prayer book underwater 

underwater the car moves slow.
there are eight door bells &
i know one of them is supposed to be
yours. they all ring when i hestitate
to touch. i hold my father's had & it's
dry like plaster. it comes apart: 
hunk of dry wall. i forgot my shampoo
so i rub my fingers into a lather,
down to the knuckles. which hand
will you use to hold a pencil? which
hand do you use for scissors-- pulling
three of them out of my backpack
& laying them in the grass. i use scissors
like prayer books. there was that
tiny leather bound book of the Our Father
that we found at the flea market.
sometimes i forget the words & the book
shows up on my windowsill, a dead bird.
it's empty now, you spoke the text out
of it. sometimes i do that to myself
i speak the text out of me & last night
in the molasses night i felt everything
stop: bugs mid sentence mandibles open.
i'm sitting in my aunt's living room
while we plan to depart again, like before
we left for disney world. they're boiling
hot dogs & the a re-run of the Phillies game
is on. they play underwater. the catcher
drowns & they fish him out so he doesn't
get stuck in the filter. i crouch on
the blue ottoman while aunt joan cries--
her facing smearing, a bowl of foundation.
i make empty promises with my thumbs--
smoothing her back into place. 
it's okay it's okay it's okay.
one time she told me she was shrinking
& ever since i've become aware that gravity
seeks to push us like zucchini seeds
back into dirt. underneath her layers 
of makeup is wrinkled  elephant skin--
grey as stone. we all have this-- we all 
have this. outside in the honey 
i thought of you & him &
how much better it is to watch
two other people fall in love than to
fall in love yourself. i saw both of
you breathing underwater like i can't.
i kissed your foreheads which were 
also the hood of my car. no--
my father is driving. my father is
driving even with a crumbling hand. 
you never found the nozzle on my neck
where the air comes out. i would have
asked you to bite it. the prayer book
gets up to stumble out like you before
i turn the light on. tell me
tell me-- are you a prayer book or
a pair of scissors? 
i'm looking for the door bell-- all
eight of them-- spreading fingers apart
to press them all at once. 
you talk about loving him like the
whole world could flood & you wouldn't
notice. i want to stop noticing. 
i convince myself to drink but of
course it's salt water. the night bugs 
float to the surface. up high beyond
the moon-line i see both of your bodies 
holding hands like new star formations.
down here i look for the foundation
i used to put on when i was a girl. 
it's in the medicine cabinet. my father
is there. i put on his face too.
he closes his eyes as i paint over
his lids & then my own. 

 

the poplar seeds in late june 

i have a habit of mistaking them

for angels-- the downy orbs riding

am exhale across the field behind my house.

the children we were pour out of me

from my double-kitchen door chest,

fingers frantic to catch the poplar seed

before it lands alone in the grass. i hear

your sewing machine late into the night

& i imagine that god picked up the earth 

like a sheet cloth-- set it still with

the presser foot & used it to plant 

the lines of oak & pine that flank 

the back roads, embroidering each 

stop-sign in our skin. asks me to lay my

arm on the table so that he can insert

the telephone polls up the length of 

my veins. don't move-- it'll hurt more.

not the poplar seeds though-- for whatever

reason he trusted them. will you trust

me like a poplar seed when i lose all

weight of my frame? when my bones turn 

translucent & soft? there's too many needles in 

the second drawer of my desk. there isn't

a poplar tree near by. these bodies are 

travelers. you ask me if they ever grow

or if these are just aimless knee-caps--

yours keep coming off-- i go out to find

them & we duck tape them back on--

why waste the thread?

i stay up with the moon-- without you--

as your sewing machine is commandeered by

god. his thimble clicking fingers. i'm waiting

to see one plant itself & start growing.

instead i pluck the tufts out of the air--

i swallow them-- parched & salty like dried meat.

they stick to my insides & the roots take.

i write you a farewell using thread 

bunched up inside my syringe-- injecting myself

in the thigh. the trees erupt-- branches

scrambling. they make a poplar seed of me.

oh at last, at last.

