bat in the sacristy

it was late summer when we found her.
the priest had called early in the morning.
my father, a kind of make-shift grounds keeper
for the church.
he brought me with in the blue jeep, top off. 
our hair blew wild on the way over.
i was used to playing by limestone kiln
& the pavilions on the ridge
while my father planted flowers 
& pulled weeds at the feet of a mary statue.
sun cracked open & spread across corn fields.
i do not remember the priest ever smiling.
he was a quiet man. when we got there though he
was frantic. he waved my father over
& whispered to him. i waited in the vestibule.
ran my finger across the wooden poor box 
while the two of them disappeared
into the sacristy. i was an altar boy-girl
so i knew that place well. the drawers of candles
& the closet of robes. each year i went
a size up, working my way
to the back of the flock. i still believed
in god i think. i know at least that 
i still prayed sometimes. it is hard
to trace an exact moment when you 
bury a spoon. there had been
a bat. a small soft creature. my father caught her
with his bare hands. he was never afraid
of getting bit. i had watched him 
snag snakes & snapping turtles. 
this was no different. she did not make 
any noise. my father carried her our
the heavy doors of the church. i do not remember
what he did with her. i like to think
he let her go. i do not know if he did.
maybe she was sick & he laid her in the lamb's ear
for her to turn into weeds. maybe still
he carried her to the forest line & she 
found her way into the night there. 
however it happened, she was removed
& we piled back in the car to leave.
i wished desperately that dad had let me
hold her. i was convinced i could
have helped in a way he did not. 
a little god fallen from her house. 
at home i prayed a hail mary for the bat. 
dandelions grew. at some point we stopped
going to the church as much as we used to.
i wonder sometimes if my father stopped
believing in god too. i think that is
too grandiose. he doesn't think so definitively.
his hands around the lost bat
carrying her to the dark.  

eggs

i didn't tell you when the chickens stopped
laying eggs. first i found lemons
& then apples & bullet shells & even
a copy of a diary i wrote in during middle school.
the chickens were getting more & more
connected to a rift in time that runs
right through the middle of the yard.
they started to call my old name. the one 
with peach fuzz all over it. it was not them being
transphobic, it was them trying to call back
to a little knot in the depths of my sea weed.
i grew feathers. plucked them out. they came in
cinnamon just like some of the hens. 
i collected each harvest in a little basket.
still not eggs. you offered one day to go out
& check the coop for me. i stood up, panicked.
i said, "they are mine." you were offended 
& i didn't try to fix anything. instead i ran 
out to the coop. i locked myself inside
& hunkered down with the hens. they showed me
their shiny newest creations. a television &
a pocket knife. i asked them, "what made 
you stop?" they did not know. i told them,
"sometimes i don't know how to create anymore."
they laughed at me. a year or so earlier, a fox
had gotten into the coop. none of them were eaten.
i wonder what they told each other in the dark
while they waited for him to leave. he swallowed
all their eggs whole. one by one. i do not know
how it is that i still have more to lose.
i woke you up in the middle of the night. i took you
to the coop. it was full to the ceiling with eggs. the chickens
slept on top. you were confused but not angry.
you asked me, "why?" & i did not have an answer. 
i wish that the world didn't always come at me
in oceans. i take a shovel & dig at the earth.
i find eggs there too. there is still so much i do not
tell anyone. i still think the fruit was real. 
i ate that first lemon in the moon & it tasted
like lightning on a blue night. 

glass 

i resort to colors 
to try to talk about the world
magenta 
& cyan & even sometimes fuchsia. 
i get mauve for days 
& you make me put on a dress & dance 
for you. eventually, even the colors
go clear. i have a glass face & 
a glass flag & a glass house.
on the other side, the minnows
are trying to burrow
to the boiling center of the earth.
if i joined them maybe i would
get crystal & one day
walk around on someone's wrinkled
ring finger. tell me something
about the end that i haven't considered yet.
will there be soil to burry us in
or will that be too commodity for people
like us? you wash potatoes in the sink.
i have dreams full of isopods
in which i wake up screaming in lowercase.
the curry is good just like it always is.
soft yellow. a muted brown. 
i am told it is pride month. yesterday
i saw a cop give a little kid 
a badge sticker. they ran around.
i felt so burgundy & jet fuel. i got
all the birds on my side too.
they said, "you all are fruit punch red."
i couldn't disagree. the glass shatters
& i don't even know what broke.
it could be the car again or the house
or the tree that used to hold up
our little piece of sky. i keep all 
my old t vials. glass eyes in the beast. 
someday, someday, someday.

