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?

 

Binti's international night club

the building looks like a 
square robin's egg or a ice cube
carefully cut out from the sky. 
on the corner of 46th street & market 
there's a abandoned building with 
an orange & purple sign that reads
"binti's international night club"
the parking lot in the back is 
plastic bag-ghost empty & the chain link fence 
grows prickly weeds & 
rusted braces on its teeth. we drive 
by & i tell you again about my love
for lonely buildings-- for people 
with cracked windows. for the last few months
my mom has worn glasses with one arm
missing & a lens that pops out onto
the carpet. i tell you about
the abandoned factory in kutztown that
my summer friends & i would peer in 
the windows of-- graffiti contagious--
paint migrating to our bodies. i'd wash it
off each day in the shadow so no one knew 
i was considering deserting my body too.
i wanted to pull over, step outside 
& walk up to the big blue building with you.
the door is swung open like a broken arm--
missing bricks like discarded vertebrae.
i'm always torn as to whether or not i want
to fix old buildings or break them apart more
out of mercy. there's a tree growing out of
the roof & i imagine that on the perfect night
that moon glow sneaks into the main room--
we'd lay there on the concrete-broken-glass floor--
i'd pick the beer bottle shards from your
hair & we'd sleep there while the vines &
the weeds continued to push deeper beneath 
finger nails. on the outside of the building
there's a mural that reads
"What you want is worth waiting for."
at the stop light i stepped out of the
car & into those slanted white letters.
i want a twilight to break holes in the
roofs of every place i'll ever sleep.
i want you to miss me, not terribly, but,
on occasion. 
i want held hands & robin's egg shells to
step on. 
tell me then, tired-face stone, 
how long does one wait?

in 7th grade we dissected grasshoppers
with scalpels & pins to hold their
bodies open. hallways filled with hymolymph
for spreading oxygen & healing wounds.
i don't know what your voice sounds like
yet so i'm listening to the talk of critters
outside the window. they ask about what
they look like cut open. i tell them that
i saw recycled dead stars in their compound eyes.
now we share a formaldehyde drunk pumpkin seed heart.
i want to plant you in the walls of my room
& watch you turn ivy & green. i don't know what 
you could be to me, but i pulled over my volvo 
on the side of Cleaver Rd before
the one-lane bridge just to think about you--
about laying down together in the back seat
& opening the sun roof like a trap door 
to sky above clouds. that's where night comes
from, gossamer with the words of crickets.
what more can i tell you about me?

four corners

your windows talked about
the street below with the pedestrian
choir & the roller skate wheels
over sidewalk blips. you scrolled 
on your phone. the breeze
breathed pollen on our heads like
a great big salt shaker. 
i said i was going to leave & didn't
get up-- just sprawled out more
on your blue couch. you told
me you had to finish that article 
on your phone about how the 
four corner national monument is
actually in the wrong place. i sat
up as you searched for the location
on google maps & sure enough the monument
that all the tourists stand on to put
one hand in each other states is actually
a sizable distance away from the actual 
borders. outside i tell you 
that i like grey cloudy days because
of the way the color green looks--
the hyacinths & the cut grass & the cherry
blossoms done flowering all swoon
for us. i want to be poetic & ask if 
you think overcast-green is a feeling
more than a color. the four corners
national park has a big bronze & granite 
circle where visitors stand to put their 
hands in four states at a time (actually 
all on New Mexico). i imagine us standing there,
bending over into odd positions to divide
ourselves evenly. sometimes when we don't
talk for a few days i stand there on
the marker & feel two of the states start 
to migrate away-- Utah & Colorado 
making their getaway-- they don't 
want to be tied down-- they want some space
they are scared of commitment. the smell
of fried dough & powdered sugar kisses
all the borders. i told you that it 
doesn't surprise me that the monument 
is in a different location than the statelines
because borders are all made up anyway--
i wanted to reach over & hold your hand to
question the borders of our bodies-- my left hand
on your chest-- foot on someone else's back--
whose borders are you questioning? whose body
is a monument? you only have four limbs
to divide evenly among geographic bodies.
did you know the Navajo Nation are the ones
who own the four corners monument? i think that's
ironic because after all the land taken from
them they are the ones who watch over these
lines. clean straight lines, slicing bodies into
careful portions-- tourists bending over to 
be portions. let's go there sometime, me & you.
i want to go to both-- the monument & the real
lines & see which one i want to trust. lay on
the floor-- i'll paint the lines on your back.