a list of things i want to break

place your right hand on the bible
& state your name. my mouth fills with
sand: open to a court room floor--
you hourglass you-- you time pouring ghost.
row on row of seat with bodies: 
assembly-line me-- don't trust the stones--
they're rotting from the inside out.
the metal detector goes wild on me--
sees all the spoons under my skin &
the letter opener lodged in my spine
from that time you mailed me a mouth.
i open my lips again & think time 
the only thing that comes out our the names.
there's a list written up my esophagus of 
every trans person who went supernova 
this year. the street uses their clothing
for quilts-- sequin squares & cashmere
parallelograms. there's fabric born
sometimes out of grief. i tell the judge about
the time i opened a jar of raspberry jam
& all the words came out-- the glass
tongue flicking, shouting:
they're sick, disgusting, how can we 
legitimize a mental illness? 
there's 2 gender 2 genders 2 genders
& i didn't cover it-- i let it keep
talking until it's voice echoed in
the kitchen. i stood naked in the mirror
& took the silver scissors to my body--
the pieces of felt drifting to the bathroom 
floor. wash the soul down the sink if
it refuses to take. i tell you
i find comfort in churches but i don't
tell you that sometimes i wake up
in them-- on the altar, empty. i look
up at the skylights & birds smack--
trying to shatter the window. a cardinal
a blue jay. a swallow. there is no priest
only the laughing of the baptismal foundation.
the shower is hot & i leave the curtain open
so that i can watch the mirror slowly
fogging over. when the mist clears there
is no reflection. i want to tell you that
court houses are made of wooden blocks
i want to tell you that your body is your
& yours alone. there are certain locations
that make real our own smallness. i tear
the pages out of an old bible. only,
they grow back so i take the book
to the shower, open the pages. ink drip
down to my elbows. what is it god what 
is it god? what could he know about water?

seal the record 

with the big metal shovel
that dad keeps in the back of the jeep:
the shovel he uses for mulch & stone.
with a handful of sand. with a pot & pan--
take the lid from the shelf my the kitchen
cabinet. they named me after my grandmother.
with the wooden spoon & the vegetable oil.
pour me down your throats with the good china.
i'm crouching patient in the tea cups.
i'm on all fours, sliding into the mailbox.
i dug her up from calvary cemetery 
for this--shook her in her box. 
she blinked & was startled. i brushed
the dirt from her face. she made me 
wash beneath my fingernails like all
grandmothers do. hot sink water. no one
was home & the screen door banged like a shotgun.
i told her i was changing her name (my name)
& she said we should get a bible & 
erase it from every page of the old testament.
she peeled the name off like shelling
peas-- tossing the husks onto the living
room carpet. a few she put into her
pocket "for good times sake"--
what will we call the wife of abraham? 
i ask & she doesn't look up from 
the book. in front of the judge i'll
tell him that my grandmother says it's okay.
that she doesn't mind having a grandson
instead of wife of abraham. 
seal the record with the envelops &
the gravel driveway. with the broken scissors 
& the plastic tablespoons. she picks up
the names in her dress & pours them
into the coffin with her. she says she'll
take good care of them-- lays them out
like a blanket for her to nestle back down
into. i apologize for waking her up & she
puts a finger to my lips. always
always always. again i use the shovel 
to place eight feet of soil between us.
mud on my hands i climb into the kitchen
sink & pour the water over my head. 
i sit in the spaghetti strainer.
i pick myself up by the handle &
walk home. with a locked front
door. with a shovel. with a shovel 
with a shovel.

 

susanna cox & the smoke

driving home, i mistake the
burn piles for fallen airplanes,
columns of smoke billowing from behind
silos & red barns. they're killing 
susanna cox against next week up
at the fairgrounds. i blame
the fires on her, angels nose-diving
into the Oley countryside. they shatter
just above the clouds from the humidity 
or grief. angels often combust in water.
she's break off the oldest trees at the base 
& tossing them into the flames. 
it's been about 200 years now since
they hung her for the first time.
what is history but a series of 
trials & juries over vulnerable bodies?
they're summoning me to the stand & i
plead guilty because i already now
they need girls to keep the first going. 
i see her on the side of the road,
she nods because she knows she can 
trust me. she's holding an armful
of hay like an infant. they killed
her for murdering her newborn. 
illegitimate: unlawful, not in accordance
or acceptance-- what kind of body 
can be born with the law wringing 
its neck? i sometimes wake
up with course thread around my throat,
i cut it off with a scissors i keep by
my bedside. i'm telling you this because 
i trust you. if you find me from the ceiling
know there was a due process know
that there was a verdict. at the fairgrounds 
she crouches down in the hay maze looking for him.
She whistles & doesn't know what to
call a boy with no name. rustling
the hay she names him after the sound.
i help her search even though i know
he's not there. they used his body as 
a brick a long time ago for the pavillion
where they're reenacting her trial again.
i'm 15 & were skewering the ox. i'm in
the bonnet & long red dress. 
it's body becomes black & chard from 
the coal under its hooves. it was dead when
it arrived but sometimes i still 
think i see it shake it's head-- blow smoke
from its nostrils. that was the first
time i saw susanna cox. she took a pocket
knife out to cut slivers of meat off
the animal's shoulder. i never told on her.
she's cutting off her hair & 
watching each strand contort
in the fire. i ask her what she's doing so 
far from the fairgrounds today & she
says that this year she doesn't want
to watch them hang her, not again.
one too many times. i take a handful of
hay from her & rustle it. the boy wriggles from 
the earth like a toad. he has a book of matches
in his teeth. his mother strikes one
just to watch it smolder & blow out.

