i confess to you, then, 
i have a love of strip malls & highway turn offs.
the blood of America is a rich,
thick purgatory. a population
a bottle cap car door open, i wait in the back seat
& watch a herd of shopping
carts. mouths full of popcorn.
their plastic hair nets.
a perm. a dorito bag to craw
into-- inhale orange salt.
the surface of jupiter has
nothing to do with us. 
it is indifferent & so is France
& all the beautiful places
where writers should go.
move closer to the water.
by a house & marry poet.
i love the strip malls because
they're so tense & someone
has almost always gotten 
a 12$ hair cut & feels 
a new caress of air. the wind 
off of asphalt is parental. 
the parking spots are beds
if you need to lay down.
there's so so so so many 
bodies to never meet in a pillowcase.
a magazine drunk with 
rain & blowing to pieces.
my lips red & getting redder.
i have a turn signal in my throat.
the car will start or
the street lamps will
turn again into tall perfect
women, their flash lights
on the porch. their teeth
full of night bugs.

a smaller ark 

so i heard there's going to
be The Flood. a postcard written
in numbers, that is to say,
written in the language of god.
he likes the number 2, though 
the divinity is lost in translation.

in the living room i read
the words for hours before they made sense.
a revoke of the rainbow. we always
knew this could happen. an exit apology.
i tacked it above my desk & began
to work. we have little time. 

i bought a small stack of 
balsa wood, thin sheets, recalled
summer camp in Nolde Forest.
fingers stuck together with
hot glue, making ships to 
send down stream. we'll need 
to be smaller, get to work on that.

the first flood would have killed me.
i would have tried to take all
my books. how did they leave 
without books? yes, i know
god floods earth because he doesn't
want us to tell better stories than him.

the work of becoming smaller involves,
first, a mirror. a partner to hold
onto you by the wrists. we go two
by two-- there will be room.
it's like folding a note-- in half
in half in half. crease bone 
crack rib. the stern & sternum. 

this is an argument for making
a smaller ark. for leaving the animals
to salvation themselves. 

for you & me & throwing 
olive branch to sea. 

what use is a dove?
you must not feel guilty.

i'll set us in the river 
long before there's grey clouds
or the smell of rain.

travel along side the dead leaves,
orange & maroon flickering between
currents. the tongues of flame.

glimpses of prism 
off the water-- you'll hold
me as i lean off the bow to
fish them out. a tangled omen,
the colors mis-matched & 
undone. a promise is impractical 
without scales. 

of course, i may have read 
the letter wrong. the number 2
could be nothing god-like.
but here we are, the size
of moths. the water clear.
the dead leaves following us 
to safety. 

I.
i want you to always make the bed 
if you leave in the morning before i come home.
i want the water glass in the sink.
the lights shut off. the morning is
distinctly a purple place. i take
a shower. i wipe the steam off the mirror.
you left a tan sock & i put it
in with the rest of my wash. 
you make the room feel wide-- like
a shadow box.i lay the covers down 
& they ask me where we go during the day,
if we hold onto each other like that. 
i don't tell them anything
& set stack the pillows & i shut
off the light & i put on 
my socks at my desk chair. 

II.
i want you to never make the bed
if you leave in the morning before i come home. 
i want the covers folded & flushed.
a single lily-petal. if i painted
us before we fell asleep what kind
of patterns could we have left?
a Rorschach test-- what do you 
see in the ink? i see swans 
& uneven fingers. a ceiling fan. 
i like the coffee shop up 
the street because we walk there.
because there's a chess set near
the window & i wanted to ask 
you to play. leave the light on.
the shadow is an inadequate
proxy for a lover-- but is it a body.
the carnations on the table,
sick with their own ambrosia. 
will you come back tonight?
make my skin glass, again.

