sword eater

i didn't ever mean to be this kind
of hungry. i was trying to put on
a money show. open your mouth.
take in the dangerous. everyone claps
& thinks, "i'm glad that's not me."
there are thousands of little colosseums
in any given house. i started to crave
that taste of metal. how sharpness 
rings against skin. the threat of a complete
bifurcation. split section of a human.
one lung on either side. i thought i would
just hold the blade in my mouth.
i thought i could keep it there. instead,
my body demanded more. i did not
just swallow, i ate. i ate & ate. ran
to the wood block in the kitchen & ate
all the knives too. my whole family watched
like i was a television. in some ways
i am. i am the thing you can turn off
when it becomes too much. the living room
with all the windows open. the neighbors
page through magazines. cut out my face
& mail it to me. they write notes like,
"i saw what you have done." they always
sound like threats but i know what 
they really mean is, "i don't know
how you are still alive." i don't know either.
i have tried to curb my appetite with 
lesser hazards. sometimes just a spoon.
the limb of a fallen tree. a corkscrew.
i always come back to the swords though.
there is something so clean about the way
they slide through me. a moment to feel
as if i never was meant to be whole. 
a small exhale comfort to not have to smile 
without any blood between my teeth. 

grubs in the wood

when the grubs go to sleep
in the rotten wood for the winter
do they meet in some other
dreamscape? do they tell stories
of wings & whales? maybe
they play games in which they pretend
to have legs. their translucent bodies
coiled like new letters, each in
their own private vein. the crumbling wood
once strong oaks & wild walnut.
now, giving in to the soil. i find the grubs
as i split the wood. each a finger of 
an old god. they do not wake at first.
then, startled by the frozen light, they twist.
i tell them i am sorry to have snapped open
their wandering time. i want to explain
to them that humans have, for the most part,
forgotten how to sleep. i remove them.
dry the wood on a rack above the stove. 
carry the grubs out to where the chickens 
are huddled together. i apologize, terribly
i might add, to the bugs before i deliver them
to their devourers. i tell them,
"i have been plucked from rotten wood before."
but i know it is never a comfort that 
your destroyer has suffered like you.
often it is actually worse. once, a police officer
knocked on the window of my car
i was sleeping in. he said, "i know what it is like
but you have to get out of here." it was so early.
the sun was eating handfuls of our hair. 
i drove until the car was made of wood. until
it was winter. until i was in a kind of a dreamscape. 
in the end though what do i know of their shattered
quiet dark. of what winter meant to them.
of the rot swaddling their bodies. the chickens
thank me. i go inside. throw the wood
on the late fire. soon the weather will turn
& other grubs will awaken. will they ask
where the others went or will they know? 

spaceship water

i drink everything from little rockets
because i am traveling & there are
no more watering holes.
sometimes money feels like rain.
like when it's here it's really here
& when it's gone there is nothing
you can do to conjure it. i think
i am an amphibian who was 
wrongly classified at birth. 
if i watch the news the news will start
watching me. i say, "i want to reuse
this story" the story says,
"sorry, this is a single-use narrative.
you will need to rent it again
if you want to try to say something
about staying alive." i wave my hand.
i cannot handle another subscription.
the water starts to taste like blood
& i get a conspiracy in my bones
that each bottle has a person in it.
a man captured in a ray gun & forced
into cool liquid. i pour it out in a trash can
to be sure. a miniature waterfall.
people come & watch. take pictures.
the wonders of the world are shrinking.
it is a glorious night if i am full
& my hands have no holes in them.
i buy another water bottle & another.
the ocean, refuses to give in to ai
& disappears. not the water just
the whole thing. a void where
the sharks used to mistake us for seals
& leave disappointed. i hope one day
that drinking fountains bloom. that
instead of sips we step into them
fully with our clothes on & drink
like any real salamander. the caps
always sound like cracked knuckles
when they open. someday a big
lovely stranger will twist my neck
& take the biggest gulp of their life. 