repeating itself

my father's records turn into bats at night.
i open a thousand cd cases & find no cds,
just the little carapaces where sound
used to live. my desire to gut a room
is hereditary. i carry a knife.
slit from neck down to baseboard. 
i look at houses & imagine us moving in.
the world has less finger nails every day.
i try to chew a walnut open & break 
the hinge off my jaw. i wish we would all 
take a whole week off. let the damn thing
crash. let the tomatoes get really angry
& the birds invent their own national 
anthems. the nights have turned licorice on me. 
i find beetles in the walls & just hope 
they go away. of course they don't.
they start reenacting the american revolution.
i let them have their flag & their horrors. 
freedom was always a trojan horse word 
for this country. inside crouching,
"hunger" & "knife" & "greed." when it rains
a little stream forms in the yard.
the frogs come to try & record a hit album.
it is too late. there are no more hit albums,
instead, we put teeth in our ears. try to hear
the bite-down when the flesh becomes break. 
i am surrounded by circles. the way next week
feels like this week just without any bioluminescence.
there are not enough outlets in the house
to plug in all my little gods. there are also too many.
i find my father with a tri-corner hat. 
he is holding a musket. he is barefoot.
the moon is casting lots 
with the visiting blue-face stars for his clothes.  

plague doctor

i ask my friends,
"how have you been keeping yourself
together?" i do not actually want
advice but i want to hear if/how
we are surviving. i look up designs
for a plague doctor uniform. 
needle in my teeth, i get to work. 
sew together old jackets. 
i stop sleeping. sleep is for a different time
with less fire & less windows.
i walk around outside in the uniform.
moon swimming like a jellyfish. 
on my phone more people are dying.
there are sleepless cities & rubble & ghosts. 
the long snout of the mask
was once filled with dried flowers
& perfumes. there is truth 
to bad medieval science. you cannot breathe
the dead air. if you do, the end will
take root in your bones & you will
be able to count your days
on one hand. i knock on doors.
i do not pay attention to the time. 
early bruised blue morning. 
some people are still pretending like
none of the terror will reach them.
i find them tending their lawns. hands & knees
worshipping the green. i try not to believe
that they are too far gone. but i know
they are. soon, they will be billboards
& i will drive underneath them. 
i breathe in the flowers. rose & lavender 
& a few fingers of dandelion root. the first person
who opens the door for me tells me,
"this is not my house." i hand them 
a needle & a thread & i say,
"i can show you how to make 
this body too." together we make
another robe & mask. we touch foreheads
beneath the lightning tree. they wander
off into the sprouting may corn field.
i go towards the sound of wind chimes. 

angel of death

if death had a face it would be 
a manhole cover. we want
to take the bones out of our flesh
& build little dog houses.
i walk my fears on a leash
& they bark at idols. i no longer
believe in safety but i do not know
what that leaves me with. 
when i was small 
& first heard the story of moses &
of the angel of death,
i was obsessed with warding
off the plagues. i obsessed over
what we might put on our door
to keep everyone alive through the night. 
i pictured the angel of death would look 
like a deep-sea animal, ripped 
from the dark. eyes like 
wild glowing thumbs. i would
mark the screen door with dandelion guts
& rusted nails from the yard.
each morning, my father would
remove them, unsure of who 
had been doing witchcraft 
at our threshold. these days, i have
sympathy for the creatures we make
to house our grief. i do not think
anyone slept that night
of the angel of death. i do not think
all the blood worked. i have
more & more conversations about
what should & should not be spoken
or written in the presence of
a cellphone. everywhere, the listening
thickens until there are hallways
of doors to try to seal. the angel,
a terrible ghost, lingers at each one. 
there is a part of me who has
given many futures up. there is the other
knocking on doors & telling them
"the ghost we made is coming." 