 

i want to tell you the story of an altar girl/boy
who loved lightning the candles before mass.
first server in the sacristy, white robe size 13
with the brown chord around my waist.
oh, god tie me tighter-- i'm falling together--
there was a full-length mirror there 
by the closet, where i surveyed my holy-ghost body--
dove feathers shaken loose from sleeves.

i imagine god sitting on the other side
of the mirror, watching me as time passed,
i grew thinner & more like a used match stick--
eating handfuls of my own hair & bows &
penance & semen & violets & holy orders.
Monsignor shaffer would emerge from the confessional 
to tell me to light the candles. church still 
dark, the candles burning one by one at each

corner of the altar, fire genuflecting for the shadows,
spoke every language full of gossip.
as i'd sit through mass i worried that everyone 
could hear my thoughts, the whole church full-- 
i promised: i don't kiss girls i don't kiss girls
i don't kiss girls-- 
dug again for virginity in my thigh muscles-- 
reaching for it deeper in the walls of my vagina 

where the blood came from-- where the collection basket 
is passed around. i'm one confession away from his body
& purple blood. i served mass all through high school 
but my robe size never changed. Uncle rich
said it was inappropriate to wear 
flip-flops on the altar like the Torres kids, 
so i wore flats or heels-- hands folded in my lap.

i keep thinking that maybe it's you who will save me,
that you'll announce tomorrow for all the news outlets
that catholics can be gay/trans now & not ashamed of it--
that god isn't highlighting the faggot parts of me 
in the full length mirror where i still put on the robe--

see that's how they get you-- they make you think 
that it's your fault for having parts of yourself
that rot-- love the sinner hate the sin the sin the sin--
my sin is a church who wrapped my arms in gauze 
& painted my finger nails black like the gods--

pope francis i'm asking, who are you, then, to judge me? 
with our gold-chalice god whose mouth is a binder clip
& a burning oil-wick candle. my 18-year-old brother
tells me that even if you accepted gay marriage
that the church never could/would/should
& i felt the mirror in the sacristy shatter
from the other side where god struct out at me
for being a gambling dice in the holy space.

i'm offering you the sinful parts of myself 
for you to wash in those sinks where
the water goes right back into the ground

this, right here, is the space on my neck
where he kissed me back to eden-- where
we took off our nakedness in front of the snakes
here, on my thigh, is where i inject 0.3 mL of testosterone 
every week-- it feels like angel teeth &
here right here is where the bishop
made the sign of the cross on my forehead at confirmation,

just like he did for you. 
i don't need your permission for a god to make 
these/our bodies without boundaries-- 