slot machine 

someone asked me "are you american?"
& i said, "no, i am a slot machine"
which is another way of saying "yes,
& i do not know what that means."
in the airport at midnight in las vegas 
all the purgatory seats surround an altar of chance.
the planes take off like coins. my flight 
is delayed & there are ghosts mixed with travelers
mixed with disciples mixed with glorious non-believers.
i wish i was a non-believer but instead
i consider the odds. a woman tells a man
as he returns from the pulpit,
"i thought you were winning?" he says with
a hint of despair, "i lost fifty."
i am just tired enough to think, "maybe
the lights would give me fifty." balance the scales.
let me eat something sweet & ruthless. 
i check my bank accounts for the third time today. 
i buy water in little space ships. have i avoided 
a confrontation with the machine if 
instead, i watch others play? press a button.
cascades of digital gold. i am prying apart
the words "country" & "land."
"gold" & "whole." "chance" & "destiny." 
i miss the call for boarding. end up
at the back of the line between a man 
who keeps trying to call someone 
who will not pick up & two children who
do not let go of each other, their guardian
gripping a stroller, eyes shut. i savor the un-american
parts of me. the yearning to be swallowed
in places like this. to be unexceptional. 
to make it home in pieces. an unnamed part of me
left behind in the miniature sin city 
that glows loud & wordless 
out the tiny airplane window. 

stone soup

before i knew the stone soup story
i thought people gathered to eat the rocks.
that maybe in the boiled water
even the stones softened like sesame buns.
a sweet ringing kind of broth. 
in our yard on summer mornings 
i used to sometimes put a pebble
in my mouth while they 
were still cool from the night. once it turned into
a new moon. i was on the surface 
looking down at the gumball world. 
at the diner in the town where i grew up
if you go there in the dead of night
they'll still make you a black & white milkshake.
then if you say, "could i have a stone?"
they'll lead you to the quarry where 
a glider crashed when i was in high school.
no one inside. a roasted bird or pterodactyl. 
i get a pot & go into the yard. i pluck
all the smoothest stones i can find.
i ask the ghosts to help me. the work 
with their third & fifth hands. a pot
heavy with pieces of the thrumming earth.
fill with water & i get them boiling.
i know i am not jesus but i hope
they turn into fishes. i would release them
into the thickening clouds. a whole school
above. instead the rocks sing for us. they sing
about whales & about the earth's core.
how there is a pizza shop there that 
still sells dollar slices. it is 2002 & no one
knows yet how to microwave an apple. 
the water flies away. leaves the stones,
angry from the heat. there is no soup.
maybe in the story but not in the dark. 
i try to pick up a rock but it burns
through the floor & down into the crawl space
where the rats stare at it like a prophet
& then up at us through the floor. 

sick 

i get the disease from not using the moon
or at least that is what the telephone doctor thinks. 
(i can't afford a blood & guts one). 
all my teeth fall out so i sell them for 
a red wagon to carry my lungs in. 
it is so hard to remember all the ways
we are supposed to keep our bodies. i forget
to drink water & i turn into fruit leather. 
i don't remember to eat & find myself
a werewolf standing on the ridge & looking down
at the big ugly mcmansions that stain
the hillside. i don't breathe for days & then
i'm gasping & trying to take in as much air
as i can. i don't mean to neglect all these things
but there is only so many caramels in a sunrise.
only so many postcards that say,
"it is time for us to shuck you again."
i go to a secret healing fountain & there's
a cardboard sign hanging on it that reads,
"out of resurrections." i am used to disappointment
so i don't get too upset. i just go ahead
& book a television treatment. something
really loud & blue. i keep thinking that one day
i will get on top of all this bile stuff. i'll just
move through the world like everything
is silk. i have never felt like that. instead.
i put my bones in the dishwasher. i watch 
woo woo tiktoks about healing my inner bird.
the bird gets cooked costco style. i eat it 
with my hands tied behind my back.
the moon is here & i take it in the form
of a little dry pill. the shell tastes like
a beetle skeleton. i walk all the way down
to the place where the frogs are born
with my lungs in the little wagon. 
the frogs say, "we are sick too. how do you
fix this?" i tell them we all have to start
investing in clouds. or so i am told 
or was it buy a tree & dance? i can never remember
what we are supposed to do so i don't do
any of it. i bite my nails off. peel my flesh.
pick at my wounds like a cone-less dog. 

