pin-up 

i want to know what
it's like to be a body threaded
into someone else's skin--
red & black ink child with the 
sewing machine sounds of a mother.
what is birth then for us? 
taut irish drum flesh
& squirm of fingers gripping 
the electric chair.
at the tattoo place i go to
specializes in pin-up girls--
they're posing all over
the walls, on their knees,
bending over, in martini glasses
& straddling fighter planes leftover
from the second great war. 
they have breasts like wooden tops--
each spinning on their chest--
on someone else's skin. i imagine
them coming awake, blinking as 
their eyes are sewn open--
the buzz of hornets. they writhe,
feeling arm hairs or leg
follicles bristling around them--
they invent a childhood in tall grass
& creek water to cope with the sensation.
they scold themselves for
giving bodies away to men-- oh how
could we let this happen? i tell
the artist that that's what i want,
to be one of them as i amble, 
pointing to different
pin-up girls around the room,
a cow-girl, a sailor, 
the girl in garter belts & lingerie. 
i say
i want to be that & 
the man who was sitting this
whole time in the lobby 
offers up his calf muscles.
it has to be a man (as we known).
the inability to observe one's own
body is liberating, becoming
a two-dimensional, brief encounters
with the mirror or the shop window.
so we grow old then, yes?
enmeshed in someone else--
i love that, the idea of 
aging with another anatomy. maybe
i invented this because i'm 
scared of loving someone like that,
or maybe it's out of solidarity 
for all the pin-up girls 
cold on bare skin in january.
if you see me though, ask the man
if you can touch me/us. 
feel the divots made by the needle,
trace me, cox me 
back to my own frame.

the woman's club

stage light body of a 17 year-old,
let's talk about who you
were 5 years ago. let's talk about
2 days before high school
graduation & my sand paper knuckles
& my novel printing tongue.
i'd wake up each day before school
to write a page of fiction, obelisk built
in front of my ikea desk, she believes
routines-- it's irish catholic prayer.
someone, someone please tell her that
she's not going to publish a book
tomorrow or drop out of college like
Salinger. tell her there's 
nothing heroic about the novel
other than the stubbornness of the
binding of old books at the library--
Dante's Inferno printed 1923 in her back pack,
refusing to let go of its pages despite 
fingernails yellowing, despite the tears of 
hell beneath the stage where i find her
sitting at kutztown high school's 
award ceremony. i expected to receive something
in literature, seeing as that was what
i prayed to. i sent angels 
to new york city to write the bodies 
of skyscrapes like all young girls must do. 
i made saints of dead men, plucking
rib bones & hope one would grow breasts.
i held seances in my bedroom: 
Fitzgerald & Hemingway drinking heavily in the corner
while i'd ask them for advice. they gave nothing,
laughed at all my inquires until they 
faded away, leaving bookmarks on the dresser.

the award i got that night was from 
the women's club of kutztown which surprised
me because i didn't know that we had one &
if we did there seemed no reason the award should
go to me. back then i wouldn't call myself
a feminist. there was something about
the word that scared me-- the inherent fire
of it. i would tell my mother that i'd
thought about it & she'd roll her eyes.
i avoided the term since. i googled 
"the women's club of kutztown" & found 
nothing. there's no remnant of
them to be found. it makes me think that
they're some secret organization, meeting
in basements & sneaking in the firehouse 
at night when the lion's club is done.
maybe they wear lavender cloaks & 
drink absinthe from crystal glasses. 
i imagine them, scouring the students of 
kutztown high school class of 2014. i have a hard time
imagining why or how they would choose 
young me other than a divine premonition--
their leader, with her long grey hair &
crystal ball consulted with the great ones,
with Gertrude Stein & Audre Lorde &
Simone de Beauvoir all of who were skeptical
of me, they suggested waiting for
someone more promising,
pointing to my lack of appreciation for
the novel Their Eyes Were Watching God as
a bad omen. it would be three more years until 
i took a class in feminist theory & only two
more years before i'd shake off my womanhood
entirely. 
one is not born but rather becomes
a man (forgive me). 
the award was just an envelope
with 500$ that i probably spent on 
the summer.
someday i'll find them though, i'll
robe myself in lavender & step out 
at dusk & known deep inside me
their meeting place.
when i arrive they'll scowl & shake their
heads & tell me that i'm somehow both 
too early & too late

martian 

like a rusted trestle or martian
earth i amble along the crease of
your scarred flesh-- 

the knife's careful work a kind
of geography

i stand in the mirror.
use a felt-tip pen to mark the lines 
where a surgeon will cut beneath 
each breast.

