paper robes

undress down
to your bra & underwear
she says & hands me
a paper robe 

it ties in the back 

it reminds me of a crumpled
page of sketch paper

the waste basket full
by my desk in 10th grade
when sometimes
i would bend over
& vomit wrinkled 
notebook pages--

several attempts to draw
a face-- 
the reference lines 

i don't have 
any bras anymore 

the last one i had
was off white from
being worn so much 

i stopped undoing the
clasps-- just pulled
the contraption
over my head--

how many girls have 
dressed down 
into paper robs?

sat on the end
of an examining table

grew sandpaper skin 
& waited for their doctor

i was thinking
about how in a few minutes 
after i'm done
they'd throw out
the garment

& maybe somewhere
in a landfill 

all the paper robes
would congregate &
tell stories of our bodies--

ghosts-- 

waiting for a loud 
gust of wind 
to fill them with
flesh again--

do some lay back
between disposed needles
& wax paper?

making angles in
the debris--

each needle
left halos under our skin

the paper dolls
holding hands in a circle
& playing ring around
the rosary--

how old were you when
someone told you that
it's about dying
& the plague?

my doctor touched
me over top 
the rough texture dress--

felt my stomach--
my lungs making hot air balloons--

they're rare &
i haven't seen one in years
but she gets to see
them everyday

i tell her about
the bond fired i swallowed 

about the light switch
in my chest i flicked 
& became a man

she takes out my ovaries
like white eggs 
in a carton at
the grocery store

when we're all done 

i sat alone in the 
pediatrician's exam room

a black & white 
photograph of
a plane taking off stared
at me on the wall 

was it driven by 
paper doll ghosts?

coming to collect me?

i left the garment 
on top of 
the doctor's wax paper
altar--

put my clothing back
on & saw the dress
breathing on it's own

beckoning me back inside 

i shut the door

somewhere today 
it sulks

it sulks-- 

remembers my skin 

i draw the neck
the shoulders--

disproportionate bones

will i ever be easier
to draw or will i always
tuck my knees into me chest--

hide your hands

or crumple them--

someday i'll do 
to a great big landfil &
stand at the edge 

i won't have to search for long

the garments
faces pressed up against
a chain link fence 

they will have
been waiting

memorial

i wonder what dead people
think about having highways
named after themselves

do they nervously
watch over them?

cleaning 
up car accidents with
a dust pan & broom

it must be especially crowded
for those that are 
dedicated to veterans of 
big wars like vietnam
or korea

did their ghosts wake up
on the side of the road?

still in uniform--

are they hitchhikers now?

standing there with
their thumbs out hoping
a tractor trailer will
pick them up & drive them
to the cemetery up
the way 

some sit on the top of
billboards

legs dangling

i don't think i'd
like anything named after me
when i die

outside the library 
in kutztown there's a walkway
with people's names printed
on bricks

some of them are dead

when they were building it
i wanted my parents to buy 
me one 

there's something 
about having your name 
pressed into stone

oh the things we do
to not be wiped away

when they tear up
that walkway years from
now what will they do
with all the bricks?

will they circle up
in the grass & speak
each name aloud?

a kind of exorcism

i'm thinking about
the little memorial garden
outside of my high school 

the one we sometimes 
sat in after school

they built it for
these two kids who died 
the week after they graduated

one fell into 
a hay baler & the other's
heart stopped while he was
running on a beach--

they share the garden--

their names in stone
on opposite ends of 
the fenced in circle

i wonder what they think 
of it--

if they feel the sneakers
over cobble stone

if they feel when 
volunteers come to yank out
weeds from the flower bed--

do they sit in the gazebo 
& argue?

in the ground there's more 
bricks with names

dead teachers dead students

they've read them so
many times that the words
stop making sense

i hope they don't
ever write my name on
a brick

i don't want to linger like that

maybe a tree would be nice

there's a tree at my college

someone's family leaves
blue plastic flowers at the base
at the start of every new semester 

you can tell the person must
have died recently because
the tree is still so wispy

held up by wires

oh i hope one day it gets
big enough to break the nearby
pathways-- rip cement
tear power lines from the air

if perhaps you 
name a highway after me

you have to make sure you drive
it often 

when it's dark &
there's only headlights
to keep me company 

i hope you'll come find me

pullover with your four-ways on

i'll be in the tall grass
picking up empty soda cans 

will you leave flowers
in my throat?