through the eye of a needle

i do not have a camel or even a dishwasher.
if i have learned anything in the last few months
it is that the other side does not exist.
i'm not talking about the afterlife. i don't
have time to worry about that. i mean 
whenever there is a door there isn't a door.
i mean they will show you a hallway of needles
& tell you the world is yours for 
the shaking. you will hold out a pinky finger &
try as hard as you can to fit through 
the eyes. none of them will open. sometimes 
i consider making a deal with a mosquito.
drinking garnet blood until i am as fat as i can be.
then, thinning to the size of a whisper & maybe
just maybe fitting through. 
we are giants to some creatures & ants to others.
when i was small & church-going i remember
the priest giving a homily about the phrase,
"it is easier for a camel to fit through the eye
of a needle than a rich person to get into heaven."
i guess i am in fact talking about heaven. i don't want
to be on the same side of the end times 
as rich people but the presence of an empire is always
a plummeting set of choices. you can be
the knob or you can be the hinge
but you can never be the way through. i sometimes
consider going to a psychic off the highway
because i would like someone to lie to me
really sincerely. for them to take my hands
& tell me that my (not dead) father is trying
to confess. i buy more needles. pile them in 
the dancing place by which i mean the bathtub.
if i dive in i will have to pass through one. 
i promise i'll write. i promise i'll bring honey 
even if it is just a thread's worth. i want to betray
every horror. be softer & maybe in the mix
of all of it, collapse the throat. never make it back. 

survivor man 

show me how to shuck a desert.
i watched in the summer when the windows
turned into gnat wings.
my brother & i home alone 
in the house without a door.
he put the leaves in his mouth. 
we would do the same in the yard
with the spring onions. surviving beneath
the sap-sick pine. he fished with his hands.
plucked bees from the sky. 
slept inside the body of a great beast.
sometimes i would take notes
in case i ever found myself
alone. the black  & white marble notebook
open like a butchered bird.
nothing but a knife. i took out
the kitchen knives & laid them in a row
on the table. traced the blades to find
which one was the sharpest. that one
i would steal in the event of a great
survival. when it rained. water soaked
through to his bones. i shivered too.
wondered what it would be like
to sleep in the yard without any skin.
i wished i could survive like he did.
instead, the summer shrank. my father
filled orange paint buckets with amber bottles. 
laughed at the lilting moon. 
boredom like a third brother in 
the old farmhouse. wind & the gritty speakers
at the local pool. school, the always impending doom. 
small again in the halls that smelled
like bleach. i wanted to crouch in the brush.
dirt beneath my fingernails. only for me
no camera crew. just the best kitchen knife
& maybe a lighter from the birthday drawer.

check engine light

let's see if we can just make it until the sun
finally bursts. it won't be that much
longer now but i don't want
to live through the end of the world
without a getaway car. plus you & i both know
you are not ready to die. 
i put the key in your mouth 
& close my eyes. i drive eyes shut &
just hope we end up where we're supposed to.
gas stations bloom & we go to drink 
some sick nectar. 
i wish my skull had little lights like yours 
to show people walking by that i am
not all there. that there is something
unnamable wrong. i always think
the check engine light looks like
a little fist. a clenched halo. we drove you once
for miles & miles with no oil at all.
you bleed beneath the parking spot. 
couch up a dinosaur. every time we get
on the highway i beg you, "let's keep it going
just a little longer." one more city.
one more road. one round-about. 
the brief solar systems we make. 
i put the key into my own mouth
to try it out. a thrum inside my chest.
a sea of gasoline. a beast for an engine. 
i keep a map in the glove box 
in case i have to walk home without you. 

hitch-hiking 

i can find my way home. 
i am done ubering places. the smell
of strangers' cars. their sadness
& my sadness making a sick soup.
since our car wouldn't start last week
i have been trying anything.
once on the side of the road i saw
a few deer grazing. i offered them
one of my hands if they would take me
back to the hole in the earth 
that i climbed out of. they did not
accept my hand which was lucky
because i needed that for the vultures
who brought me to the coffee shop
on hamilton the next day. they tossed
it around a little like a fidget toy.
i was hoping they would attached it
& consider taking up an instrument 
or something else they couldn't do before.
money is always winged but not
in an angel way, more like in a moth way
or, truly, in a cloud-of-gnats way.
you smack what you can. i stick my thumb out.
this is why i insisted on keeping 
one hand. a truck pulls over. the man driving 
says, "this hull is full of ghouls
are you sure you want to get in?"
i shrug. it's better than guns or bombs.
he takes me past where i was supposed
to get out. we keep going & going.
i do not beg him to stop. i am so tired
of trying to get somewhere. i am so tired of
searching desperately for doors
only to find them opening to brick walls.
when we finally stop it is in another state.
the one without a name or country.
a gas station where we eat something 
full of glorious sugar & fat. 
he says, "i do not know where i am going.
i will take you home soon."
i do not rush him. i let him run the truck
into pieces. the ghouls run free
like decapitated balloons. we sit side by side
on a lost people bench. 
stick our thumbs out & wait.