i eat the apple whole 
i come early to light the candles

raining frogs

we were circling the edges of
the fleetwood pond: grey skey &
ducks feathers spat out on the rocks.
the water was murky & november-brown.
i said that in mrs. bowman's
third grade class we learned that it once
rained frogs & toads on a small town
in Indiana. it was in the 
1920s or something when everyone 
still read newspapers & i imagined you 
as a little boy standing in your backyard 
with a bullfrog in your hands.
you tell me that bullfrogs eat
birds & i'm thinking of bullfrogs
the size of dogs with duck feathers 
jutting from their mouths. it's thundering
today & i imagine each snap as the 
call of a different animal ready 
to fall from the clouds-- i see god
seated in a folding chair, conducting 
a mass fish or blackbirds to all jump down
at once. the storm warnings cry flood &
power lines whipped like strands of 
my old long brown hair-- sparks flying--
the the blackbirds slicing them with 
their beaks-- i stay in my volvo because
the tires of cars are supposed to keep
you safe from lightning-- for some
reason we learned how to escape a car
even if it's struck by lightning but 
i forget how to-- did you know that 
it'd rained spiders in Argentina 
& Australia? the fish make sense--
they've always wanted to fly--
they all, at one time or another, peer
out of the water to stare at a passing
airliner-- craving sky & air--
spider on the other hand are so enamored
of the earth that they invented new legs
to hold onto it with. i'd shut the blinds
if it were raining spiders-- i'd call
you and tell you to come pick me up &
take me to park again. i want to sit
under water while it storms this time--
see the rain smacking the pond from beneath
the surface-- what would that sound like?
you told me that frogs only rained because 
of a tornado but i liked the idea better
when it had no explanation. i like
science better without explanations. 
god telling us to jump, telling us
that this time it's going to rain humans--
i don't think twice about what it will
feel like to be raining but i do hesitate
before i jump-- i want you to be there
to fall with me. in the plummet. 
i picture you still meandering along
the rocks-- will you try to catch me, dad,
even as a raindrop? 

 

prays for more white blood cells

when mom's friend was sick
she'd tell us to pray for his
white blood cells. he had leukemia 
which also sounds like a 
very beautiful poisonous flower.
one with pink & petals-- all orchid-like.
in my bedroom the jungle grew thick
& wild. i always used one space
on the book shelf for god. mom's friend
would give me & Billy tokens 
for remembering god: a framed
picture of jesus-- light emanating 
from his chest in a stream of red &
to blue. mom says that's the holy
ghost shining through him. i thought
it might flow like a water fall &
drench anyone who stood in front of him.
he holds his hand up as if he's trying to 
grasp something. i imagine him
grabbing me by the collar & hosting
me into the picture frame that is also heaven. 
rosary beads ivy-growing up walls &
around the bunk bed posts. sometimes
when i try to sleep they clasp
ankles & yank me to my knees.
they want more prayers. there's no 
amount of praying that'll make
white blood cells. mom would remind us
to pray for them & they'd never come.
i thought of them as small round clouds--
almost like packing peanuts or styrofoam 
beads. they'd come in the window & i'd 
share them with everyone who needed them.
even now years away from my parent's
house the beads still find me on lonely nights
where my god is candle-light & 
smoking rose incense. constrictor around
neck-- appeased only by those ten hail marys.
the ratio is 10 marys/1 father--
because we all know the suffering of 
men is with 10 times that of women. 
mom would roll her eyes & say something
like "does everything have to be a gender
reading." i would probably still be catholic
if mary was god too. she does a lot of 
work you know? maybe we should have been praying
to her or mary magdalene who was probably
jesus's wife. she's the one who 
comes when i call-- pulling the beads up
off the walls of my room with weed killer.
she has curly hair & i've never heard
a prayer made up about her. this can 
be a prayer for her. if i were to make
a rosary for her it would be made of
thorns for all the times i've heard
someone call her a whore-- as if women's
bodies exist across centuries for 
men to adjudicate. maybe she keeps
the white blood cells, steals them
from heaven's clouds & fills her pockets.
planting them in the backyard to 
grow more flowering trees. mom's friend
gave us these little bottles
that say "holy water" on them but i never
filled them up. they sat in the god-shelf 
empty. i took them with me to church
a few times but got stage fright
in front of the baptismal fountain.
now i take glass jars to the creek
where the rosary beads grow tall & thick
all the way up to my shoulders 
this deep into summer. mary magdalene 
in there too-- pressing blood cells into
the earth. she puts a finger to her lips
& gives one to me. it's too late, 
but i keep it anyway.

