angel of death

if death had a face it would be 
a manhole cover. we want
to take the bones out of our flesh
& build little dog houses.
i walk my fears on a leash
& they bark at idols. i no longer
believe in safety but i do not know
what that leaves me with. 
when i was small 
& first heard the story of moses &
of the angel of death,
i was obsessed with warding
off the plagues. i obsessed over
what we might put on our door
to keep everyone alive through the night. 
i pictured the angel of death would look 
like a deep-sea animal, ripped 
from the dark. eyes like 
wild glowing thumbs. i would
mark the screen door with dandelion guts
& rusted nails from the yard.
each morning, my father would
remove them, unsure of who 
had been doing witchcraft 
at our threshold. these days, i have
sympathy for the creatures we make
to house our grief. i do not think
anyone slept that night
of the angel of death. i do not think
all the blood worked. i have
more & more conversations about
what should & should not be spoken
or written in the presence of
a cellphone. everywhere, the listening
thickens until there are hallways
of doors to try to seal. the angel,
a terrible ghost, lingers at each one. 
there is a part of me who has
given many futures up. there is the other
knocking on doors & telling them
"the ghost we made is coming." 

tiny tractor

i buy a tractor the size
of my thumb. plow the ceiling
until it is green. there are fields
where the foxes two-leg walk
toward a great humming melon.
we let the place sing. the past is 
a sweet playground where
everyone is sick. the food is doll house.
never enough. marrow sucked
from a little femur. the cows 
the size of mice. before i moved out
i lived alone. grew corn & soy beans
& squash. cut my head open
with the too-big knife. nectar
on the kitchen island. bees out the window
asked for postcards from wherever
i had gone. each plane was full
of chickens. i always get back here.
my body craves the miniature. i move
into the corner of a room. crouch
like a violet danger. the crops still break
through the soil. still speak their
ancient spider language. i name myself
over & over. first after the sound
of shifting soil then after 
the first firefly's light. my tiny tractor
harvests. it is not enough to feed me
or even the mice who sleep in the spoon drawer
but it is enough to make me think
i could get even smaller. buy a smaller tractor.
one the size of a sunflower seed. 
drive it until i am let loose. by who?
i do not know. i wish i could grow like 
the sugar melon. a moon within
a moon within a beast. 

eco log

in the last weeks of winter 
i couldn't get myself to light
the fire anymore. i bought eco logs
& cut them into little medallions.
lived by their urgent flames. the ghost
who warmed our house begged me
to let him rest. i pointed out the window
to the grey sky & the whales in the clouds.
i said, "not yet." i do not know
what the eco logs are made of. they are
only fragments of trees. they know nothing
about being a limb. about reaching
for a handful of light. i made all kinds
of promises to the spirits. 
"when it is bright outside... when it
no longer hurts my bones to swallow
the air... when the birds start rolling 
their eggs like bingo balls... then 
maybe i can feed you my hands. then maybe
everything will be easy again."
the logs were made in a factory. 
an assembly line knit them & then
they arrived to me through a series
of forgivable violences. the fire asked me
over & over, "will you tell me a story?"
i had run out. i have run out 
for awhile now. i always tried though.
told the flames about a cousin who
i never met who my aunts said was trans too.
i always wondered what we might
be able to talk about. if the rain
had enough legs to get us home.
when the fire would go out, i would 
try not to weep. instead, i would return
to the eco logs & the little purple lighter.
flick it until it sang. i hummed with it.
like all pennsylvania winters, winter broke
far too late. there are still ashes 
in the wood stove. i like to imagine
they are soft & that the ghost sleeps there. 