on nights like this i assume
we should be able to see mars

dislodged from a throne &
wanderlust between stars

iron oxide flesh--
the rusted bridge where the 
train used to pass over
the quarry

the god of war will work his 
blood in us

pray for steady hands
& for astronaut footprint 
in the red earth 

i've been searching google images 
of breast augmentation surgeries

a facebook group called 
"Top-surgery FTM/ Non binary"
lets me in & i sit & watch 
our bodies unfold into
one another

plural like the terrestrial 
mars who cannot hold onto water

there are inter-planetary 
reactions made across 
laptop screens

"mutilated"  is a word
my mother will probably use

the scar lines are 
purse lips

closed eyelids

i'm still looking for mars 
up there

like an earring dropped
onto the carpet

this time tracing myself 
fingers across skin 

i'm asking for a scarred body 
out of love for celestial ones

oh if i could use all our
scars like highways i could
walk mars bound & alien 

no one would ask me about 
what i do with my skin

why i do with my skin

what color is the ground
beneath you?

when they ask about my scars
i don't want to hesitate to tell
the truth but we will probably 
end up out here 

with low gravity & 
fourth planet abandonment

almost sustaining life 

but not quite

a jealous body
footprint bruised & aching with
the rovers tracks

they're trying to dig life
out of the craters &
valleys

like i try to unearth something
in a body 

yes, another poem about the moon 

you said there was nothing more 
to be done with moon poems so i 
took it from behind the shower-cap clouds
& kneaded it on the counter.
the mound of white-dough. the flour
on our hands, pressing down & stretching.
when i think of bread i think of my mom
& about the old oven with the cracked 
stove-top. we promise we're going to
put it back once we're done. in the mean
time we'll just let the ocean turn
still & rest. does it get tired of
being pulled back & forth? would it
run away if it could in a blue station wagon?
i turn on the faucet & out comes poppy seeds
for the everything bagels mom is going
to make. we're using the dough for bread bowls.
they rise on the counter with a damp
towel over their heads. that's what they
told us to do if you house is ever on fire,
put a damp towel over your head. they didn't
tell us what to do if that fire happens to
be god or the red-coil inside of the oven.
the timer on the stove laughed with green
neon numbers & i'd check it every few minutes.
we don't bake much anymore, especially not
with the moon, what with all the effort
it takes to yank it down from above. 
we open the oven just a crack to see the
planets with their browning tops &
their asymmetry. back then it frustrated
me that none of the bowls every came out 
"perfect" but now i think of them like 
good tossing out the marbles from his pocket,
hoping one catches in orbit & one was us &
one was a doughy moon. i always want to press
fresh bread to my face-- it feels like 
another body-- too warm to be alive. mom
would help me hoist the nicest one back up
between dull suburban sesame seed stars. she'd
let me cut the top off before we'd fill it
with a ladle of italian wedding soup. who's getting
married tonight? eating the broth-soaked crusts
with my fingers, mom breaking bread & releasing 
steam ghost clouds: this is what i do with the moon.

i smiled & the mirror told me my teeth had become
corn kernels-- yellow blushing from the big
metal pot on the stove, each one sweet & ready to
burst. 4th of july 5 years ago we were sitting
on the wooden porch eating corn & potatoes
freckled with old-bay seasoning. there were
lobsters in the mix & your mom called it 
frogsmore stew, which  was really just boiling
odds & ends with salt & red seasoning, poured
out on a picnic table covered with newspaper. 
i want to like messy food but the only kind of messy
food i like is fresh fruit, like biting
a nectarine & having the sunny orange juice
make a horizon down to my elbows. the earth tilts
& boiling water makes the meat come off
our bones, tender & white like crustaceans. i didn't
want to eat them, the lobsters, but you said
they were delicious & that we should try everything
once. dunked in ceramic dishes of butter, i let
you snap-open the shells for me-- their blank eyes
staring forward, emptied of rocky Maine shoreline 
up the street still hushing us, telling us to
chew more quietly out of respect for the dead. 
i'm still biting across the cob like a clip
of ammunition. take my teeth, god. lodge them 
in husks & grow them in fields behind my parent's house.
this is what happens when you let boys love 
your body into an extension of his, 
there are you are feeding me/feeding you, 
newsprint dripping & stamping the red lobster legs
we won't read the news of the hurricanes 
boiling each continent one by one like great big 
skin-peeling potatoes. i take kin with the lobsters.
recalling you cracking my clothes off for me &
asking me what i wanted. 
a lack or deficiency of something
for white teeth. for a great big metal pot.  

