islands

we called them islands:
those little deposits of 
pebble-stones & silk that
collected in the middle of
the creek 

grass growing tall & wild 
with the heat of may

check your hair for
ticks in the light of
the down stairs bathroom

ceiling fan whispering
to the mirrors that you 
& me were explorers

people keep asking me
where i'm going & what
i'm doing with my life

& i want to tell them
that i'm collecting islands

the smallest ones i
can find

folding them up like
brown paper napkins or
amusement park maps

some are reluctant

i have to tell them stories
about how gentle & 
how careful i'll be with them

extending an arm & helping
them out of the creek water

their hair made of
short scraggly roots

dripping as they test
out their legs

i take islands to lay underneath
the oak tree at the play ground:
the one i always write about

i go back to check on
it whenever i visit my
parent's house because i'm
scared that one of these
times it will be gone

leaving a tiny yellow sticky note 
that says "moved on"
where it's massive thighs
once dug into dirt

the island climbs the shadows
of trees

she falls in love with
me without effort & 
i tell her about all
the times i walked on her
& how gentle i was

i show the island where
the girls used to sit
to watch boys play soccer
on the playground

where i used to hold caterpillars--
letting them crawl up
my shoulder until they 
reached my neck

my love for the island
is probably selfish 

i want her bodies 
for myself-- 
to barefoot-discover them
again & again

we walk down to the end of
the trail where we once
built a bridge from 
fallen tree trunks &
the island takes me in the water

she tell me to lay down
on my back & tall grass
begins to grow from
my chest

stones in my joints turning
gritty as i let it happen

she tells me 

this time i will explore you

& i let loose all my joints

no longer floating but touching 
the bottom of the creek 

her feet are surprisingly soft
& new like the necks of white 
mulberry flowers

she crouches & writs her 
name in the sand

i grow-- first trees & then 
waves & then salt water
& then bird tracks 
on my clavicle 

we take turns like this 

becoming & un-becoming

tomorrow i will be the girl
with the brown hair down
to her waist

& you can lay face down
holding your breath beneath
the water

1.
black asphalt grit in between toes. 
the drive way cups its palms. thunder clapping
the lids of pots & pans escaped
from the cupboard. billy goes inside
because he's scared of being struck by lightning.
screen door mouthing the words to a song
by simon & garkfunkle playing on a record
in the yellow sun room. t-shirt stuck to skin.
wet feet on kitchen floor & towels from
the closet at the end of the hall. 

2.
i graduated college this morning & they 
were calling for rain. the sky held out-- 
coloring in spaces between ribs with graphite. 
clouds fast & morphing. i'm wondering if it's 
the ceremony that changes us or if we were 
altering along the way. the rain comes after. 
heavy & childlike. i walk out on the back step. 
grown man-woman, asking it to come down harder. 
drench me. dripping on the tile bathroom floor.

if you bring forth what is within you
-Gospel of Thomas 

let's start with the
soybean fields & the onion
grass tucked behind your tongue

i'm pulling us out
by the neck 

i'm going to try 
to be honest with you

but it's hard with all 
this is pollen in the air

i've been having to handcuff
the clock to my wrist to keep
it from turning into a morning dove

did you hear that?

that's the sound of 
the wood pecker making 
a home behind our knees

let's walk around campus
one more time

i want to finally read
all the little memorial plaques
where dead people were stamped
into stone & metal 

their ghosts watching us
from benches & from 
the branches of sapling trees

some find each other 
& learn ball room style dancing

i remember how you
always wanted a boy to dance
with you like that
& i kiss the back of
your hand & promise to learn

promise to brush all my skin
with oil paint &
step into a portrait when 
it is time

for tonight we'll help them 
step down

old deans grinning with
their hands behind their backs

college president's with mouths
pursed shut like the cracks 
in the sidewalk down main street 

where the street lamps 
mistake out crowd for 
phantoms

i point to my wrists to
show the blue in my blood
& they with like bread ties

i've avoided telling you
that i'm graduating tomorrow
because i'm not sure yet what
that supposed to mean 

i asked the statues on campus
& each of them threw their
head back wildly & laughed 

i tell you that i studies english 

& you ask where  our plans to
become a psychologist went

& i say 
the best laid plans of men
often turn to mice

last night at baccalaureate
the organ grinned & 
kissed us in the only
way it knew how

i wish when i opened my 
mouth that it could sound something
like the big pipes over
our heads in the chapel 

the preacher quoted 
thomas & said 
if you bring forth what is
within you it will save you
& 
if you do not bring forth 
what is 
within you it will destroy you

& i saw me & you 
sitting by the old foundation
they tore down two years ago 

tossing in pennies 
& holding hands

i'm telling you that i know
bringing forth isn't 
like pulling weeds

like when dad & you would
kneel in the church garden 
& tear out those prickly
green plants

roots dangling & full of
mulch & dirt

i imagine bringing forth is
more like drawing the 
string of fake pearls 
from the back of our throat

one bead at a time

where did all of our
left earrings go?

