i grew like moss

when you left i grew like
moss-- between
the cracks in the sidewalk--
soft caress & handfuls of
cement--
when you left my body
went green-- 
i took the left side
of the tree-- a dense mat 
of flowerless hips--
this body knew thick 
thigh summer &
hands in pockets autumn 
& that season between
winter & spring--
this body grew around itself--
made a song from the silence
you left in me--
when you left, this body
found the stream--
took the rocks in hand &
climbed the spine of a mountain--
this body is delicate & fierce--
this body turned over
the stones--
this body lays out--
kisses all over your skin--
this body is moss--
my roots are soft
& my body is green

dear siri,

if i place my finger
over top of a city a thousand
miles away will you
tell me how to walk there?
we can flatten mountains with
our thumbs-- 
raise
gas stations from
the ground 
& eat apples
in parking lots.
we'll plant the seeds 
there.
tell me how to 
come back
siri-- 
take
me home the way we came
so i can see a parking
lot full of apple trees--
catch golden delicious
on the roof
of my green volvo
with the squeaky breaks &
a trunk full of 
places we only visit
on google maps when 
night makes the corners
of a room fall away--
becoming to creases of a map--
a mystic snake crawls on
its belly to bite
the cities of our dreams--
siri can you tell me
what the best way to 
walk across the ocean would be?
i'm not going to paris
but i might end up there--
i just want to cross the ocean--
the most direct route would
be best-- 
siri when was the last time
you watched the sun come up?
do you keep track of 
all the perhaps places
i've ask you to take me to--
is this intimate for you
like it is for me?
to know the blue lines
i ask you to draw in
the dirt-- 
do you laugh when i miss my turn
& keep driving 
because i feel particularly 
drawn to the texture of
a road beneath me?
oh siri let's be strip mall
lovers-- drink coffee
from back seats-- let's 
just draw lines on top
of lines & look at
what a journey would
look like--
take buses to the moon--
are you scared to give
me directions to the moon?
to the bottom of the ocean?
you know i'm not leaving 
so tell me how to get there--
you know i'm drowing
in this room-- 
in this stop light hymnal--
oh siri do you know
what i mean when i say
i want to go home now--
i want to go home--
when the ocean is done
being blue would you pick me up--
drive the car for me--
one hand on the steering wheel
like my father--
letting me lay down in
the backseat-- a little girl
again whose father waits 
for her to be done guitar
lessons or brushes her
hair when she's done swimming--
oh siri be my father for
me-- be my mother &
show me where the nearest honeysuckle 
bush is-- i'm thirty
& my ankles are covered
in snake bites from
all the places i pretended 
to travel with you--
oh siri oh siri-- 
i know where we live on
noble street it--
i know the flat of land
where we used to have a house
on main & the brick face of
our home on franklin 
is still slowly peeling away--
you tell me that home 
has an eta of twelve foot steps-- 
eight breaths-- &
an open window--
i open the window &
breathe in--