house of eggs

sometimes i believe that yolks
are a storybook. the last twelve eggs
i opened had nothing but a gasp inside.
the chickens do not sleep anymore.
they work to add onto the house.
room after room of eggs. you can only
eat so many shells until you are sick.
until you start coughing up vases.
crystal rabbits. halos. i am too afraid
to turn on the stove of eggs. instead 
i lay down on top. wait to hard boil.
till my guts become squid eyes. i don't
even see you anymore. you moved into
a far away room in the house years ago.
growing apart is the kind of grief
with no hole to throw your teeth into.
i wake up in the middle of the night
to ask the chickens for a favor. 
i beg, "will you make me a room that 
cannot be crushed?" they look confused.
the moon has thousands of legs. 
they believe i am crazy & so they chatter
& hurry away. i know there is no such thing
as an egg that does not fracture but 
i have this dream of a place where
i can go without a roof. the rain comes
& so does the golden sun. i am not myself
or i am the self who finally has a tooth. 
i am unsure if there is a me in here.
it is like searching for the bottom
of a ball pit. you used to sing & i would
hear it through the eggs. i would rush
to try & find you. now, you don't sing
or else i can't hear you over the eggs' calling. 
the chickens build a bell tower of eggs.
i go & wait for you there. i wonder if
you are hungry in the ways i am
or if we are just two bells in the purple dark.
the chickens lay & lay & lay. 

weather reveal cake

they used the dull knife.
a slice to the cake's forehead.
it did not bleed. 
everyone was waiting
for a gender. they had their pink
& their blue ready in all shapes
& sizes of tupperware. 
before i was born, i worked
in the clouds. i formed raindrops.
i riled the air up to a frenzy. 
i was always going to be a storm. 
hail the size of pupils & a broken window
that used to hold the sun. 
in the shower at night, i sometimes
turn off the overhead lamp.
i sit on the floor & pretend i am 
not here yet. still a little creature
with no duties but
to make sure the water finds it way
back down. we are all at some stage
of a return. like salmon to 
the breeding water or deer
to headlights. no matter what
they did the cake would not bleed.
would not give an answer. it rained
indoors & everyone had to run outside.
their clothes soaked. in many ways
i am the opposite of a vampire.
i go where i'm not invited. i take
my gender & let it thunder. i was 
doing before i even had this name. 

dream bathroom

i am a collector of locked doors.
sometimes when things are bad
i just lay on the bathroom floor & convene with
the mold blooms above the shower.
wait for the isopods to arrive from
the grimy seam between the tub & floor.
they hold prayer books. i scroll on my phone
until my eyes are cradle-bound 
& violet. i try to imagine the bathroom
growing taller. a great chimney 
right into the clouds. i turn on the shower
to fill the place with mist. i know
that's why there's mold. the drain gnats
ask why i am always so sad. i don't try
to explain it to them. instead i hand them
my phone & let them scroll. the throat
of the toilet is full of sharks. the mirror
above the sink is so full of ghosts 
i am often scared it might burst. i don't
actually think my secrets are even that shiny.
nothing that would shake the earth. but they
are sometimes all i have. i wrap them in 
old newspaper like thrift shop figurines. 
set them on the edge of the sink. they tell me,
"we could dig deeper." they say, 
"a bathroom life." i couldn't agree more. 
i don't even care that i can't fully extend my legs. 
i look at the wobbly knob. its twisted
tooth. have nightmares that it falls out
& an eye peers through. i don't know
what i am hiding from. sometimes you wait
for a self to pass you by. an inconvenient self
or one without any gills. i finish my time
by singing with the pill bugs. i keep my voice
low & soft just like theirs. 

face recognition

instead of a machine i wish that
a creature would emerge from a pool of water
to take my face. is this a craving for angels?
i am more well-versed in demons. 
soil gods. there are several face-stealing spirits
but i think of the one from avatar 
the last airbender, koh. she takes faces
like masks. sews them into her insect flesh. 
drowning in her guts. i would go to her
& give over everything for some brief
bargain. at least with her i could be 
taken by the shadow. i do not want
to be consumed by just any deadly
little rich man. i would much rather
meet at the crossroads with a knife 
& a plate. trade my eyes for a bucket of gold.
walk around with them. live as a omen. 
there feels like there's some honor 
in the theater of meeting the ghost. 
of severing flesh. of being a true rotting zombie. 
instead, i let the machine feed. i give it a spoon
& a cafeteria tray. i let it trace my lips
as it considers where i keep my coins. 
prints ads into the hunger space. 
all my faces in a hallway of use. this one
for selling a pair of legs. this one for 
stealing a sliver of my anger & transforming it
into sorrow. i find a lake to look into.
see all the monsters beneath the surface. 
none of them breach for me
no matter how much i beg. 

