scarecrow you forget your name-- you watch it dismembered-- letter by letter-- it's carcass in the beaks of the crows-- it's memory-- a phantom-- weight of moon light on your tongue-- walk to the corner of the field-- you carry your father's clothing-- plaid shirt-- jeans-- straw hat-- match-stick head sun drop-- burn holes in your forearms-- corn stalk hush-- back porch light all-embracing this body-- they call you kindling-- a pile of wasp bones-- handful after handful of hay down your throat-- you eat to forget your skin-- morning dew soaks you-- saturated face-- you hold frost in your shoulders-- your kind of fear surfaces in your eyes-- stitch over stitch-- you own a body of apprehension-- of isolation of wordless mouth of calling beaks-- you dream of beaks-- they snap your father's cloths from your body-- you dream match stick sun-- gentle ignition of flesh-- you burn-- corn husk daughter-- Indian corn tooth brother-- smile black feather swallow spoonful of night-- this night is early & thick this night is a thunderstorm of black feather & bird feet in mud-- follow foot steps to the back porch-- smolder & blaze-- you crucifix-spine man-- what have you done to watch over us today? have you said your Our Fathers? Have you said your Hail Marys? Do you know each fox by name? Each hare? You come down from your stake air thick-- cold feather night-- your spine of foot prints & echoing bird call-- a scream repeating beneath your father's clothes you press finger to mud-- you etch lines in the dirt that never form a word-- you claw & rake-- desperate so desperate for your name
10/27
this is a poem for teenagers who kiss in graveyards this is a poem for dry leaves-- for steam off my flat iron-- for my chipped black finger nails-- this is a poem full of elegies i wrote to myself-- for nights i used my windowsill as a mother-- for night i jumped & splashed next mars-- this is for teenagers who kiss in graveyards-- for a dead bent maple tree on cemetery hill in Kutztown-- it's boney fingers fishing for our bodies-- catching us like a grandmother-- watching us while we wrapped ourselves in grass stains & hyperbole-- wrote our names on the back of our hands as approximations for tombstones-- a poem for snake coil ear bubs with one speaker blow out from too much Green Day this is a poem for feeling small in the mouth of another person-- for reading graveyard names like your own-- for taking a spoon to dig yourself a bed-- dirt cold under finger nails-- this is a poem for zombies & for trying to fall in love with vampires & for mud caked on Chuck Taylors & for laying under moon shadow-- the skeleton tree-- the red moon full of all the blood we've managed to rain from our bodies-- this is a poem for bathroom mirrors & the people who look into them-- for re-applying black nail polish-- for leaning up against a car door-- one ear bud in-- making fog on the window with your breath & tracing a heart-- your heart-- your heart as phantom & fleeting as its outline in the window-- this is a poem for you
we are this perhaps
we are this perhaps-- we are used to express uncertainty or possibility-- loving you is like catching the street lamps all turn on at once-- a silent resounding of light-- this perhaps of us-- is comet tail evening-- is canvas shoes by the door is a kiss left on my neck-- is a sunset full of moths-- it's like i could never driving home alone-- your voice headlights & rear-view mirrors let's be a stop sign-- i'm thinking about when i'll get to hear your smile next-- when oh when will you hold me like a pocket watch like a silver dollar-- the moon is a hammock now-- we are this perhaps-- this maybe oh sleep with me like a rolled up receipt you find in a back pocket-- oh open me-- i'm an old yellow-page book with no words-- let's read each other's call numbers in the glow of Christmas lights strung above my bed-- oh perhaps perhaps i met a boy & i knew that i loved him so easily i mistook him for the faint blaze of street lamps-- i have never loved someone like i love you
10/26
what does the tooth fairy do with all our teeth? i have heard rumors she builds a castle-- sack of teeth-- brick & mortar-- wall on wall on wall-- she never gets any sleep-- she is always listening-- that muffled careful sound of tooth slid beneath pillow-- tiny snap of tendon & vein-- like feet walking through forest brush-- twig-snap-- another tooth falls without making a sound-- she often lingers there-- by a child's bedside in the hopes they will wake up & see her-- she knows she's supposed to be secretive but it's so lonely building a castle all for herself-- bag after bag of teeth stacked row on row-- she touches a child's forehead with the back of her hand she says come with me & we'll be faeries together-- she doesn't mean it of course-- she's just pretending-- when i was seven & a half i prayed to the tooth fairy & i still wonder if she heard me -- i woke in the middle of the night-- mouth metallic blood-tasting-- i poked around with my tongue to find my wiggly tooth gone-- i looked under my pillow-- in my bed sheets-- on the speckled carpet with no luck-- i sat up-- covers pulled to my neck crying for this