my gods are blue whales 

if i still have time
i think i would like
to learn to be a taxi driver
in the city-- i want to go
where you're going--
stop where you're stopping--
& let's meet on these street
corners together--
i won't ask what boy you're meeting
at the Museum of Natural 
History but i hope he 
likes dinosaurs & will
lay on the floor with you
to look up at the big blue
whale-- i make a up a story
where you're looking to
run away together--
walk into an exhibit &
turn into the manikins that 
wear Eskimo furs--
let's stop in central park &
invite some ducks inside 
the taxi too-- 
tell a hot dog vendor to
leave his stand & get
in-- we're all on our way
to the moon & don't ask questions
because it takes one
too many questions to prevent
a car from flying--
we'll watch our reflections
in the mirrored
walls of a skyscraper 
& someone will say that
they look like tooth picks
jutting out of the earth 
& we'll all get smaller &
the hot dog vendor will demand 
to be taken back to his cart
until of course when we enter
orbit & everything seems
to slow down--
you-- the girl in the back
seat of the taxi are a girl
like i have been with bleached
blonde hair pulled back with
sparkly hair clips--
with finger-less gloves & 
with a desire to linger
on street corners--
you are waiting for
a poem to come up 
from the ground-- to write
itself like a prophesy 
on the wall of the subway station
you are looking for a poem--
you are looking for a boy
to write a poem for you--
to point up at the belly
of the blue whale & make some
sense of the body of a creature
so massive that you 
could sleep in her veins--
let's be blue whales--
let's write holes into
our stockings--
let's take the ferry alone--
& when we come back down to
earth the ducks will
be flustered & 
the hot dog vendor will 
curse at me for lost business
& you-- the girl 
in the back seat
who is//was also a girl named
me-- you will meet a boy 
& he will empty you
of all your veins 
& you a girl will believe
you needed a city
to fill you-- 
alone in window
you will pick street lights
out of your fingers like
splinters--
oh girl i want you
to be a blue whale--
swallow skyscrapers &
reject your own reflection--
invite other girls to sleep
in your veins
while they try to find poems--
a city doesn't write a poem--
a city writes a stoplight 
& sticks tooth picks
in the ground in a muddled attempt
at being god--
my gods are blue whales--
not the living ones
but the ones who 
hang from ceilings--
when you get out of this taxi 
you will be a girl
again & you will of course
meet that boy because
we all meet that boy 
but when you're older 
take the ferry alone 
& come back-- come back 
& i'll still be here &
so will the ducks & so will
the mirrors of the skyscrapers
& i'll be the blue whale with
its mouth open--
lay yourself down
inside me when you're 
ready to write
this poem
on your body-- 
teach the people
to come from thousands of
miles to gaze up
at your enormous 
blue body--

to pursue change

to pursue a body-- a chase--
these hands who were taught
to eat hair 
to pursue clay-- 
a pinch-pot-- 
my art teacher in first grade
said that clay isn't mud
that it's stone 
to pursue stone-- to pursue
looking up from the bottom 
of a creek--
to feel minnow heart beat--
to grab at blue gills &
wriggle into smaller & smaller
spaces-- to pursue the
underbelly of the stones--
round & full of moon--
to pursue a neck-tie
pulled tighter until
you pursue air-- pursue breath--
in all these years i
have been open-window &
wind-chime teeth--
hear my whole skeleton 
clamor-- knock on the walls
of this house to wake up
the ashes of our grandfathers--
a half-drank bottle of whiskey 
in the closet-- a pair
of haunted jeans that fit
three generations of 
my family's men--
in pursuit of these bodies 
i bought a box of keys 
at an antique stand-- heavy
& rust-licked &
i had no expectation of
opening anything--
i like these keys because they're
like me-- in a pursuit of
some whole of themselves 
long missing-- they 
unlock secret doors--
wooden chests forever
waiting at the foot of someone's 
bed-- in pursuit of unlocked bodies--
in pursuit of keys & rust--
this body is rust & green copper--
this body is a box of
mismatched keys trying
locks-- trying doors until
one opens-- one opens with
a push-- a glass door knob
was my knee--
in pursuit of front doors 
& attic where we keep
our keys & our secret
doors--
i have lived in
the pockets of a my grandfather's
blue jeans-- in 
the licked seal of an envelope
mailed in pursuit of
a body-- 
i am the window that asks
again for you to leave 
the windows open-- 
i am the curtains blow
aside like hair--
i am enough ashes to 
be a fireplace-- in pursuit
of clay i made a body
to live in-- to be yours
to be mine-- to be 
full of so many windows
you can't help but look
in & see an electric candle
in the window--
so yes-- yes i have
been in pursuit of change--
i have been carrying 
this box of keys
under my tongue-- trying 
the locks of other people's mouths--
cracking mirrors
like eggs--
listening to everything
wind-chime ringing--
a roar is what i'm in pursuit of--
a body that is loud enough
to hold me--

