Life is worth living

-Sign on George Washington Bridge 
crossing from  
Washington Heights NY
to Fort Lee NJ

we trapeze 

the GW bridge ushering
us into skeleton

we're talking about
how mom is scared of
driving over bridges 

of cars drowning
themselves in water
like lemmings

i tell you
that i know how to escape
a sinking ship

wait for the captain 
to dissolve like
an alka-seltzer tablet

bubbles around our
cold water bodies

we'll float to the surface

dad says that from
this height we 
would die on impact

& the sign out the window
lets us know that 

life is worth living

& i say that if 
i were going to jump
off a bridge to kill myself
that i would probably
pick somewhere with
clearer water

dad says that you
would be dead before
you knew the water

i don't want to but
i see us outside
of the car-- leaning
over the side of
the cement railing

i could stand on the ledge
if dad helped hoist
me up 

i remember the jungle gym
where he used to 
hold me by the waist
while i pretended to 
swing from monkey bars
that were too high up

has anyone ever called
the suicide hotline number in green
type-face across the button
of the rusted tired sign?

or maybe they argue with
the sign

it's smug statement
written in metal

oh what a body made of metal

i didn't know
as we drove over it but
George Washington Bridge
is one of the most frequently
fatal bridges in New York City 

is there something calling from
the water?

headlight angels
murky beneath the surface

a barge boat collects souls
in fish nets &
re-sells them to the pawn
shop up the street

yearly there's about
70 people stopped by police

12 dead in 2016

looming near the edge

do they talk to each other?

is it crowded?

jostling between all the
margin bodies

the ghosts thick & 
smog like 

the truck in front
of us black cloud-coughs 
& we roll up the windows

their fingers snapped off
like twigs-- 
reaching into
our blue ford station wagon

i want to take them all
with us

let them sit on
my shoulders like gulls while
they think about
how steep the drop 
will be down to the hudson

i have wanted to
be dead many times in my life

it's more of a weather season
than a worth

what is your life worth?

is it worth water?

dad often mutters
these things like pennies
dropped into ocean
into river

i wish i were dead 
wish i were dead 
wish i were dead

are there all us ghosts
then out there?

does the sign cover
her eyes in fear of us 
or does she watch like
a mother

call me call me call me 

am i there somewhere
stuck pacing 
back & forth 
back & forth

is this the story
where we're found
on the banks

our clothes like wet 
wash clothes

we cleaned our face
in the same bathroom mirror
when we got home that night

scrubbed bridges
from our teeth

life is worth living

mothman 

"Couples See Man-Sized Bird ... Creature ... Something"
-Point Pleasant Register 1966

this is a promise to not
be scared of you when we meet

to not runaway

your eyes burning red match sticks
against the black ragged backdrop
of a body

who were they to you?

that first couple you revealed
yourself too in the cold
of november in point pleasant, west virginia

they had already been 
unnerved by the WWII munitions plant
& it's vacant promise of
detonations long reverberated

she asks him from 
the passenger seat

do you try to forget the war?

& he stares forward 
hand on the steering wheel of their 
black Chevy Bel Air 
& says 

not tonight, everything is lovely tonight

how badly have
you wanted to be 
in a love poem?

& there you emerged
in the rear view mirror

"a large man with ten foot long wings"

car horn & tire squeal

were you scared of
losing them with out 
explaining yourself?

would you have told them
war stories?

stories of chemicals
birthing your in the flat
lands behind the TNT plant?

stories of porch lights
you had worshiped?

stories of men who you
left azaleas 
in their mailboxes for?

are you gay like me?

i knew that i wanted
to be your lover 
from the first blurred 
photo of you from
the summer of 2007
when the town was startled 
that all these years
& despite all the heart break
that you had somehow
survived

i too exist in obscure images

standing in my bedroom
staring into my iPhone camera
& snapping photographs 
of my body too eagerly

my hand shaky from posing

unfocused face
blurred dull peach skin

what could the cryptozoologists 
read me as?

am i a flatlands monster?

a jersey devil?

or am i a mothman like you

i wish it would have been
me all those years ago

in the black Chevy Bel Air

i would have pulled over
& maybe we could have talked
in the back seat 

i would have taken you home
& asleep on my sofa 
i would make waffles in the morning

when others asked me
if i was looking for a wife
i would smile & tell them
that i was happily taken 

at night i would come
home & we would lay together

the distortion of 
our nonsense bodies 
making dimming the boarders
of our own skeletons

i want to be a bleary 
image surfacing on
the far reaches 

i want to be indescribable 
with you 

we can take long walks
through the vacant military 
buildings that now
decay in the depths
of the wild life reserve

you'll open your mouth
to speak 

echoing sound of car horn
& scream

i'll put a finger to
your mouth

could you love
an bleary boned man 
like me? 