not plastic ones 

we'll pull up the bricks
of this body 
one by one

today i hit
the curb & a long
piece of black plastic
fell off the bottom
of my 1993 volvo

i parked the car in
the grass & knelt down
to try to see what
it's purpose had been--

i tore free the few remaining 
shards of weathered plastic

surveyed them in my hands--

tired edge bones

is this a femur or 
vertebrae?

i left the remnant in
her trunk in case
i ever have enough
money to take her to Pepboys again

until then we'll collect 
the pieces as they break off

have i ever fractured
like this without noticing?

did someone else 
hold my scraps--
trying to find where
i broke into more
particles--

did they play wishbone?

fingernails dug into 
cement-- splintering
as the floor-boards do--

i'm thinking about
all the ikea shelves we've
made together &
the orphaned extra screws

saving them in top drawers 
& in pockets

just in case

sometimes more obscure
leftovers like
when we put together your
black wood desk & there were 
little plastic "L"s

i figure it's all
part of the plan--

that god is giving
us extra material for
a reason--

we'll wake up
swaddled in blue prints

a detailed plan of uses--

it would of course
be a test & not everyone
would have kept all these
stray remains--

you'd hug me &
kiss me 

& forgive 
me for cluttering 
cabinets--

for forgetting
which book shelf gifted
us the little baggies
of bolts--

there is of course
the other possibility

that we're missing
something

when you said you didn't
love me that March night
i opened the drawer 
& felt in the dark
for all the buttons & nails 
& dowers & screws 

if my car unravels 
on my way to the super market 
& i tumble on the asphalt
like a basket of plums

they'll find our clavicles
torn loose in the crumpled trunk 

they'll know where we came undone 

i didn't know what to want

a handful stray metal parts

i keep thinking
if i keep them all

we'll have the one we needed 

someday

7th line

i think god
writes on the 7th line
of vision tests

making himself small
& blurry

an N or an H maybe 
or is he a Z?

does he write poetry
or prophecy

or just little love
notes to the humans

a shopping list even

buy eggs 

the nurse in her
teal scrubs
eagerly made
me into numbers

took notes on 
her clip board

& wheeled me to 
peer into the vision test
machine

haunted yellow light

i always wonder if
one day i'll gaze inside
& see something unexpected 

see myself 
7 years old & seated 
on the crinkly doctor's paper

when i was home sick
my father made me alphabet soup 
from the can

& we let cheddar cheese goldfish
swim in the tomato broth

their flippers thrashed 
in my sore throat

i stirred the soup
in the hopes that eventually 
the letters would
align themselves 

spell something for me

spell something for me God

i learned how to read 
so that you could
make an word out 
of my skin

i read the fifth line aloud

the nurse tells me 
it's okay
you can try whichever line 
is clearest

if i did that i would
only read line one

i want to take out
my eyes & dust them
off on my jeans
like glasses--

N, E, U, R...T

she changes the slide
& there i am again 

read the smallest
line you can see

& i see myself
with my white ear buds in
i'm walking on the curb 
down Main Street in Kutztown 

it's dark & the street lights
peel eight shadows from 
my skeleton--

have you found
letter in your bones?

an 'R' wandering 
in your knuckles 

an 'S' in your wrists

read the first line

so aloud i speak
green street signs--

there's noble & pennsylvania 
by deisher lane & normal ave

it's all so pocket-sized
that i have to squint
to keep myself in view
as the dull gold light
of the vision test
looms over the image

the moon was just an old light bulb 

she's a thin girl

she has alphabets
printed on the inside of
her eyelids from 
making herself wake up 
at 4:22am 

i want to ask her 
if she could read the
7th line back then 

if we've always been
impervious to the 
mundane-ness of God

sitting in church i
would make letters out
of the abstract stained glass window 

staining us blue
& green & purple
as the sun went
down on saturday mass

blinking my whole
body into 
a vision test

i want to trace her
shadows in sidewalk chalk

i want god 
to leave me a stickie note 

the nurse changes 
the slide

the firecompany
in Boyertown 
has bingo on thursdays
at 7pm

or so announces their 
yellow-toothed
billboard outside--

the plastic letters 
were a mix of red & black
some wonky in their places--

down memorial highway
today i counted the number
of bingo nights as they passed--

mondays belong to limerick
& tuesdays to saratoga

& on wednesdays you could probably
make it to the one 
at blandon fire company at 6pm
& then to oley at 8

could i just walk in then?