my heart was too big for my body
so i let it go

my hear was too big for my body
so i tied a string to the end of
it & watched it float over
me like a helium balloon
on the ceiling of the dollar store--
i took it with me & we went
outside where it turned into 
a song bird-- a cardinal-- & perched 
in the branches of the tree
outside my house-- the evergreen
one that sheds orange-needle
stubble in october--
it sat up there & i asked it to
take me with it--
i want 
to swallow air & float up
as aimless as a 'happy birthday'
balloon 
& my heart
bit the string with her beak
& became another cloud
that sometimes looks like
a polar bear or a great big
grandmother's face-- 
slowly dispersing--
i waited on the back porch
for it to come back--
left out bird seed & turned on
the radio to the 90s station
that it likes so much &
sometimes i would think i heard
it calling but it might have just been
the cicadas crooning
forever to each other 
from all corners of this night--
in the morning i opened the windows 
to the house in the hopes
it would return
on a gust of cool wind or
as quiet as a shed leaf--
i baked a cake made entirely 
of promises & it tasted like
angel food--
left it on the kitchen table
as an offering
on a white plate with 
a fork & a folded napkin--
i've spent so many days trying
to get my heart to give up
all its feathers--
i think of the time 
at the beach when
it became a dragon-shaped kite--
tail flapping & my feet
pounding the hot sand to
keep up--
i walked on water-- the
ocean a mirror & my face
was as bright as the
sun in the water & i pulled
my heart down from
the string & caught it in my
arms as it turned into 
a wave-- a splash of water against
my body-- broken mirror
in a thousand shards of 
water--
i fell into myself & 
the ocean rained backwards
& i remember how much i miss
it-- that feeling of
crashing--
eating the leftover cake 
the front door opens &
my heart comes back to me--
a little girl with pigtails 
& a basket filled with
stuffed animals-- she's missing 
two teeth in the front &
the shoulder strap of her dress
is snapped from playing to
much like a gust of window--
she turns doorknobs &
becomes an orchid for
the window-- i ask it if
it's staying this time-- 
if there will ever be a day when
i can hold on just tight enough--
& of course it doesn't answer
& a window blows
through the open windows 
of the house 

OCD & the radical act of coloring 

i woke up in this body
to find him screaming
the colors out of my room--
out of my skin--
i have been such an eradicated
girl-- a boy with clothespins
hanging him out on
the line in the backyard-- 
those there were
the shadows he peeled 
off like orange rinds-- 
tossing them down his turkey-neck
gullet 
& teaching them
not to come back--
i've spent hours on
my knees with the edge of a 
graphite pencil trying
to draw my shadows back into
place-- turned behind me
to sketch the silhouette
this body makes--
i approximate my own shape
because this body doesn't
know how to make
shadows-- it only 
scares them away or
so he tells me--
& when he came back 
the second time 
he laughed  
my night sky white-- 
punched out black holes 
where the stars would
have settled-- 
told the moon 
to turn around--
her bare back a sliver
etched like a snake tongue--
i'm shedding my skin
in an attempt to figure
out what colors we were--
i told him that i've
seen what he's done
to us-- 
i've watched him
get fat off my colors
but i still don't know
i look like-- 
& he put his lips
to my mirrors so
that i can only
use them to write my
name--
were we blue or indigo?
alone i like to believe
that on some days my body 
was the same color as a plum
& that my skin maybe have 
broken like
blueberries flushed with 
rain-- 
oh body-- did we lay 
in the arabesque of shadow?
did we fall away into the corners
of the room?
& he tells me i am a notebook
page girl-- holds me
up to peel off my fringes--
pinches my tongue between
his thumb & his index finger--
so i bite
i tell him i have a tongue
& as long as i have a tongue
i have a way to find colors
& late into the night i
get up with my black crayon
& i start shading in
the sky again
with his voice shouting shadow--
peeling back color after
color-- & i say back that
i am a body & i deserve
shadows & i can shade in every
inch of what he took--
i tell him that i am a body--
that i am a boy & i have been
a girl & i have been
a blueberry & the fat reddish
insides of a plum-- i tell him
my shadows are purple-- my stars
are cobalt &
my skin is nothing nothing
nothing but the hollow
pigment of the sun-- i'm taking
light & making shadow &
when he comes back to undress
me & flip me over
like the moon i'll tell him
that this time he pulls 
my hair i'll cut it off &
this time he kisses me 
i will only be a mirror--
my name written on the fog of
the glass--
this is what i do with crayons
& so i stay up through the night
until the sun comes up & admires
the shadows i've made--
this body is a body--
is a throat full of unscreamed  
words-- a tongue
keeping all the shadows
beneath it like a heavy 
bruised pearl--
& i know he'll be back &
we'll have to start over
but i am the kid with
the infinite box of crayons
& oh this body this 
body is mine--