did the oak trees eat our 
claddagh ring?

or did you make off with
it when you knew i 
was taking you somewhere else?

did you build 
a fifth floor to the library?

where you can sit with
your easel 

painting a picture of
yourself in our 
favorite pink flower dress

bringing forth yourself 
on the canvas

the act of disembodying 

i'll hang the painting inside 
the closet of our first
dorm room where only
you & i will know where
to find it

bringing forth can 
mean small deaths

can mean eating soup spoons 

& leaving the door unlocked 

i do not become
a man to save us 

even though i want to

i pulled it out of me

roots dangling

soil under nails

what is destruction then?

the fountain's ghost
is hungry

i made you into 
a penny-- heads down

i want to tell you about
the candles i light on my
dresser

they're made of bees wax 
& burn sweet beside a small
dish of rose hips & calendula 

i used to be catholic
& sometimes i accidentally still am

you would find mass intriguing

they would notice us both

with our monstrous bodies
trying to fit in the wooden pew

did i ever tell you that 
my grandmother couldn't go  back
to saint catherine's 
until she got her marriage nullified?

that she made do with the lutherans
&  their red doors

what kind of religion do you make?

i've seen you crouched 
on your knees sending dried leaves
down the creek beneath 
the bridge with all the
graffiti

are you sending them to gods
down stream?

do you believe that the water
flows into their mouths?

gaping open like
baptismal foundations 

maybe the river flows back 
to us instead 

did you you know 
that the ancient egyptians
floated down the river to get
their hearts weighted?

what if instead we
floated back to ourselves 

like waves chewing tedious
mouthfuls of sand

i came to you wondering 
what kinds of gods there
are for creatures like us

what ceremonies we can build 
between us

do you wash the red out of
your eyes?

i was confirmed & the bishop 
made a cross on my forehead 
with the consecrated oils

let me show you how i bless
honeysuckle nectar 

& milk-white rubber tree blood 

there are gods for us
i'm telling you

there must be

bailisk

what is it exactly
that happen in the eye of
the basilisk?

is this where black holes 
send their teeth?

where the ocean's
bottoms give out & everything
is sucked down the drain

i'm sitting on the edge
of my parent's bathtube
with a trickle of blood 
trailing from my heel 
like a ribbon

razor in my hand

i feel bad for him

crawling along on
his stomach 

does he learn to 
walk with his eyes closed?

afraid to stare at 
even the blades of grass
for fear they'll wither
turn brittle & dry 
contorting like match sticks

i have always been bad
at making eye contact

his eyes pours out
all over me-- battery acid 
on the bed sheets

i keep the burns to myself 
& tucked me knees into
my chest

become a dried lima bean 
& wait for them to use
me as a bingo chip

on occasion he punishes himself
with his own reflection 
in the water

the smell of rain 
coaxing him out of his
hole dug out of the musty earth

this is the pond
where my father & i would
fish with potato bread on
the hook

& the algae would come
like green bride's veils
to keep us from looking
beneath the surface

he moves away the plant
matter until he can 
make out his aching shadow
on the surface

i'm watching from
the bench where the ducks
are biting each other
necks over bread crusts

we we're allowed to have
white bread but we could
feed it to the ducks

the sight of
his body gives him a dull pain
like fingers on 
a cold metal railing

he stares longer than he should
until his head throbs & he can
feel every single rib
like a second mouth

i wipe the mist from the bathroom
mirror & watch the surface 
of the moon leaving blotches
on my cheeks & forehead

i want a face wash to scrub
out all the details

blank mannequin face

no eyes & smooth nose 

level the earth like
dynamite bloody in the ankles
of the mountain

i want to comfort him

to tell him that he doesn't
have to keep trying to find
meaning in his suffering

i wish someone would
have told me that a long
time ago

before i tried to make 
metaphors out of my own
bones & flesh

he comes back 
to mirrors & dark windows
to get an idea of what could
be so horrible about
his eyes that they kill
instantly

he weeps in the park bathroom

& curls up alone
like an apostrophe

i want to find him

i can find something on
the ceiling to stare at while
i pet the back
of his head with my thumb

oh basilisk

there is nothing fair
about what bodies we get

but we can make do 

i want to see 
you through the algae
on the surface of the lake

we can eat the leftover
potato rolls & gaze off
in opposite directions
like past lovers 

on one last rendezvous

above all we know that no one
sees monsters & gods
more perfectly than children 

orange rind september dusk 
& the ghost cicada chorus of dead summer

i sat in the tall grass with the
May brothers & Tommy Hyer from
two blocks over

i wouldn't be born for
another forty-four years 

i practiced the bildungsroman 
with them

between broken pine tree branches
& yellow-faced pitcher plants
the flatwoods mistook us for
its long lost sons

turned into brush fire years ago

catching red-bellied salamanders
Eddy Mays had poured his mother's
raspberry jam out on the side of
road to use the mason jar to hold them

their skin car-hood glossy 
& eye balls as inside-out stars

wasn't it three children 
who saw the virgin of guadalupe 
& fatima?