tiny tractor

i buy a tractor the size
of my thumb. plow the ceiling
until it is green. there are fields
where the foxes two-leg walk
toward a great humming melon.
we let the place sing. the past is 
a sweet playground where
everyone is sick. the food is doll house.
never enough. marrow sucked
from a little femur. the cows 
the size of mice. before i moved out
i lived alone. grew corn & soy beans
& squash. cut my head open
with the too-big knife. nectar
on the kitchen island. bees out the window
asked for postcards from wherever
i had gone. each plane was full
of chickens. i always get back here.
my body craves the miniature. i move
into the corner of a room. crouch
like a violet danger. the crops still break
through the soil. still speak their
ancient spider language. i name myself
over & over. first after the sound
of shifting soil then after 
the first firefly's light. my tiny tractor
harvests. it is not enough to feed me
or even the mice who sleep in the spoon drawer
but it is enough to make me think
i could get even smaller. buy a smaller tractor.
one the size of a sunflower seed. 
drive it until i am let loose. by who?
i do not know. i wish i could grow like 
the sugar melon. a moon within
a moon within a beast. 

eco log

in the last weeks of winter 
i couldn't get myself to light
the fire anymore. i bought eco logs
& cut them into little medallions.
lived by their urgent flames. the ghost
who warmed our house begged me
to let him rest. i pointed out the window
to the grey sky & the whales in the clouds.
i said, "not yet." i do not know
what the eco logs are made of. they are
only fragments of trees. they know nothing
about being a limb. about reaching
for a handful of light. i made all kinds
of promises to the spirits. 
"when it is bright outside... when it
no longer hurts my bones to swallow
the air... when the birds start rolling 
their eggs like bingo balls... then 
maybe i can feed you my hands. then maybe
everything will be easy again."
the logs were made in a factory. 
an assembly line knit them & then
they arrived to me through a series
of forgivable violences. the fire asked me
over & over, "will you tell me a story?"
i had run out. i have run out 
for awhile now. i always tried though.
told the flames about a cousin who
i never met who my aunts said was trans too.
i always wondered what we might
be able to talk about. if the rain
had enough legs to get us home.
when the fire would go out, i would 
try not to weep. instead, i would return
to the eco logs & the little purple lighter.
flick it until it sang. i hummed with it.
like all pennsylvania winters, winter broke
far too late. there are still ashes 
in the wood stove. i like to imagine
they are soft & that the ghost sleeps there. 

house of eggs

sometimes i believe that yolks
are a storybook. the last twelve eggs
i opened had nothing but a gasp inside.
the chickens do not sleep anymore.
they work to add onto the house.
room after room of eggs. you can only
eat so many shells until you are sick.
until you start coughing up vases.
crystal rabbits. halos. i am too afraid
to turn on the stove of eggs. instead 
i lay down on top. wait to hard boil.
till my guts become squid eyes. i don't
even see you anymore. you moved into
a far away room in the house years ago.
growing apart is the kind of grief
with no hole to throw your teeth into.
i wake up in the middle of the night
to ask the chickens for a favor. 
i beg, "will you make me a room that 
cannot be crushed?" they look confused.
the moon has thousands of legs. 
they believe i am crazy & so they chatter
& hurry away. i know there is no such thing
as an egg that does not fracture but 
i have this dream of a place where
i can go without a roof. the rain comes
& so does the golden sun. i am not myself
or i am the self who finally has a tooth. 
i am unsure if there is a me in here.
it is like searching for the bottom
of a ball pit. you used to sing & i would
hear it through the eggs. i would rush
to try & find you. now, you don't sing
or else i can't hear you over the eggs' calling. 
the chickens build a bell tower of eggs.
i go & wait for you there. i wonder if
you are hungry in the ways i am
or if we are just two bells in the purple dark.
the chickens lay & lay & lay. 

weather reveal cake

they used the dull knife.
a slice to the cake's forehead.
it did not bleed. 
everyone was waiting
for a gender. they had their pink
& their blue ready in all shapes
& sizes of tupperware. 
before i was born, i worked
in the clouds. i formed raindrops.
i riled the air up to a frenzy. 
i was always going to be a storm. 
hail the size of pupils & a broken window
that used to hold the sun. 
in the shower at night, i sometimes
turn off the overhead lamp.
i sit on the floor & pretend i am 
not here yet. still a little creature
with no duties but
to make sure the water finds it way
back down. we are all at some stage
of a return. like salmon to 
the breeding water or deer
to headlights. no matter what
they did the cake would not bleed.
would not give an answer. it rained
indoors & everyone had to run outside.
their clothes soaked. in many ways
i am the opposite of a vampire.
i go where i'm not invited. i take
my gender & let it thunder. i was 
doing before i even had this name.