lost tooth-- i ran my hand side to side & said a tiny prayer to her-- i didn't ask for the tooth fairy money or even for my tooth back-- i asked for her-- i asked if maybe i could just see her so that i could know she was real-- i imagined her walking along my dresser-- swinging from a coat-hanger & landing on my pillow-- i smiled at this notion-- & there she was looking over me-- a backpack full of teeth slung over one shoulder-- she sat there in the windowsill feeling the cool january wind nip at her wings-- she sighs as she hears another tooth slide under a pillow she looks my molar she swiped while i was busy mourning the emptiness in my mouth-- she observes the tooth in blueish moon-light-- rubs her thumb over parchment-colored smooth surface-- she ponders briefly what kind of food i ate -- grilled cheese at Basin Street Tavern-- chicken fingers & banana bread & steel bowls full of rinsed blueberries-- she drops the tooth in with the others-- she waits for me to fall asleep before sauntering out of my bed room-- she brushes a tear off my cheek & kisses my forehead she promises me i'm real i'm real i'm real & in the morning there is no quarters & there is still a hole in my mouth & far away in some place neither heaven or earth she kneels down-- picks my tooth out of her bag & set it in line-- another wall of her great empty castle-- she feels as if the whole structure is chewing her-- gulping down her thin body-- she is a bowl of blueberries-- she sleeps on a warm flat tongue--
This poet has teeth
*CW* Suicide
This poet has teeth of love & arsenic of ball point pens driven into thighs-- this poet has teeth-- this poet's body is a elegy on repeat-- this poet owns a tombstone-- uses it as a book mark-- this poet's body is the final resting place of an apology-- this poet breaks plates on the kitchen floor-- this poet's body has never been a weapon-- this poet says i'm sorry to a hand that pulled his hair-- this poet learned to bleach out memories till they turn shiny & gold-- this poet has a planted seeds in the tilled rows of my wrists this poet is a birthday candle-- a mouth full of dirt road-- take me here-- take me handful of sand-- take me suicide google search-- do you know how easy it is to unscrew a lightbulb? did you hear me say I'm the poet with teeth-- crooked & un-apologetic-- I'm the kind of broken bottle you can step on-- step on me if that's what you want but my edges don't cut-- i reserve that for myself-- my edges slice watermelons into moons-- chop river rocks into a song-- oh but remember I'm the poet with teeth-- of love & arsenic-- they say mixing bleach & ammonia seems easy-- a quiet kind no more-- I tattooed a tombstone on my arm so you know what I'm carrying with me-- I'm the poet with teeth made out of tombstones-- this isn't a goodbye this is a forever-- this is a elegy on repeat on repeat on repeat this body is a poet this poet has teeth bite into me i bleed
10/25
on watching a street lamp go out last night as i was driving a street lamp went out above me i thought to myself what does that mean? what on earth could that mean? that kind of thing doesn't just happen-- it reminded me of 3rd grade when my teacher told us that some of the stars we look at are already dead-- their light a final kiss across the galaxy-- light-beam crawling on hands & kness down telescope barrel-- playground slide-- speck of glow & laughter-- i want to die jovially like the stars like polaris or anteres-- alpha andromadee & the sisters mizar & alcor-- who will all someday go out mostly unnoticed-- their thumb prints of light radiating lonely goodbye-- how human it is to name a dying flash of brilliance kissing us gently-- jostling past asteroids & asterisks to land so quietly in our street lamps-- when i saw the street lamp go out i knew that it was once a star-- that it once journeyed-- backpack dangling by one strap-- hitch hiking somewhere along the back of ursa major-- i thought to myself that's how it will all end-- won't it? with the same unassuming quiet death of the stars-- the earth will sneak away from us-- a kiss down the barrel of a telescope the quiet blink of a straw lamp relinquishing its final fleck of light
10/24
my heart i go looking for my heart at the antique markets-- on beach towels & folding tables-- how much for this crystal punch bowl complete with a ladle & twelve little chalices? i could use the big spoon to scoop cold morning air out of my skeleton-- pour breathe-- a miscarried cloud-- dad comes with-- we always go antiquing together-- we're both rebuilding our anatomies & the heater in my father's jeep is a match stick-- wrap your hands around it-- let fire spread-- lick threads of your mittens through to your skin-- your skin is a strip of flint-- my heart this bold match stick flame-- this frigid fall morning-- let's page through collector's stamp binders-- mail letters while they're not looking-- i'll mail mine to you to let you know that by the end of the day i will hope to have found it-- my heart that is-- i keep seeing it everywhere & i haven't had the nerve to strike a deal for it yet-- it's a lopsided rocking horse-- an old Creature of the Black