 

1)Blood relationship

where we wash off wounds

where the used syringes swim

up-stream & become amphibian

 

i’m filling up the terrarium with

our blood—letting the filter kiss

veins with air bubbles

 

bursting—

disposable camera flash—

 

i bite because it hurts

to share such tight elevator shafts—

up to the fourth floor & through

the ceiling—where the monsters

make picture frames for themselves

 

the attic with the green carpet

& dolls still in their boxes

 

in this family photograph we

dissolve—empty green sofa &

red chair

 

i tac a map of the world to

the inside of my closet—pushpins

 

up the back of Appalachia

 

Moca, Canóvanas, &

the Tarra River

Loch Ness &

Point Pleasant &

Cape Verde

2) Sharing characteristics or origins

& we find that the monsters are somehow

everywhere

 

our origins recited by tongues

cut off & wriggling under stones

 

sharing red eyes

i sometimes strike matches

in the hopes you will all arrive

 

come find me & my cryptic maps

& my newspaper clippings &

 

take me to the origins where you

all go to be unknown

 

there are prayers that aren’t meant to

be received

just lifted

 

taking care to dispose

of each other’s bones

 

 

to high powered telescopes &
the men on the roof at the house next door
who are all my dad 

on the way to middle school after a thunder storm
i'd pick up shingles from the backyard. 
Texture of a fallen gravel driveway, i'd break
them into smaller & smaller pieces before dropping
them back in the dew-wet grass. it made me
worried that our roof was coming apart &
one morning we'd wake up to a pink tangerine sky
staring in at us. i pull the covers up to my neck.
next door they're fixing the roof 
& i watched the workers as they balanced, 
the shiny ladder wobbling with from a breeze.
i stood by in case someone fell & i could catch them
which i know is absurd because they're all full grown
men with tan work boots & i'm maybe 5 foot on a good day.
i mistook them all for dad pacing the roof--
all seven of him with different colored hair &
ladder that go to higher places-- one leaning
against the edge of the moon now that it's dark outside.
if i found a powerful enough telescope, do you
think i can climb it & help him put the shingles
back on the cheek bones of stars, cosmetic surgery
on the skulls of planets & roof tops. 
if they fall i'll catch them, the planets i mean.
i have a waste basket &/or my hands out-stretched.
up in the top of the science building on campus
is where they hoard the ladders to space-- they're
only suited for people who know math but i'm
sneaking up there anyway. be careful, i'm asking
you, i don't want to pick up the pieces of
more men from the driveway. gravel & wrist bone. 
as i observe they began to set up telescopes,
one by one-- the powerful ones that can see
every divot on my dad's skin. he has sun spots
from sitting on roof tops too much & letting
the rays peel off his skin like shingles. 
i walked out onto the driveway & asked one
of them, my dads, to help me up so i could 
take a look. gripped my wrists & hoisted me up--
forget ladders-- ladders are for men. 
i'm always surprised when i stare into a telescope
& things are still so far away.
i bent down & closed one eye. there was dad 
mowing the back yard-- grass staining his ankles.
i thought i could get closer. as i stood up i
found there were no more men on the roof with me.
alone i sat there with the shingles half-done
beneath me-- tucked my legs into my chest &
rolled down like a grassy hill. i broke on
the driveway but i'm used to sleeping in multiple 
pieces. the next morning out back i picked up
each rib & used the staple-gun to fix them in place. 

 

 

I.
Breakfast at a corner diner with yellow tile walls:
I told Mom that the milk on my Fruit Loops was spoiled sweet
& she took a bite off the spoon. She said it was probably 
just whole milk. I watched her buy a gallon of blue-cap every week.
we ate breakfast as a 1% family before leaving the city. 
It drizzled outside, scattering the lights from 
cars & cabs & signs through water droplet windows. 
Everyone was made of umbrellas (besides us). Sirens cooed.
We'd slept on cots the night before because the hotel 
had miss-matched our rooms-- I'd liked it because it felt like camping. 

II.
I sat in the front row of freshman English so I wouldn't
have to make small talk before class. The desks were chatting &
said: I've been drinking whole milk. Another girl said
she did too, that she drank whole milk until her hair poured. 
She had yellow-cap gallon lips. i imagined myself standing in my bed room 
with a tall white glass. How does one go about un-abridging a body? 
Adding the fat & the unbroken? Gods of vitamins A, C, & B?
I had teeth falling out like folded diner napkins. I thought maybe
boys were made of whole milk, that it was something they carried 
in their bones. Taste me then, I'm offering myself on the spoon.