wrist tattoos & checker-board
flannel--

sitting down at a long 
lunch-room style table
i would start off small--

get a lucky card going--

pick a blue stamper from
a coffee mug in the center of
the faded green table clothe--

elementary school
was probably the last time
i played bingo

i'd go with my friend janie

her dad & mom were pros

i watched them every year to
pick up skills--

fanny packs full of stampers

they'd lay the bingo boards
across the table 

a sprawling grid--

are you a 1 in 4 chance?

at least 6 boards at a time

i had trouble paying 
attention to keep track 
just 1 board

i was busy counting ceiling tiles
as the metal cage tumbled 
with numbers--

eagerly they stomped
each other's faces & rushed
again & again at the little
trap door--

was it euphoric to have their
name called aloud?

i feel like that when
people call me by my chosen name--

like B6, I19, or 062--

call me any of those--

just don't call me a girl
alright?

i'll swallow a handful of 
numbers when no one's looking

stop pretending like
it's just a game of chance--

there's a skill to this

there's prayer & then there's
janie's parents still
sitting in the lunch room
of their daughter's elementary school 

we never won 
not me or janie or
her mom or dad--

each game had a 20$ prize

that would last me 
the rest of the month 

i'd think about
what i would do with the money 

a ring pop or maybe
a sleeve of quarters at the bank 
for the machines at the end of
the check out at the grocery store

so if i go to bingo
will i blend in?

will they call me
young man 
or
sport?

red suspenders & pocketbooks
on beige folding chairs--

i hope they end with
the full card--

i love the prolonged suspense
of the last round--

in 4th grade i was 1 spot
away from winning

i pinched the red bingo
chip between my fingers
looming over single empty spot

B1

if all else fails i think 
i'd like to move there--

park my car in that
the unclaimed square

lay down in the back seat

i bet it's peaceful

& there's never a number 
for your name

so you just listen
to the plastic balls laughing
into each other--

there are too many planets

a whole cage full

in the dark of the firehouse hall
i would take out the bingo
game just for myself--

one card in front of my

moon in the window 
carving N32 into
her chest

horseshoe crab eggs

was i born first
as a golden mustard seed?
a horseshoe crab egg

planetary & aching 
with pre-history--

oh trembling moons

clustered & foaming 
in the salty mouth 
of the shore--

when i had a sore throat
as a little girl i would
sit on the kitchen counter
& gargle salt water 

my mother mixed it
with a teaspoon in a mason jar

she said:

this is to remind 
you of home

& with her reddish pincher legs
she would turn back 
into the surf

i was telling you
yesterday about how
i still think of
all the horseshoe crabs 
we saw on the shore
that night in stone harbor

when the moon was also
an embryo--

do you know have many
of their eggs
fit on the face of
a quarter?

is this how god thinks
of us all?

like caviar or 
dislodged rosary beads
laid in the cold sand--

i asked you
if you thought 
the horseshoe crabs
had any awareness of 
what was happening?

that they were becoming parents

or if it would purely impulse
to find a lover
on the beach that night--

did they have hopes
for me?

my horseshoe crab parents 
as they scarred each other's
copper shells in
the violence of the tide 

tide drawn in & out--

the hem of a dress

my father hung green wispy 
curtains in my bed room 
like a veil--

in the summer when the 
air-conditioning churned 
they thrashed like 
vocal chords--

do they have voices then?
the horseshoe crabs 

if i open my mouth
will i speak it--

is it the sound you
hear when you put your
ear to a conch shell--

my father taught me
that trick--

he put the shell to
my ear & i pushed it away--

i was terrified that
something would crawl
out of the cove of the shell--

i remembered our 
arachnid legs--

saw them clamoring
for my ears--

i want to know 
what it's like to see
with so many eyes--

i gave mine up
as i got older--

slipping them into pockets
like marbles--
cupping them in my hands 
like minnows to be let
go in the stream by my house

who do they see for?

does god sometimes 
kneel & look through
a set of their pupils--

does he feel in touch 
with the earth?

does he take a handful 
of eggs & decide which 
ones will live--

yes that one is me--

i came pink & naked
from beneath an exo skeleton--

learning how
to be human came easily

the doll houses & tea sets

uncle rich called me
a fish for how long
i lingered in water--

drank from the hose
& put my head under water
in the bath--

what would they think of
me now?