collecting 

i've been collecting footsteps--
round & melon-like heavy in a basket 
like the one you used to use
to hold potatoes at the market.
they roll on top of each other--
some gone bad in the sun-- rotted
skin & sun baking smell. the yellow-jackets
come to eat. they land on the soles of
my feet & i shoo them away before 
i start walking again. if i get stung 
you'll have to take over for me. i started
picking the foot steps up because i was hoping
i'd find all my old ones. i want to 
put them in the bottom of my sock drawer--
slice them up when i run out of apples.
if i'm thorough then no one will be able
to say that i was here-- they'll come
through this small-town years later 
after i've long moved away 
& they'll find all of these impressions-- 
the old man who walks his bassett hound-- 
the two women who hand out jevoh's witness 
pamphlets by fifth avenue & the man in the
lime-yellow shirt who gets up 
to run even in the snow. everyone's 
taste different. some sickly sweet 
like overripe mango-- the small prints
of children by the graveyard & those
from couples as they both sit on 
a bench by the park pavilion. i'm not
going to tell you about this project.
you would probably tell me that it's 
neurotic-- that there's no use in retracing
all the steps i've laid in the last 
five years. my room fills up, i have
to be careful to not leave more 
marks while i'm collecting the old ones
so i wear bubble-wrap on my feet. i'm already
packed to leave. the UPS man sometimes 
picks me up & i shake my head & gesture
to my lack of postage. some footprints
are, of course, hard to find. i spent
yesterday by the bamboo thicket where 
i kneeled, running my hands through 
the scraggle blue night-time grass. 
this was from that night i ambled
out of the party to be alone, tucked
my feet under myself & took bites
out of my heel which tasted like the
rind of an unripe cantaloupe. when i find
the prints they're syrupy & the juice
drips down my face with each bite. 
sometimes i can't help myself-- i have
to eat them right there. i don't want
any help. i do want you that to know that
you can come see the ones of yours 
i've been picking up along the way. 
i know we haven't talked in two years but i
have a shelf in my closet for you. 
your impressions  taste like tomatoes & sometimes
a fresh fig. don't worry i'm not keeping them
for myself. these are yours. when my room
is emptied out & there's nothing left of
me around here you can still go back.
i'll leave the door unlocked. in the closet
will be my old earrings from when i was a
girl & the pile of every step we took
together. ripe & soft-skinned. do
you still like peaches? 

weight watchers

the ice cream sandwiches in the fridge
were worth 3 weight watchers points which
meant nothing to me as a 7-something-year-old.
the sexy "skinny-cow" sprawled out on the box with
the measuring tape snaking around her waist
like a constrictor. i woke up in the middle of
the night to check on her, to ask her how
she managed to pull her waist in like
a draw-string bag. Jean, the woman who started 
weight watchers, would gather meetings in
her living room-- desperate women in a circle,
a seance to summon the sugar out of their
bones. i'm fascinated by her with her plastic
black & white barbie hair. i imagine her
husband as a door frame, her up at night
giving sleep-less manicures to the doorknobs.
she's smiling in photographs, big, like a 
slice of moon. i see her in the kitchen. 
she hides mallow-mar bars in the cupboard--
eating frantic over the trashcan. they used
to make these tiny chocolate cakes that were
worth 2 weight watchers points & i'd peel 
the numbers off before eating them--
wrapper crinkling in the sink. you are sitting
at the kitchen table asking
again if you doing weight watchers made me 
anorexic & i'm trying to convince you that it didn't.
there's the lovely Jean with her weekly
recommended slab of liver-- stuffing the organ
in the blender to make it go down easier.
she had two husbands (as one does)
& the second was a bass player like my brother.
i see him in the corner of the living room,
walking the instrument-- two fingers thrumming 
string. he lets his wife work. she's openning
all the windows downstairs to call the women 
inside-- they've been moth-smacking against
the windows, all in their nightgowns looking
like moths. the shelves in the living room 
are lined with  weight watchers guides & i used
to page through them mindlessly. here is how
to determine the point value of a slice of
pizza, a roll of sushi, a cup of tikka masala.
Jean starts reading from it &  i cover my ears.
you tell me to go up to bed but the staircase
closes like an esophagus-- tongues flicking
for steps. her first husband is here now,
begging for her back & you cover my ears 
& tell me not to listen. in the living room
the furniture all turns into ellipticals
& you get on. Jean tells us that it's never
too young to start getting healthy. she picks
her mouth off the end table to smile. 
how many weight watcher points is this worth?
i ask the wall of food catalogs & they flush 
like butterflies or geese-- flapping mad up into
the attic. this isn't your fault. this isn't
your fault. the pumpkin pie in the oven 
spits numbers on the kitchen floor. you make
it every year & it's my favorite pumpkin pie
even though it's a weight watcher's recipe. 
Jean's there to pick the numbers up & press them into
the crust. i don't blame her-- i don't blame her.
i see her ghost crouched in a full-length mirror--
running her fingers across the soft skin of 
her stomach. i ask you to help me break it
& we toss the thing off the side of the deck--
glass all over the driveway. we eat two ice cream
sandwiches. leave one in the ice box for her. 