Lagoon poster-- it's everywhere-- held in the eyes of another pile of beanie babies-- it's black & glossy & lonely & certainly not one-of-kind-- whose grandmother's fur coat was this? whose purple heart medal? whose red-handled egg beater? these are so so many hearts-- so so many shared bones laid out on blankets-- here you see there are my femurs-- my pelvis which is also a tasseled lampshade-- a wilted record player singing an elvis song-- the king's voice etched to life from the rotation of the turn table-- the rotation of the earth-- i'm trying to put myself together here-- frankenstein's boy here with \ golf club legs i will call you when i'm done-- when i've found all the fragments-- when i lay back in the crystal punch bowl & shift my fingers through state quarters in the hopes i will find my heart there-- waiting to be tucked back into my pocket-- it has a habit of slipping away & turning round & round the king's voice burning love like a match struck against my skin
an apology
this is an apology for the way i've been missing you-- for the way this morning was both my windowsill & a front door & how i keep drifting back to your body-- your smile dangling a comma on a comma on a comma-- i became a poet so that i didn't have to know what commas were really used for-- i use them to run on-- run on i want to be a run-on sentence with you-- i don't want to use punctuation-- i want to hold you like the arms of an ampersand-- entangled in itself turning around & saying & & & & tomorrow i will wake up with so many poems to ignore writing-- they swarm-- wasps at my window-- their slender black & yellow bodies-- they tell me that a poet is so clumsy to fall for someone-- as mundane as another red oak leaf-- oh look there he goes-- another poet dropping from the tree unnoticed -- he'll probably write a poem about it won't he? he'll probably come his feeling for you to something like an orchid or an august night-- this is now become an apology for writing you another poem--i hope you like it this apology for not being able to stop thinking about how every time you speak you send ripplies through me-- i can be your little tide pool full of sand-dollars & shells & word echo waves-- i wonder how many poems you'll find yourself in here with me-- oh catch me-- while as many times as you want i'll fall slow for you-- a red oak october rain & so loud with missing you
10/23
radio ocean my green volvo has a mouth hungry for salt water-- pound wave on shoreline & driveway-- oh radio ocean-- oh chord rapant rip-tide-- songs ambling in each hallway of my body-- i keep fish hooks in the glove box-- the hopes of snagging a voice like yours-- disentangle melody from wave thicket & water-- smack tide rising tide against my bed room window-- how did the ocean fill up with so much song & how did i witness it? here alone in my green volvo waiting to wash up on a beach-- have tourists inspect me like a humpback whale-- dry-mouthed & clamoring for a deeper & deeper ocean in case i wake up as someone else tomorrow i wanted to tell you: of all this ocean of sound i think of your voice like a room a room i want to go back to & draw the blinds & lay on the bed-- all encompassed-- considering the ceiling-- i'll saunter polyphonic boned i'll float-- pull clouds down & make a raft-- i listened to that song you told me i might like & i tried to like it all on my own but i couldn't help but find you guitar glint & drum beating back-door-- beating from the inside of my trunk i close my eyes & hope to wake up again in this body in a radio ocean where on occasion your voice can be a room i lay awake in
10/22
electroshock therapy & the minotaur that follows you home they would have known me as a lightning rod-- what kind of god holds thunder in jars on the shelf-- has the will to inflict the sky? oh doctor doctor what kind of cure do you have for the labyrinths carved in skulls by my foot steps through this city where the alleys always lead to the ocean-- what kind of minotaur do you have to let loose after me-- stalking every shadow full of static-- maybe a hundred years ago i would have been a patient of electroshock therapy for any number of reasons-- 1. the homosexual-- confused about the script of a body 2. the bisexual-- ill-formed-- indecisive-- a catalyst for love 3. the neurotic-- mouth full of none-sense words-- he sees the minotaur 4. when the lobotomy wasn't enough 5. he knows the minotaur by name-- calls to him when he thinks he's alone-- 6. he holds the sky too close to himself before sleeping 7. he believes in flight-- the type only angels make 8. he gets lost in places he doesn't know entirely on purpose-- 9. at night he likes to pretend there is no one else left on earth but him 10. the transgender-- they say he was born in the body of a girl-- he says he was born in a body that will always keep minotaurs-- what kind of lost are you today? what kind of electricity in left under your skin from the last time i touched you? we telephone wires-- we street light flicker-- we patients of lightning-- what kind of god was it who told you there was thunder in your skulls-- the minotaur the minotaur follows me home