mannequin 

for most of
my life i've been somewhat
terrified of the mannequins
in clothing aisles

in macy's with my mom
there was a few years where
they had bubblegum bright hair
painted on

hands on their hips
staring me down like deer
in jeep headlights--

their thin fawn-like ankles 

i tugged at the edges of
their clothing-- sometimes
clothes-pinned tight to
their hard white plastic skin

it must be a taut life

when they breathe does
it feel like there's fingers
gripped round their thin necks

i in no way resembled them
especially as a young girl

my root-beer barrel torso 
& tree-stump thighs

while we were picking out
clothing:
pleated skirts &
wispy white blouses 
i would frequently come
to their feet as if they were
statues of unknown deities

caress their smooth bodies
looking away so as to not
stare too long

pink hand up a calf muscle
brush against a bottle-neck wrist

i don't touch them anymore

i imagine them waiting for the
aisles to empty

sisters

neon ceiling aching

they share stories at night 

while workers stock the wracks
& windex the tall 
full length mirrors

they weep about how many hands 
they felt across their skin 

how the jeans were tugged
at around their waists 
how their busts where fondled
& their necks tickled 
by un-named fingers

they scream sometimes
but only when everyone is gone
scream about wanting 
to break their legs in enough
places to make joints

a pair of knees

for the ones with approximate faces
they feel each other's
contours-- 

thumbs across

eye-divots

this is where your eyes would be 

this is your sealed lips

this is where i would 
kiss you

for the active wear bodies 

they imagine themselves with
hands or feet 
or heads-- 

some want thick brown hair

others want size 8/9 men's shoes 
because there always seems
to be that size in the sale bin 

i sometimes wish i was
as ambiguous a body

enveloped in blankness 

un-answerable

t-shirt pinned to my back

i have never felt like
anyone has touched my skin enough 

not like how humans touch
mannequins but how mannequins
touch each other

searching for a discernible feature

something to make one
another unique

separate from each other

maybe a large hooked nose 
or dimples 

when the morning is close 
& the sun is a handful of
plastic gold streamer

they pose-- kissing
the backs of each other's hands

i stroll among them 

& they're frightened because 
i'm supposedly
human

i ask them to touch me
all over

their nail-swallowed fingers

they've never got to touch
a human like this before

i'm warmer than they
thought i'd be

oh will they tell me
something worth while about me

is it my freckles?

my rib cage?

my skin clothespinned
up my back?

yearbooks

i only have about 
six yearbooks from
kindergarten through 
12th grade

they're haphazard on
the floor of my old bed room 
with the rain forest
rustling on the walls

this world is for posing

book clubs & 
softball teams perpetually 
lining up for the right shot

i didn't have a good picture
of myself until probably
middle school

in 5th grade i had
startled wide-eyes &
hair sticking up
like a handful of dry 
november leaves

2004 there's black & white
candid shots
of the playground
3rd grade

if the photograph 
had remembered color 
my jacket would be lime green &
a boy would be daring me 
to cross the monkey bars
but my arms are too weak

i've been thinking about
all the yearbooks i'm missing 

the ones we didn't end up buying

i didn't get one for all
of middle school 

i think of my young stout
self lonely on other people's shelves

sitting at the lunch table
by myself with a cup of
apple juice & a turkey & cheese sandwich

i think of her thick hair 
& the knots at the base of her neck

does she sing in chorus photographs
or just mouth the words?

are there images of me at
hawk mountain in 6th grade?
sweaty & at the back of the group

sitting at north look out
& chewing sour cream & onion chips
one at a time-- wiping crumbs
on my jeans

it bothers me that i don't
know what images of myself
those years have

did i smile for the class photos?