are all monsters virgins
more or less?

some with snake heads to stand on

on the edge of farmer Bailey's
cattle fields you rose up

the brothers would recall you
surrounded by mist as thick
& green as cucumber skin

Tommy would say he swore the
fog was grey like his nana's long
church going-skirts

i could only see your 
red piercing eyes-- the cowl
like a halo behind your head

what makes a body in human?

why do so many monsters find
themselves like this? with irises
the color of salamander skin
& tail lights?

did you mean to choose us then?

trusting young boys with
your dark figure

did you imagine we might talk
there for awhile?

i'm sorry i ran from you

i am forty-four years 
older now & i wanted to tell
you that i would stay if
you came to find me now

you would like pennsylvania
& the corn fields hide foxes to
keep you company 

i would feed them watermelon
rinds in late august when 
i felt alone

i didn't visit the neighborhood
boys after that

but i watched the sherif search
the earth for remnants of visit

his flash light like a butter knife
through the dark

they'd find skid marks:
evidence of your space craft
or was it a time machine?

you don't have to tell me 
i'm only here to say that i
believe you & your anatomy 

some say you could have been
a barn owl but i talked to the
barn owls-- they say 
that humans often look for
comfortable explanations 

for bodies they don't want to understand

self defense 

I.
the wrist grab. lined up in two rows 
facing each other in our black uniforms.
hard wood floor & bare foot & ceiling fan. 
dad had helped me tie my belt, knelt
in front of me, careful as he recalled the knot.
the weak spot is between the fingers where
you twist to break free & step backwards.
someone grabs you in the wet alley way 
on main street-- the one you & your brother
peer down when you walk back from the library.
you remember the motions perfectly &
thrown them over your shoulder onto the cement ground,
shattered like a green beer bottle.

II.
the gun. we learned that if someone pulls
a gun on you that there is nothing you can do.
you kneel & pray. they didn't tell us to pray
but it was assumed. i told dad on the jeep ride
home that i would try & knock it out of their hands
at least. he didn't say anything. the gun is a lot
like a mouth. maybe if they would have taught us 
a move i would have known what to do when he 
opened his mouth that wide. how do you defend yourself
against a kiss when you don't have enough time
to figure out if you're going to want it? 
pressed me into a brick wall like a thumb tac.
there's nothing you can do. you kneel. you pray.

dear college

i was scared to write
this poem because i know
already that it's too big for me

dear college i have
gotten smaller

dear college what will
you remember about me?

dear 7:14 am alarm clock
dear move-in

dear rear view mirrors
painted on the front
door of my parent's house

dear august humidity
how you came back around
to remind me of the 
oceans worth of water evaporating
from my body while i wasn't looking

dear rivers i have filled

dear fountain & my wet bare feet

dear freshman hall & 
biology notes in the corridors  

dear blue hair 
dear burned pop-corn
& butter on the back
of my knuckles

dear first-year roommate
you asked me in july about color 
coordinating the room

dear mini fridges
& nirvana poster 

dear thrift-store lamp
& white light on wooden desks

dear sun coming
in the window of Wilkinson 314 
on the last day while
i continued the process
of emptying a body

dear JD Salinger
who lived up the hall
did you ever sit under
the oak tree in hunsberger woods?

did you look at the fields 
rolling away 

the children lost in them

dear catcher in the rye 
i've come back to you
like a key ring

dear bobby fong
the bag pipes from your funeral 
woke me up that saturday

dear boy who i called 
on the phone before 
8am spanish
who kissed me in the back seat
of his silver honda
glare of the ball field lights
in the window 

i forget who recently
i would have given everything
for you

dear intro to creative
writing we wrote our hearts

dear Sappho we were lovers
meeting at the wrong time

dear snows i have walked through

dear bus stop in pottstown

dear RA who covered
the bathroom mirrors for
the day-- it was me who 
tore off the paper to put on
eye liner

dear rose on the windowsill

dear bracelet you gave me 

dear boy we had wednesdays
dear boy i still think
of you almost every time i 
hear a bird call

dear professor i keep the comments
you left on my first poem
dear professor i'm re-drafting my body
dear professor i never said thank you
dear professor in ten years will
you remember my paper about 
our lady of guadalope?
or my poem about my father & kurt vonnegut?