 

15 business days 

i'm on hold on the phone when it happens.
the desks goes & starts growing lysol-flowers.
i can't really describe them other than that
they had a purple smell & they looked like
morning breeze, all blooming from the surface
to the chair to the lamp & across the walls.
i set the phone down to pick them up.
they're probably masquerading weeds. you shouldn't
trust flowers. i don't know what fancy restaurant
i was at but there was one place that used
edible flowers as garnishes. i'd put the whole
thing in my mouth at once-- like eating
a dress. i felt powerful until later that evening
i'd get home & feel the plant weeping beneath
my chest. the flowers tasted like posted notes.
the "on-hold" song is the texture of an elevator--
even edges & buttons all across. i pushed one
& the room starts going up. i never said i wanted
to go up. the machine is not a good listener
the machine performs the task without a thorough
conversation. i don't own a vacuum anymore but
if i did i would use it to get rid of all
the dried of flower bits. they keep growing
& drying. they have a short life cycle like a 
house fly. in the bathroom there's three perfect
fly corpses-- they're laying akimbo with their
legs up towards the ceiling. the white counter-top
is their operating table & i tell them to count
backwards from ten. they're so much like 
knots of needles or rendezvous of aluminum can-lids.
i'm calling my surgeon to ask them how
long they're going take to come & fix me.
i imagine her at the door step right now-- breif
case in hand. she rings the non-existent door-bell
& lets herself in. she laughs at how
many flowers i have in my room. i'm openning
a trash bag & dumping them in saying "i was
just getting rid of these." she says there's no
way we can operate under such conditions
so we go into the tile shower room. dotted
ink lines across my chest. cut-here.
there's flies falling around me-- some the size 
of horses now-- legs all rigor mortis & crooked.
the on-hold music crescendos & i don't know if
that means someone's going to pick up.
i eat an apple from above the fridge &
i comes out tasting like posted notes. 
you can't eat after midnight the night before.
i'm tempted by the flowers-- as they grow in
my mouth i pluck them out-- tissue-tossing
them on the floor of my room. pick up
pick up pick up. the song continues on
speaker phone as i put on hand on each wall
of the room & push. when they do pick up 
i scramble for the phone, the flower smell
turning blue. they tell me that i have to
wait another 15 business days to know 
if they'll be cutting me open & the surgeon
who was leaning up against the opposite
corner of the room, cigarette in her teeth,
put the smoke out & singes the carpet. 
she pulls off her rubber gloves & flings
them at the trash can, missing. i make
her a bouquet & tell her not to leave.
i promise to be a good boy, the best boy
she's ever had. she doesn't talk. she shakes 
her head & makes fifteen dots on the 
calendar before leaving out the front door.
i remember the flowers beneath my chest 
& weep for them. my, a posted note.