i've been thinking
that maybe god makes his own yearbooks
for all of us

that maybe there's some
big hall in heaven full of volume
after volume--

he takes pictures of everything

squatting in the window
with his disposable kodak camera
when we played inside
for recess on a rainy day 
in March of 3rd grade

there's nothing that special 
other than that Mrs. Bowman
let us use with her stuffed
sheep & we all played pretend

flash in the window

sound of winding camera

the angels take part too

they're skilled at night time photography

sitting in the evergreen
tree in the front lawn to
peer my bed room between
the wispy green blinds 
to see my father reading
me the 5th book 
from the series of unfortunate events

he takes sips of magic hat beer
& his white socks have holes
bore in the heels from acid
at work

i don't think i'd like
to see those yearbooks

they'd be too large for
a human lap

like those dictionaries
at the library that 
lay splayed out on their
own pedestals--
a little ribbon to 
keep your place 

only god reads them

touches their spines
sending goosebumps through
the year

it comforts me 
to know that they exist

that even when i forget
to take pictures that 
the greater powers are 
working on the next volume

i see angels
in the dark rooms of heaven

close-pinning each shot
on the wall & standing back
to survey them--

they agree that this
year they should include
a few of me & you

my head resting on
your shoulder 
the  blue couch a kind
of palm that held us

the silhouettes of our bodies
in the glow of tea candles
on your book case

the back seat of
my car with your sweatshirt
& my jean jacket 

oh god please tell 
me you got that one

i'll step back
into that picture someday 
when you're not keeping
eye on all the yearbooks 

ripples around my feet

the photograph swallowing me
like a warm puddle of 
melted sleet

bruise 

drop me on 
the kitchen floor 
i want to be soft &
purple

when i eat apples 
i find the bruise &
bite that part first

caramel brown & sweet 

this is where gravity
hurt us & tucked us
into candy wrappers

there's the bowl
on the wooden dining room
table with the hand fruit 
blinks at each other 

that's where i'll be 
after i trip 
out the window for
the eighth time 

this time i'll be looking
for a way to make my 
skin more honeyed for you

i collected bruises on
my thighs & my forearms
from hitting myself 

the dull pain of my
own knuckles pressed into flesh

sugar grains pouring
like sand from my joints

are we an hourglass?

does time bruise itself
from waiting to out grow itself

the bruises never
formed immediately

haunting blood in the night
as they collected themselves
from the shadow beneath my bed  
from the anatomy of galaxy
from the moon 
pulling the man-hole cover over
her face like a black veil

in the morning i watched 
each purple solar system
oscillating 

gold windowsill glow

marks the shape of 
charm bracelets
wooden beads

lesions writing songs
about each other

what sound does 
a bruise make as it comes
into being?

quiet like the brown
spots on fridge top bananas

will you believe me
that i didn't want to
hurt myself?

are these black holes?

if you fall into me
i promise it will taste
like spiral lollipops 
& molasses

dip table spoons under my skin 

contusion confirmation

we're the peaches
smacking into each other
in the thatched basket

teaching each other
where our skin will give

your face: a tennis ball

i don't bruise as often anymore

i keep myself
away from heights

avoid bowls of fruit

will you be a plum with me?

hide our swelling--
our welts under the guise
of eggplant nebulas 

when your teeth
touch the planet's surface
the juice will 
drip down to your elbow 

you'll realize how malleable 
the surface of earth is

who dropped the earth
from the kitchen table
& made all these continents?

kneel with me
on the back porch

the dirt is
sweet as brown sugar

feed me tablespoons

pluck out my stem

grindr

here we can be ghosts

oh finally oh finally

names are for the living 
so slow yours like a key chain
like a door knob 

let's find each other through
fragments of our bodies 

you cut off your head
& hand it from the ceiling

your mouth full of stained glass

you say you want to 
see me & alone in my
dorm room i take pictures
of myself that will
only ever be meant for you 

i become aware of 
the hair on my legs bowing
backwards like a field
of tall grass

are you laying there
in the reeds?

cock erect from
an imagined version of me

a clone who comes
back to my skin 
when the night is over

i do not ask where he
has been but take him
back into my body 

the slip that meshes
the coils of a clay pot
into one 

how far would you
drive tonight to see
the way the moon could
light us?

how many iterations
of skin have you released 
into the black waters
of your iPhone camera?

oh prism boy 

what will you remember
about my skin?

will you leave flowers
at the tombstone tattoo
on my forearm?

if i can't know
your name at least let 
me call you a letter

you can call me 
'A' for "astronomy"
or "almost"

i could call you 'B'
for "bayonet"
or "balcony" or
"body"

confectionery cottages 

i think i understand the witch
(the one from hansel & gretel)

i hover over a hot tray
of chocolate chip cookies & brownies
waiting for them to cool
spatula in my hand

i think of what my therapist
asked me:

do you think you make things
for other people because
you can't enjoy them yourself?