my horseshoe crab parents--

are they still alive
or did a sea gull leave
them only a husk?

if i found them
i would thank them 
for my body--

i would show them 
my bedroom & 
fill the world up
with salt water--

foaming on the windows
& in the bathtub 

rust

broken glass 
bit ankles 

& we watched the rust
as it made its
way up our forearms

the trail up
the street from
your house in muhlenberg
became part of our bodies--

come march 
we went to check on
our cold spring thawed blood--

the mulberries blistering 
from trees above
would soon fall & become
mush on the asphalt--

you'd make me eat them
& i'd wonder if they 
were poison

the romance of eating 
poison berries
with a young lover

i remember what our
theater director
said about juliet 
being the smartest 
person of any shakespeare play

i see her in me

shoo-ing invisible boys
from her windowsill like gnats

you kissed me like a handful
of gravel & i loved
the grit of your teeth--

we made skeletons 
outside ourselves--

tattooed the elderly 
trees with our names
so that they wouldn't 
be allowed to forget
the three springs we
spent with them--

or were we both romeo?

with our tendencies for poison--

i think we all are to a degree--

falling in love with the idea
of beautiful girls in ourselves
or others--

were there beautiful girls 
in the broken glass 
of the factory building?

the one by the trail--
surrounded by a brush & 
man-made stones

we would walk there to
take pictures with our cell phone
cameras--

broken glass beneath shoes 

untamed wires frayed 
on the cement ground

we took one of us kissing
as the light smirked in
the hole in the roof

a red rusted silo burst with 
dandelion heads

yesterday you said

why can't we just let 
them be flowers?

& i felt their seeds
in my throat-- 

cropping 
up like unwanted babies--

their pinkish fingers
pulling my tongue--

the whole factory was
infected with weeds
& then infected with us

what did they used to make there?

even in the back rooms we never found
any evidence of what the vast
carcass of a building had been
used for--

a 7-UP bottle from 1983

a filing cabinet desperately empty
one drawer bent open as if
its jaw bone were ripped
from skin--

we didn't take anyone else
there-- 

just me & you & the way
the window made the factory's body
scream--

occasionally more of
the ceiling would fall when 
we were there--

or was it the sky?

poison raining with
the mulberries--

we were virus in the legs
of the trees--
ringworms or maybe
parasitic like ticks--

i wore mosquito bites
for you like a charm bracelet--

i haven't gone back

maybe they tore the whole
thing down or
maybe at night
the factory gets to work--

lights bleary 
as the sun dandelion growls 
to sleep

have you gone back there
without me?

is there rust
left in you?

ir.rhythm

last night i fell
into an orchestra--

no crash of cymbal
but the dripping of the clarinet 
mouths on the wooden floor
of the stage--

before the last song
the conductor made a tribute 
to the rhythm of 
ordinary life--

to heart beats & 
tapping pens on desks--

i don't think i believe her

does everyone have
as irregular a tempo as
i do?

growing up 
we had an electric drum set
in our attic 

& my father tried to teach
me the simplest beat

tish-tish tash
tish-tish tash

on the snare & the high hat
i could never ad 
in the bass drum--

i would feel whatever
semblance of rhythm 
i had found 

running away from
me without its shoes on--

moth wing laughing 
on the neon lit ceiling--

even without stumbling
over foot pedals
my patterns always sped up
or slowed down--

it's tragic because i
love the idea of percussion--

in the back of the band room
in middle school 
after practice i meandered between
bongos & tablas--

tapping their course skin surfaces 

i found ir-rhythms--
their rain fall euphoria

the talking drum with it's tongue
down my throat--
each thumb striking skull--

i never wanted to be
a drummer in a band---

i just wanted to fight out
my own cadence--

oh are there people
who can live in 4/4 time?

have you ever thought of
your body as a metronome?

