanted
to topple over all along.

all the packaging holding
in a May mouthful of
wanting behind the seal. 

i know this means 
we'll go bad. we'll ripen & rot
terribly soon.
a kind of organic panic.
i want to look at 
your house from far away.
to see it contort: 
an apple core
a collapsing swan
a drying sea horse.