& i'm imagining the witch

she's kneeling in the forest brush 
with all kinds of candy 
set out in buckets

does she remember what peppermint tastes like?

does she bake each brick of 
soft sponge cake & angel food
with a kind of love only
expressed by the act of mixing batter?

she walked out one day into
the woods & was determined 
to be alone

she chose a clearing for
it's lack of bird-sounds & 
the dead oak tree--
slouching arms that snapped 
easily as she tore
them off one by one 

for valentines day 
i like to make truffles 

i love the delicacy of each 
soft malleable sphere--
the tablespoon of espresso
& the vanilla extract

over-coats of white &
dark melting chocolates 

i used to make them for boys
i was trying to be in love
with-- let them lick my fingers 

fed them & told them about
the house i would build
in the woods--

the one with gingerbread shingles
& royal icing hinges

did she ever have a lover?

maybe that was so long ago
that she doesn't remember
what their skin felt like
against hers

maybe she remembers their
favorite recipe
sobbing quietly into 
a batch of thumb-print cookies

she won't eat them because
they belonged to her

maybe her lover was a witch too--

scraggly brown hair &
green finger-nails

together they'd hover
over cauldrons-- steam
fogging on her eye-glasses 

they'd muse over 
new ways to frighten 
the town's children

when they parted ways the witch
knew that she wanted
to bury herself so deep
in the forest that 
no one would ever
love her like that again 

on occasion 
the walls of my bedroom 
grown into trees

thick taiga forest

doorknob becoming
a bird beak

i lay out my plans
for my confectionery cottage

she didn't want 
to lure her lover back into
her life-- 

she wanted to take revenge 
against someone for all the love
she had put cakes &
pies & sweets

children would be easy

i leave cookies
out on counters for
my housemates to eat

i want to know if they 
see a witch in me

do i want to eat them?

did the witch really
want to devour the children 
or was she just trying 
trying to fill them up
like she couldn't fill herself

make hansel as round & thick
as a ripe plum rolling
on the wooden table

did she wonder how
after so much food he could still
be so bony?

if she was a cannibal 
i like to think that it was
out of a craving to 
feel connection someone again 

i won't eat you
i swear i won't eat you

but i wouldn't blame
you if when i go to
take out the banana bread
you push me into the oven 

did the witch
weep from the inside?

hair singing

come inside the oven
with me

we'll eat each other 
& not leave any crumbs

assumption 

up in heaven are
they jealous of mary's body?

her warm blood &
halo echoing like a sun

all the souls meandering
on cloud-streets like
curtains perpetually blowing open 

her soft caramel skin
noticeable against the blankeness
of heaven

does she miss earthly clothing?

how it felt wrapped around her
the sensation of touch--

joseph's hand on the small
of her back 

the surface of souls
is different-- almost not there--
like a handful of cotton candy

does she sometimes wish
they would have left
her body in the dirt until
god brings everyone else's?

sometimes laying in heaven's meadows
& praying to him

why god why did you 
take me with a body?

down on earth she occasionally
wanders the outlets

sifts through sale wracks
for a good deal

a blouse printed with lilacs
a dress with ruffles erupting 
from the hem

she bumps into me 
& i notice her right away 
from her wooden statue
at the back of our church

her assumption carved into
a walnut tree's dead chest

during mass i traversed
each etched ribbon & spiral

dark brown knots in the wings
of the angels hoisting her up
her face staring beyond
the skylights of the church 

i wanted them to take me
up with her 

find me in the lumber
of a tree & pick me
up to heaven like 
uncle rich scooping me up
as a 7 year old girl
to set me on his lap 

i follow her to the dressing rooms
& she comes out ask my opinion
on a few outfits 

i tell her she should try
twirling in the navy blue gown 
& she carnation-opens 

she tells me she's never
been to a dressing room before

so we get her measured

yellow tape-measure around
her bust & her waist

she tells me she shouldn't
crave to feel beautiful
that beauty was something
heaven had nothing to do with

i tell her to forget
heaven & we try on 
sunglasses in the aisle

watching each crease
of our smiles in a square mirror  

she doesn't buy anything

she never does 

says there's no room
for material things in heaven 

i buy her the twirling dress
& i fold it up 
in the top shelf of my dresser

tell her that if she
needs to come down 

if she find herself restless
hungering for cloth across skin 

that she can walk in through
the open window
& try on the dress again
whenever she needs