i can still see the frustration
of my first guitar teacher as
he shook his head--
stuck the end of a pencil
in his mouth 

telling me to
keep up keep up

i tore out the electric strings
they ran down my back

oh fret-board spine

music & me have always been
out of sync--

my father worked nights back
then & ate dinner 
on the sofa when i got
up for 7th grade-- 

my youngest brother still
only a castanet 

amplifier snap--

i don't want to find 
rhythms for you--

sometimes i live only
to spite conductors

their batons swinging 
above my head--

i stepped on the
lips of my old trumpet--

the drum set in the attack
chews femurs 
for sticks

giving blood

i'm selfish to 
keep all my blood
to myself--

my uncle always
goes to blood banks
because he has O negative blood--

i do too--

i don't really know
what that means other than
you can give blood to anyone

i don't tell anyone that
because i'm scared they'll 
start calling me like
they call him--

telling him 
blood supplies are low

i imagine my veins like
a water park-- 

inner tubes shaped 
like 'O's to let swimmers know 
what kind of blood i have--

they stand on top
of great tall slides--
maroon splashing as they fall--

i can feel them 
beneath my skin--

their flutter-kicks & air bubbles
from their noses-- 

all of them frantic
looking for more O negative blood--

they drip wine

skulls crackng open
on sidewalks like watermelons--

their mouths full of red 
& white light sirens--

whenever there's a blood drive
near by i find new excuses
to be somewhere else--

i tell my friends i'm too short
to loose any blood or
that i just got a tattoo
& that they won't take it anyway--

sometimes i say that i'm gay 
& my blood is still probably 
crawling with 
their 80s diseases--

you don't want my blood--

my wonderlusted contamination--

would you start to
stare out windows more?

start kissing the back
of your hand remembering
what his skin felt like?

would you develop an uncontrollable
obsession with looking
up their the branches of 
old oak trees?

i would be worried
for someone who shared blood
with me--

could they teach themselves
to cry like i do
or would they feel 
fists in
their veins?

i'd want to find them
no matter how many cities
over they were

i'd show up at
the hospital 

ask to 
compare blue wrists--

i sometimes walk past
the red cross van-- 

other people laying down 
with the tube in their arm--

i think of them as grownups

as more grownup than me
to be able 
to give blood

to lay their draining 
themselves
as the the clouds take
to playing hopscotch 
out the tiny van windows--

i used to cross my arms
& lay back as i slid 
down the metal slide at the park

watched the clouds
playing leap-frog-- 

on over another over
another

cemetery of hair

i cut barbie doll hair

i never had many dolls 
& i wanted them in a guilty
kind of way 

i knew they were girly 
& i didn't want to be girly 
but i wanted to explore bodies--

when i'd go over
other girl's houses for
sleep overs i would always find
their dolls--

i craved to be alone with them--

with their impossible waists
& tangled plastic hair

i recall a sleep over
where i got up in the middle
of the night to play alone
with my friend's dolls

i undressed them--

their skin grinning in
the dim light coming
in the windows

i was fascinated by their
nipple-less breasts--

their tip-toed feet
poised almost like horse hooves

i knew i wasn't shaped
like them--

i ran my fingers 
over my stomach & my sides
a red anjou pear
dangling from a tree branch--

i drank nectar from aluminum cans

did the other girls notice
my haunting fascination?

did they catch me--
dolls in my hands-- disrobing 
them respectfully one by one--

i had few of my own

i hoarded the pair 
of big red scissors
my mom used for cutting yarn

cutting their plastic follicles
on the floor of my bed room--

my own hair long down my 
back-- 

it was always mischief making knots
to be yanked out in the morning
before school

tired mouth 
of my mother's brush--

i want to draw
some deeper conclusion about us-- 
about us girls who 
cut our barbie's hair

about how years later
i would sit in a salon chair
& tell them to take it
all off--

even now i sometimes
fantasize about clippers
making a front lawn 
of my skull--

i want to tell the barber

yes yes cut be down to the bone--

or maybe i cut barbie hair 
because i wasn't a girl at all--

making boys 

i re-dressed 
my dolls in GI-Joe shirts 
& camouflage pants--

sometimes making them 
clothes from scratch-- 
pipe-cleaners & felt--

but there are other 
girls yes, other girls
who cut off their dolls hair--

do we have something in common?

is it purely the sensation?

the hair falling?

the faint sensation of god-likeness 
for young girls who are learning
that the word will
always have a say 
over their bodies

did we free our dolls then?

we knew their hair wouldn't grow back

but our always will--

even now i'm touching my face 
my hair my skin

what can be erradicated
with red scissors?

will my skin someday be
plastic-- trembling in my own
girl-hands

lit through the window 
by street light 

when i cut their
hair i buried it in 
the soil behind the garage--

i walk on 
a cemetery of hair