 

the first time we had sex 
you put Grease on in the background.
i tried to pull the movie up to write
this poem, but you have to pay 2.99
& i don't think it's worth that much.
half the things on Netflix
are there just to use as background noise.
last semester i'd leave on Anthony Bourdain 
& pretend he was my father. i'd be there, standing
in front of the microwave while he sat 
at my desk opening a bottle of beer. 
we'd end up in Copenhagen.
4 months later i gave another guy 
the password to my (my parent's) Netflix account 
because i felt bad for not wanting to go on
a second date with him. he watches 
It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia
which i never thought was funny even
when i tried to. 
i only remember the first few minutes 
of Grease
with the ridiculous ocean fades in & out.
it reminds me of when this girl
i was friends with in middle school told
everyone she had sex with a boy on a beach
in Jamaica. back then i thought that was gross. 
the next summer at the beach in
Virginia i tried to flirt with a boy
on a skim board & ended up just sitting
in the sand & letting the waves smack
some sense into me. 
i thought maybe i was a lesbian because
i kept thinking of making out with that girl. 
you told me you liked John Travolta
with his black slicked back hair.
i don't want to unpack the irony of
two men fucking to Summer Nights
on a evening night in November. i do 
want to say that i don't
like Danny (John Travolta) or any boy who
wears a black t-shirt & thinks he's hot shit.
i remember wanting to shut it off
but you were kissing me & i was
trying to figure out if i liked it. 
i feel bad for Sandy (the blonde)
because i get like her sometimes.
get so wrapped up in the idea
of a person that i start to try to be
what they're looking for. i'm trying
to get better with that. i think
you wanted me to be a girl. 
i know i wanted you because i 
like boys with slicked back black hair
& girls with pink ascots. this is my
poem i can contradict myself. 
you were good at kissing. in that
opening scene i remember Sandy saying 
(before an obnoxious heterosexual romp)
i've had the best summer of my life & now i 
have to go away--it isn't fair
it isn't fair. the changes aren't fair.
i guess what really kills me is when
she asks is this the end?
& of course he tells her it's not.
i feel like that every time i start
to have feelings for someone. i'm standing
on a beach saying is this the end?
is this the end? i don't know 
why i wrote this poem to you but
i wanted you to know that you're better
than that Danny guy but not much better. 
Anthony Bordain, is this the end then
for the both of us? 
the microwave bleeps & he's in Sicily
& i know now that he's not my father
because dad doesn't drink wine. 
there isn't a sunset to hot-rod ride off into.
i don't have a black leather outfit.
this is, in fact, the end.
i'll touch your hair. i changed my
Netflix password so that guy couldn't use it
anymore. there's a girl somewhere 
kissing someone on a beach.

the choreography

you tell me you think it's inevitable 
that you will move to a town like the one
you grew up in-- the tiny main street &
the street lamp all coming on at once--
double yellow lines of the street like
one-suspender on a man who laid down
to watch us grow like onion grass
in his chest. encountering fireflies 
in the day time i shoo them away-- i unscrew
their lights to use as spare bulbs in
my bedroom. i tell you i need more lamps.
i've started to believe in the choreography 
of it all. it's not beautiful. i mean 
i think they're printing newspapers weeks
in advance-- there's a big vault beneath
the city where everything's been decided.
maybe there's a mail man who goes down there--
trembles in front of a plastic wrapped door
before he cuts it open again with a pocket knife.
i tell you, of course, that i belong in a city
that i have always belonged in a city.
i think i'm so adamant about this because i'm
terrified of waking up in the bed room
of my parent's house. i'll be forty-something
& despite living in a far away city,
maybe as far as berlin or madrid, nowhere will
be far enough to fight to design of it all.
i've been reading a book about living in 1980s 
AIDs crisis. David Wojanarowicz says that
living under Reagan was like having a pillowcase
pulled over his head, looking at all the 
little threads woven together & feeling entirely
powerless about them. he says that it's a kind of
feigned deafness under the wings of a helicopter.
i'm thinking of the time that at the diner 
overlooking the tiny airport
my dad told me that he was scared of
helicopters because sometimes they go off kilter
& decapitate people. i was scared to leave
the building because one was hovering, ready
to land. i'm hoping this will lead
me to the vault beneath everything. every city 
has one. where they tape the news & make paper machete
police officers. how far in advance
has this been planned? will you go there with me?
i don't want to feel choreographed alone.
there's a girl tap dancing on a linoleum floor 
& she's me & she sees herself in the mirror in a line
of young girls all doing the same. the leotards
don't fit. where do
you keep you pocket knives? i fantasize about
knocking main street down like a pile of wooden blocks.
i'm sitting on the floor with the broken glass
giving me away. they pick me up & fold me length wise.
they feed me onion grass & bent street lamps.
they tell me to close my eyes & let it happen.
when i wake up i'll start walking again, out of
my bed room at my parents house & up the highway 
towards the city, on her knees crawling
away from me. a wounded ant.