Compulsion on 
Number 1A 1948

pollock at a potluck.
the world pouncing down 
on the white wall-floor. 
if they turned me inside
out it. if they turned me
inside out & gave
each compulsion a color.
a brilliant breaking
of a tumor-- a vein 
burst like a yellow jacket.
the swarm in the trash can 
where there's always brothers.
you ask me again about
my routines. about what happens
inside my body. i laugh 
because i want to take
you here & drip-spatter 
all over. a blue meandering
through the house-- 
anxious & angry at 
the numbers 
under finger nails.
i take out all
the condiments & test
their ability to splatter
as i pour them over myself.
i want to me 
misunderstood. i want
to be a knot &
a violet smudge
across my knees. 
as a little girl
i would sit in front 
of the painting for
hours-- tracing each
strand of obsession--
my favorite was 
the strands of garnet.
i peeled them off
& swallowed each like
an earthworm. it's moving.
all of it. a colony
of what what what?
i don't want to be
legible. every black brash
enough to admit it's
afraid. 
it's not
done yet. 
i gulp down 
old paints-- lips 
pigmented white
in the spirit of 
drunk daddies.
kiss the wallpaper,
perfect stamp.
each a pair of 
lips another 
voice to count with.
sing a round.
throng color--
disintegration of
a nervous system.
step back.
it's destroying
me/you & it's 
a glorious righteous
kind of wild.
i roll the canvas
back up & sword
swallow. pollock
praying the only
way he knows how.

taxonomy

make a jungle gym of me,
the metal bars at night where
we all hung our old shoe sizes,
each pair full of mulch & pebbles.
yes, peach-footed human.

i want to swing from species to
species, test the bird-neck
& the bivalve-- mussel & 
muscle. opening my mouth 
to fill with water, i'll
call this darkness a gill. 

flick me phylogeny, 
the light switch god tucked 
behind each of our necks.

would we have love
in other bodies? 

an arctic mouth, 
a few less organs to
keep track of.  

would it be quieter?
would sleep come with less 
questions & more handwork. 
the classification god. 

i hope to come back 
without quite as many bones,

maybe a shark, their fossilized
teeth aching in my drawer,
my own mouth evolving rows. 
seats in a theater.

call motion & water.
we must not stop, cut a branch
with finger nails. i want
to keep all the tetrapods
for myself. 

yes, brothers.

will someone come & 
tease out my veins, make them
solid & climbable? 

if you find my body 
like this in the playground
past dusk 

will you hang upside down? 
try yourself Osteichthyes--
the bone-wearing fish

i will collect our eyes
to use as marbles on
the blacktop. there will be 
scales shaved off to make mulch.

& when all's said & done we
can come back,

force our feet, the human-ness
comes back as furious
need for shoes.

i kneel to help tie yours.
we're animal-bruised & small.

whispering under a flashlight
about growing up

to be dinosaurs. about all
the teeth the shark will
lose & slip under his pillow
for quarters.

every time i step on
a twig it becomes a rib,
three of father's all broken
back into beat. his catacomb
chest a thunder cloud
in the ceiling of a dark 
apartment. a pile 
on the floor. in the packs
of deli ham in the fridge:
the layers of his skin.
what was a dead body
buzzing 90s rock in his
ears, pouring out 
on the floor. a blood jar.
a beer bottle bone 
flowing brown into 
the carpet. the tubes,
the plastic veins.
a body becoming a project.
all the kielbasa 
on potato rolls,
an ambulance summation.
the wheel barrow
in the yard pounding
at the back door
to get in. ziploc 
lung & inhale. 
all the gnats 
on bananas in 
the kitchen. 
what can we use, 
for ribs?
para-promise 
a medical word for for 
the fear of
the flashing lights 
coming to take.

oh, grandfather

the clock in the lobby of
the nursing home where 
my grandmother turned into
a handful of almonds.
a stern face. a sharp nose.
a lawyer. a German man. 
brief-case carrying & pocket watch
eating. the man from my mother's
faded wallet photos. 
time on the Alzheimer's floor
is filtered through the echo
of the out-of-tune piano,
is played out in the body
of my grandfather. 
come night
when most of the nurses
had gone home & no one was
visiting 
the clock would toll,
startling her in her blue
track suite, her finger nails
painted a soft dull coral.
the man standing in the lobby
in his nice pressed suite.
he promised her everything,
a house in town 
with all the windows open.
my princess my princess 
my princess,
his fingers ticking.
a portrait of the moon
painted on his forehead.
they would embrace in 
the dim light. he would tell
her stories of where he
had been all these decades
& she would be angry with
him. a man's only job
is not to die. 
his throat, a long
hallway to dangle from--
she wanted to run but
remembered her legs.
the piano grinned wild 
& her husband rung again,
only louder this time
until his face went flat 
& round. painting numbers 
on his cheeks & chin.
in the mirror on her
dresser she tried 
to do the same with 
the ink pen but she had 
forgotten words & numbers.
the art work on the walls
of the Alzheimer's floor 
all have numbers hidden 
in them, the pass codes
to get out into 
the world of time. 
7, 1, 1, 5 written in the vase 
of sunflowers. she uses
all numbers as a clocks.
the year is 1973.
her husband sets his suitcase
down in the lobby. he doesn't
visit, just stands there,
white-faced & unbending. 
she doesn't call for him.
she doesn't offer him dinner.
she sits by the piano.