dear books piling up in my closet

dear rocky horror supplies
in the basement

dear lost left socks

dear measuring cups
i keep telling myself i will
out grow you

dear OCD my third roommate

dear roommate i'm sure
i woke up some mornings 

dear roommate read me
that poem you wrote about irish rain

dear roommate i'll
miss our lamp light

dear friend will you turn
the oven on for me?

dear friend your poetry shakes
the cherry blossoms from
the trees in olin plaza

dear friend the ceiling wears
your fret board

dear friend we made it
dear friend our skin eats 
scars like watermelon rinds

dear friend we're comets
coming back around 

dear friday night
in the park pavilion

dear adirondack chairs 

dear lost claddagh ring

dear pink sun dress
whose body are you blooming for?

dear boy our bodies left shadows
like finger prints on 
my bedroom wall

dear room at the bottom
of the library
you have been my bones

dear quiet hours
dear stairwell phone call

dear girlhood
i loved your red lipstick
kiss my bathroom mirror 
while you go

dear Olin 3 
i take the stairs

dear movie nights
dear halloween makeup 
dear drag shows

dear lit soc
we could never read enough poetry

dear GSA you gave 
my blood vocabulary

dear person i believe there
is something good about being a man
because of you

dear college was i enough?

dear college

dear blood 
dear hair shaved to the scalp

dear walk to dairy queen 
on the first weekend
& the picture we took
of us all crammed into the booth

dear red spoons 

dear college 
dear seasons 
passing through you
like the minute
hand on a watch face

dear college do you
feel us leave?

dear college are you 
all tuition & stone?

dear muscles & flesh
dear graduations 

dear chapel i have
always regretted not going back 

dear god 
the last time
i believed in you without doubts
was in the mouth of reverend rice
on a snowy april morning
when he told me after service 
that him & god 
would always be there to
come back to 
no matter who i loved &
who i became

as long as i am  person of love

dear college 
have i loved enough?

dear all of you

you deserve crocuses 
& poetry without rhyme

dear english majors
there's only so much 
you can close read 

dear college
dear endings come
in waves

& almost always without
god or warning

phoenix 

i'm looking for
a better metaphor than 
a phoenix out of the ashes

i want to know
if the burning hurts him
or if he's numb to
the sensation of fire
after all of these years 
living through cycle 
after cycle of ash birth 
& flame

does he feel it coming

an aching deep beneath
the feathers in his chest

like a match being struck 
all the way up
his throat

i was telling you about
the trees in the pine barrens 

the ones with serotiny
which means that their seeds
only open in great heat
or fire

how the whole forest
set itself on fire 
& runs wild

legs cut-off at the knees

& falls into the 
copper water

i'm asking what does 
the phoenix have
to do with these trees?

does he live in the bark
microscopic & patient

does he light a fire
at the base of the tree
to encourage the process 
to begin

we were talking about
the ashes of our grandparents
& i said that i hope
that no one wastes time
burying me when i'm dead

i hope they take me
to the pine barrens 
where i can learn from
the trees & the phoenix

this isn't a call for
a rebirth 

this is a call for
what else we can do with fire

my grandfather sits
curled up inside a little 
black box in our attic

knees tucked into his
chest like an infant 

his ashes a bed to rest on

should we plant him
in the rocks under the pine tree?

should we leave him
to the devices of 
mythical birds?

if you give ashes enough
time will they encounter
the phoenix 
& all his temptations?

as he scratches at his
own skin from the discomfort
of coming fire

i feel that too
alone in bed at night 

the kindling & forest brush
in my rib cage starting
to smoke

the breeze from my 
air conditioner spurring it
forward

like most kinds of pain

we make the phoenix romantic 

& forget the combat
with endings in blaze

the refusal to burn

the thrashing of
the bird on the dead leaves 
as he asks god not
to make him come
out of the ashes again

to let him finally 
finally rest

i will not wake
my grandfather 

& i will sit in the bathtub 
until my own body smolders

a stream of smoke
from my eyelids &
the back of my throat

i cough ash-- 
viscous now like
wet saw dust

used match sticks
caught in my teeth

oh god oh god

next time the phoenix 
bursts open like
a red carnation 

will you let me go
with it?

only this time
let the bird sleep

& let me wake up

take a shower

wash the ash down the drain 
& take in 
my new body

I.
billy gets white rice & eats it with 
parmesan cheese in one of the blue & yellow kitchen bowls.
i always get chicken fried rice. i pick through
the oily grains to find flecks of scrambled egg.
we're at the breakfast counter & dad eats standing up--
licks general tsao's brown sauce from his thumb
before flicking on the tv for background noise.

II.
some nights you open my chest like a take-out box.
the little metal handle to carry me by.
i tell you non-essential things like how we'd 
get wanton soup for when my mom got home late from work.
like how billy & i would eat chinese leftovers
cold out of the fridge from the white boxes 
early in the morning before our parents got up.