two big chickens 

I.
we took the chickens to your friends farm in the 
metal cage with newspaper lining. on the jeep-ride over,
their wispy half-down-half-grown-up feathers
blew around like dead-leaf tornadoes. i tried to catch
a few & stuffed them into my pockets to keep in your memory.
the chickens were a 5th grade class project with names. 
Bob & Lumpy (lumpy named for the bumps across his egg).
i had known all along that they would eventually get
too big for us to keep. they lived in the attic when 
the weather outside was dreary & i imagine them
scanning the toy shelves with the plastic dinosaurs
as they paced, cage metal rattling. did they take
inventory when i was gone? counting the iguanodons 
& t-rexs? did they see Billy's match box cars?
hypothesizing that maybe they were normal cars just
very far away. the chickens are dead now (i assume) but 
i like to think that on occasion a memory of me
flickered in them. maybe of my blue knit hat or
my pink hands that holding them when they were small
& not too big.

II.
the chickens we raised when i was in 5th grade 
keep growing. too big for the cage, they break
the metal mesh & the feed bowl spills everywhere
across the green carpet. we forgot about them 
in the attic after all of these years. i'm 21 now.
they took notes from the dinosaurs. 
we should all take notes from dinosaurs, let the scales
increase across flesh, feet take claws & press
fossils into the dirt yard. with their beaks
they puncture the windows, flutter out
into the driveway where my car is running for
me to drive home. they peck the bumper, swallow
the tailpipe. i try to apologize but they're not
having it, they want to take something first, like
most of us do when we feel hurt. i close my eyes
& hold out my hands & wait for them to be small
for me again. i tell them they are the perfect size.

houses with butter & the mother's almanac II

on the floor of the upstairs bathroom
The Mother's Almanac II lays splayed open 
like a fat butterfly, wings thick with 
advice on the "challenges and changes
of the school years." the book is yellow-toothed
like the butter on your family's table.
we didn't use butter in my house so i
always thought of the substance as alien,
melty in the metal dish. through high school
i picked up The Mother's Almanac II on occasion
before taking a shower or washing my face.
the children on the cover had stick-people
arms & legs-- one riding a bike & another
jumping rope. to the left was one girl with
wild red hair. i would hope to find something
of insight about what my mother was trying to
do with us. i would think to myself that
the answers could be right beneath the pages.
the book was divided into the segments of our
being "The Mind" "The Body" "The Spirit."
a kind of growing-up sacrament. we made holy
with the Smart Balance margarine on
wheat bread, a table spoon in the pasta,
baked into spritz cookies in december.
you said it was weird that we never used butter
but i feel comforted by the green & yellow &
white tub on the top shelf of the refrigerator. 
i usually gave up pretty quickly on 
my search in the book, coming up with nothing
of concrete importance. there was nothing
in the book about homosexuality but it did 
say that you should talk to your children
casually about sex, a few times a year 
would be best, no in one big "the talk."
i found this most striking because we 
never really talked about sex, not once.
the closest we got was when mom explained 
where the pads were in the downstairs bathroom.
i makes me think now about what purpose the book
served for my mom-- i she read it for comfort
or for advice, conjuring the soothing 
voice of on mother to another to stand in 
the steam ridden bathroom while she took a bath.
the butter would melt in there. you wouldn't
understand though, your family puts
too much butter on vegetables. my mom usually
cooks everything with a tablespoon of 
of olive oil, a pinch of salt, or a spoon 
of margarine from the yellow & green & white tub. 