plane full of geese

i end up on a flight with only geese. 
feathers in the aisles. i do not remember
where i am coming from or going. lately i feel
like a monopoly piece. some big finger
pushing me towards the holy "go." 
the geese ignore me. there is no wifi
so the world narrows. i wonder why 
they have chosen not to fly themselves. 
instead, gobbling up trail mix from 
little plastic cups. i never want the vessel 
to land. i want to become a piece of the sky.
if i gave a cloud all my water, would
i still be able to think? to write poems?
i have learned to shrink my list of necessities.
i used to need lungs. i used to need
a tablespoon of cream. my bank account
overdrafts again. i don't check it 
but i can feel it. i wonder where the geese
keep their money. maybe there is a pond
somewhere in an ugly ill-maintained park
where there are thousands beneath 
any given stone. the geese treasure right 
beneath our noses. i have stopped wanting
any of that. i want to open the window.
feel the wild air. the next flight i take
is a flight of only clouds. they do not speak
at all but they shift. the aisles go grey. 
thunder all over the ground. i evaporate.
join them in spitting myself up.
throwing lightning from my guts. 
when the plane lands i am home or else
it is my home now. my phone is emptied
of contacts. nothing but geese. i buy
a coffin from the airport gift shop.
set the phone at the throat of a half-dead fern
near the entrance. hope there is another flight.
any flight. a house in the sky. somewhere
with a television or at least a mirror.
somewhere for me to look & see
how i turned out. it is better to keep 
whatever self you manage to have in
a safekeeping place. beneath a stone in a park 
with the centipedes & the geese fortune. 

puzzle reprise 

when i see puzzle pieces for autism
i want to steal them. pluck them 
from the logos & the billboards
& bumper stickers. 
assemble them like worker bees.
teach them how to be angry &
verdantly disliked. i have to admit 
i reserve a sliver of tenderness 
for them. i picture the puzzle pieces
laying together in a field of teeth,
none able to interlock with
one another. no hidden picture. 
their little lobes like starfish arms or cactus knees. 
their alienness in a hallway of doors.
at the nursing home where
we used to visit my grandmother 
it was mine & my brother's jobs
to cut new puzzle pieces to make up
for the ones that went missing. 
i like to think that those wayward 
fragments escaped. are now somewhere
being a glorious autism. maybe
the stars are puzzle pieces just really
far away. i hate them when non-autistics
use the symbol like butterfly catchers
but i, in my stubbornness, remain 
convinced i could release them. 
puzzle piece moths & puzzle piece
fireflies & puzzle piece rooms
& puzzle piece dark. i find a piece 
in my hair & draw a life around it. 

the first straight person

he looked at the tangerines & thought, "billboard."
crouched in the grass. drew his finger across
the ground. delighted in a dream of borders. 
saw the elk sing & plucked their language 
from his heart. 
he did not believe in tying cherry stems
in your mouth. he thought, "love comes
from power earned & lost." he played with 
little plastic army men past childhood. he bought
a gun & married it in secret. saw people
as troughs. found a woman to make into
a woman. because what is a gender
without its mirror? he told her, "you have
everything you could ever want." she took
her hungers & put them in jewelry boxes. he bought
binoculars. he bought a little tape recorder.
he searched the valleys & the cities. he wanted 
to see all the ways people lived. not to catalog. 
not for a love poem but to invent new ways
to shrink them. he never just wanted 
a woman. he wanted a scheme of genders.
the small genders & the big voluminous genders.
he wanted genders to witness his gender. he wanted
a bunch of same-ish genders to tell him
his gender was big & marvelous. in the dark though
sometimes, his real hunger arrived. the licorice kind.
he would go out into the daylight. find
a tangerine. peel it with his hands. remember
what it felt like when once he met another 
boy beneath that tree. they did not kiss
or even touch but, in the velodrome of his chest
he saw their life together. felt terrified, 
not from homophobia. that wasn't invented yet.
he wasn't even sure it was romantic. a longing
to be seen. to be kept. he was jealous of the boy.
it was something in the way he ate. juice down his arms.
so, he crafted a way to control him. he became
the first straight person.