the mice come 
to stack me,
33 vertebrae counted 
aloud as i wake
up next to you. 
it's a purple kind
of thing that 
another person's
body can make you
so much more aware
of your own. 
before bed i take 
each segment of
my spine out
& wash them in 
the kitchen sink
with the blue soap 
that smells
like thumb prints 
& lavender. 
my brother still
leaves Legos on 
the living room
floor even though
he's grown up
& moved away.
is his skeleton
colors & plastic 
like mine?
i hope he builds
biplanes with
the pieces. 
i assemble a miniature
house with
my bones &
i don't show you
or anyone. 
it's a little
gruesome, 
what with 
the rose petal marrow
holding it all
together. sometimes i
walk up your body 
like a staircase to 
an attic 
full of old toys.
tell me
what beanie baby
is eating
the flowers 
on the porch?
i suspect 
the ostrich.
do they have
spines like us?
yes, of course
& the snake is
all green & 
leads down to
the cellar. 
the mice are
good workers
but always hungry.
i kiss 
the bricks 
of your back.
tell me, 
love, are there
banisters in us?
is the attic 
full of boxes?
sore worry
stone pocket 
boy as i am.
those wooden
stairs down to
the shore 
will one day rot
from being
so close to 
salt & water. 
when i fall
apart i hope
it's into 
the Atlantic
or a tangle
of covers 
wrapped around
you. the mice
are good people,
let's trust them.
it's morning
anyway.

tiny pieces of glass

I.
we broke the wine glasses one by one.
they were too tall, stiletto heel aunts 
on the top shelf of the cabinet. they 
wore grape juice in their hair & drank 
the morning away. orange juice bellies,
sire-laughing: we tried to ignore them. orchid 
necks & their circling kisses. they traced us.
mom would try to catch them-- she could hear them
dropping from rooms away, running, she
would never make it in time. glass eye lashes
& jagged teeth. the wine glass's real face
a pile of knives-- a garden of incisions.
we wore shoes in the kitchen for weeks
& still found tiny pieces of glass. a game.
soft clink, i collected the slivers in 
the open face of an oyster shell in my room. 
they sang opaque songs & kept me awake. 

II.
the project of re-essembly began on 
the night when we broke the last one. she screamed
& we took paper towels the ground to remove
her body. each furious section. some parts were as thin
as my aunt. her finger nails stained blood purple. 
the smashed glass tried to sprout into roses but
i made sure to collect them, cutting myself
on the thorns. no that's cliche, you can do better.
i used the night light & began to join
the fragments together, no glue necessary. 
they desired a body so much. wiping the blood on my jeans.
there was only one enough for one glass 
& she cried so long. i filled her with water, drinking
by the counter to quiet her down. winced & found
a tiny piece of glass in my foot. i pulled it 
out with the tweezers in the bathroom. the sound
of the glass throwing herself to the floor, the cracking
of the house. more shards to find in the driveway.
more treasure. a front door in my heel,
someone running.

children 

ocean born, organelle moon.
when we talk about children 
i always imagine them as jellyfish.
i walk down the stairs into 
microscope images of their cells.
the thin wires of their new bodies like
trapeze. balance & listen.
free of heart & veins.
what a relief to be without blood.
the neon silence. is there enough water?

they come in through the open bed room
window & hover just below the ceiling
until we take them down: pull them
by the tentacles. a cluster 
of helium balloons. it'll be
hard to name them.

in the bath tube after they're
asleep we'll wash each other's
stings. their pneumatocysts are
automatic, we can't blame them for
the scars: red licorice rope 
thrashes-- i trace yours until
they don't hurt anymore.
are we good parents? 

they get bigger (as all children do).
the size of a room-- their bell
ringing all night long. do you
want an ocean? i don't have an ocean
to give you. 

on better nights i read aloud  
from the book of saints like 
my own mother did. the children settle down,
breathe slow & fall asleep
between words. the story of
saint lucy & her eyes on the plate
reminds me to wash the dishes.

i wonder if they're happy.
if they've eaten enough. 
the smoothness of their bodies.
i won't be my mother. i won't.

they arrived so tiny, like thimbles.
keep their baby pictures
in the basement to walk  back into,
the tight ropes-- undulating 
in memory. don't leave yet,
i'm not done.