green dress

there's a picture from your baptism 
where we're all in the church gathering area
we're standing around you with your pink coral fingers 
& desert grass hairs. when i was little &
there were baptisms at the church billy & i
would press our faces to the back windows 
to watch monsignor pour watch over new
babies heads, freshly dressed in white 
at the wooden table behind the foundation.
to tell you the truth i don't believe in any of it.
yesterday a friend & i talked about
how we want to get our uterus removed.
i don't actually know what a uterus looks
like but i imagine it like those oil cruets 
at the back of the church in the glass case,
all full of thick amber liquid, the holy oils.
is this our way of making sacraments?
i shouldn't be telling you all of this.
i meant to tell you that my favorite dress i
probably ever owned was the green one
i wore to your baptism. it was a soft &
stretchy material. the way it fell didn't 
make me feel too much like a woman. 'M' on the neck tag
stands for Mother not Medium. as we all know
the median of a girl is a Mother. if i get
rid of the thing (my uterus) does the church
send the babies i don't have to hell? the ones
who don't find a cruet to sleep inside.
i'm thinking of it now like the plastic
bags we took fish home from PetCo inside.
what's it like to grow up un-saved?
does the skin develop a tolerance to fire?
i want to adopt a child someday & i think
i'll go to hell to see if any of them
will come up with me, the ones that didn't
get baptized before death, a new resurrection.
god will say "that's not how it works."
& i'll say "when have i ever been 'how it
works'." i'll be wearing that green dress
as a boy when i come to find a baby down there.
i remember how to take care of them from
when billy & i would watch you. your mouth
terrified me & your soft skull. that green dress 
probably wouldn't fit me now. i had dyed
black hair & after your baptism we ate hoagies
in the kitchen. if anyone asks me when i'm
having kids i'll tell them about when we baptized you
& about the thousands of babies just under
the carpet. the devil keeps them safe from
growing up too fast.

to have achieved the time/space immunity
of a pigeon-- rafter & tasty-cake wrapper born-- 
dove dropped down the chimney. i want my
feathers grey to keep the dust of all us
travelers. run your hands up my thighs like
the gritty sidewalk outside of port authority 
where the wheels of my suitcase
got tangled in shoe lace & electrical wire.
walk two blocks to your apartment where i 
ask you why you lock up your bike. 
coal under my tongue i come to ask the pigeons
about the origins of human language-- they know
us better than ourselves. i read they 
were the first domesticated bird but i don't
believe that. we cohabitate the same body
of trouble-nurturing & tenement window. 
do they, then, share the blame for the genocides?
they highway-blood & demolition sites? close behind conquer. 
the common language between us all is a bird.
in paris & new york & marid & west virginia feed mills 
& the underside of the bridge we we sleep. what name
do we give those who watch another creature's
history unfold? mud-scholar, a scribe of talon
& fingernail grime. up riverside park you told
me you hate pigeons as a few rooted through the
recycling bin on a oddly warm day in december.
christmas was coming like fever. i dis-trusted
you after that. sleeping that night i imagined your
body a great obelisk. i follow the pigeons,
un-making whatever home i held with you. 

fireflies/lightning bugs 

I.
you tell me that you snuck down to the park
to catch fireflies. all rising from the grass
like white/yellow-glowing match-stick heads. 
what else are fireflies like? i won't do them 
the disservice of calling them stars
again. the street lights have dulled the night sky
around here-- are the fireflies making up for it?
trying desperately to re-make a tired heaven.
they're probably sick of that, of being stars for us. 
did you catch them in your cupped hands or try to fill your
pockets? did they follow you home like disciples?
all twelve hundred of them, taking off their sandals &
tossing them in the creek.

II.
i tell you about the fields around my house 
& how they fill up with thousands of lightning bugs. 
paper lantern bodies, my hands out the jeep window. 
i'm casting out a fisherman's net to reel them all in for us.
walk on water & soybean. i'll bare my feet & wash them
in June. did i ever tell you about the coyote's hand
in making the solar system? how he was impatient
with god's meticulous stare arranging & scattered them.
we're lucky for tricksters. i imagine the lightning bugs 
are the bodies of handmaidens, come back to adjust 
the position of celestial bodies & flesh bound bodies.
in my own yard the lightning bugs always seemed to 
escape in the grass. will you meet me there as small
as you can? between grass blades oak tree tall?