she kisses me cheek 

she tells me she'll put
in a good word for me 

& i laugh 

i sneak into the church
when dark in the dead of night
with a whittling knife

carve myself beside her
in the statue

the angels 

hoisting us up

brownies 

we're making brownies 
on sunday night in
the kitchen & 

talking about 
how we're bombing 
Syria now

i'll kill myself
before i go to war 

i'll shoot myself
in the leg to escape
the draft 

& i'm cracking
an egg on the side
of the mixing bowl 

using the orange spatula 
to combine the ghirardelli mix
with the 1/3 cup of oil
& 1/4 cup of tap water

i'm thinking
about how i know nothing
about Syria other
than what i've seen from
videos i've scrolled past on
Facebook 

i tell everyone
that it's pointless to
get so worked up about
a possible war

that it won't change anything

fudge & chocolate chips
mingling in the air

i don't mean that
i think it's pointless to be upset 
about whatever is happening 
in Syria 

i just mean that i 
don't think it will even
influence our lives
as much as it does theirs

i say 

it's not like 
i can fly to Syria 

& i spray the
8 x 11 dish with pam 
from the cabinet

let's change the subject

where would you
go in a zombie apocalypse? 

we don't live in aftermath 
with the sky handing off it's hinges

i don't actually
know what chemical weapons are

i assume they burn 
if struck by missiles

i assume they burn skin 
& rip out the throats
of buildings

i assume there is more
pain than a street light
in collegeville pennsylanvia
could ever hold

i say
i feel so powerless

& i'm supposed to 
go vote or something

& i have a president
who's writing in smoke

These are not the actions of a man
They are crimes of a monster instead

a singular monster
who sits dormant somewhere
beneath rubble

beneath broken pipes 
& gnarled highways

a single monster regurgitating 
chemical weaponry from 
his razor teeth 

from the white crosses 
that mark vietnam & korea

the timer on 
my phone goes off &
the brownies are done

their surface cracked slightly
like the surface of 
an alien planet

i stick in a plastic fork
to test if the inside

the fork comes out clean 

the house smells like 
a bakery & i pour the icing
over the warm brownies--
spreading with 
the back of a knife

16

do you bite down
on dum-dum lollipops?

sweet sting of 
glass in your teeth

once a week 
before the farmer's market 
we'd use the drive through
at the bank & the teller
would ask how many
kids there were--
dropping two dum dums in
the envelope with 
a stack of bills

did you know that 
pluto is the only planet
made of glass?

fragile & ready to be
chewed off the paper stick 

there are 16 flavors
of dum-dum lollipops &
none of them worth while 
accept for blue raspberry 

i don't think i ate
candy when i was 16 

i'm thinking about
each as the surface of
sticky moons 

i bought a bag of 100 
& never ate a single 1 

it's still sitting
in the back of my closet--

cover your head in a wax wrapper

my dad says that at church
all the girls used to have
to cover their heads & if
they didn't bring a veil 
the nuns would put a paper towel
over their heads

i guess i wonder if god thinks
of us like lollipops sometimes

there are only 16 types of people 

& he only likes the clear 
ones that are supposed to taste
like piña colada

what we all really wanted
was tootsie pops

as if you could discover
the core of the sun was 
soft & chocolate flavored

flattening out wrappers 
on our thighs to try & find
a shooting star on them--

the native american caricature
back facing us
head dress trailing down his spine
his bow & arrow aimed 
at the distant north star

will he ever shoot at it
or is this just for show?

are we just using him
to guide us to collect our
stars & return to 
the back seats of cars where
we traded candy

who knew all celestial bodies
have 1 of 12 flavors

i think i'd like to
live on a tootsie pop wrapper

one of the kids roller 
skating with pig tails 

or girl with braids
& a baseball bat slung
over her shoulder

it reminds me of saturday mornings 
in the batting cages with 
my dad-- the metal ping
of bat colliding with green softball

we'd get candy at the flea market 

how many skulls cracked between
my 10-year-old wobbly teeth?

i could be
one of the children kneeling 
& playing marbles

i would choose a blue wrapper (naturally)

live easy in white outlines

it would be like stepping 
into recess for the rest of
my life

maybe i'd get lucky
& be on the same wrapper
as the shooting star

you'd flatten my out 
on the thigh & keep me
in a box on your desk 
all summer before
mom made you throw us away

& when you were looking
i would elbow past
the archer & pluck
the white five-pointed
star down for myself

i don't have any desire
to eat these lollipops

i can't give them away though

they're already in orbit