september body 

i raised my hands up 
to dip my fingers in
the ink well of the moon &
pressed sunflower seeds
into my arm pits--
i grew late like the
purple chrysanthemums
behind my knees--
this is where i run away 
to-- 
where my dry-leaf bones 
crinkle-cracked
& we woke up the ghosts 
of our mother's maple trees--
dangled rope swings from 
tongue--
i opened the seed packets
onto my thighs--
my calves-- this garden 
this body that grew 
in september--
i am the kind of vines that
come through the window
& the hair on my legs
is a corn field to
get lost in with the foxes--
a thicket by the creek.
i harbor snakes &
pocket-watch legged crickets
in with garden--
we keep time-- count
each second on
the throats of the toads--
they pretend to be brown leaves--
oh take a walk in my september
body with me--
we can sit on a bench 
in the park & pretend
to know how to talk to 
god & move our lips
to the words we meant 
to keep safe in our heads-- 
we're 
too tired to think without
lips-- lick the moon
off your fingers & 
i'll show you the rows
of seeds waiting to 
become a garden beneath
my skin--
i'll have pumpkins &
tomatoes & carrots to 
pull out by their leafy tops--
my body was made for planting
& holding roots &
growing tall as our mother's 
maple tree with her
head splashing white
in the moon--
these plants bloom at dusk--
this body asks for 
cold nights to remember
the shape of its bones--
right now this body wants
to lay across the rives
to stop them from flowing--
this body wants to quiet the
crickets & teach the
trees to hold onto their
leaves for another night--
this body wants to be still--
swallow the wind from
all directions as one
big breath &
when i let go this body wants
pumpkin vines to 
take over my legs--
grapes to weave themselves 
up to my shoulders--
i'll keep the smallest parts of
myself behind my knees &
underneath my arms where
the sunflowers bloomed--
between my legs i made a pinch-pot
out of the that clay
that leaves your fingers 
all dry & chalky &
i don't want to worry 
about becoming
a pot ready for
the kiln fire in the morning--
i want to watch the rivers
stand still-- holding
each other like paper dolls--
holding in all the air
until the wings of the 
song birds in the morning 
start it all up again--
when i grow
take whatever pieces of me 
you need--
make pumpkin pie 
& stew
& zucchini bread--
come
find me again where
i'm still laying-- 
fingers
dipped in the moon 
& tell
me there are only
so many hours you can keep
the rivers from 
spilling even if your
body is always as rare
as september--

tundra

yesterday i walked into the
frozen food aisle--
opened the freezer door
& checked to make sure
no one was watching me--
there was only
a woman with
frizzy brown hair
checking
the nutrition label 
on a tub of turkey hill brand
rocky road ice cream 
& an old man in a navy
baseball cap stacking
his basket with little 
"Hungry Man" dinners--
each of them titled  
The Thanksgiving Feast
& it makes me imagine 
him celebrating the holiday
alone each night at the end
of a table-- one candle 
& a center piece of autumn 
leaves & indian corn
in april or july--
neither of them were paying
attention so i moved the pints
of ice cream aside &
climbed in-- 
tunneled my way through
the shelves & back to
where they keep the tundra--
i wanted to feel 
absolute cold-- not 
like anything you can 
find
from an open window 
in pennsylvania--
i reach out a hand & shut
the freezer door-- blow
hot breath on the glass
& invent my own hieroglyphs--
i leave a message 
that i'm not coming back
until i feel warm again--
the tundra isn't white--
it's been sucked clean of
colors so that everything
glow like a color only 
found in the tongue of a star--
a penguin slides up on its
belly & asks me what i'm doing
there
& i explain to him
that sometimes i just get
like this 
that there's no where else
to go when i feel
like this 
& he eats orange creamsicles 
& asks why i don't write
happy poems--
before i can tell him
that i do-- i do write
happy poems sometimes 
he skates away on
a gust of ice cubes--
i lay on my back & become
a snow angle-- elbows
freezer burn into wings--
i spit feathers from my mouth
& write poems on the inside of
the freezer doors
as dusk comes &
the night shift takes
over at the supermarket--
wearing the knees of their
jeans thin as they re-stock
the shelves-- new rows 
of light vanilla bean ice cream
& chicken nugget tv dinners &
white cheddar spinach pirogues
& chocolate chip waffles &
they box me in--
wipe off my poems with 
the back of their long red sleeves 
& i say what a shame it
was that i didn't bring 
any paper to write on so 
i take a spoon from my pocket
& eat spoonfuls of 
a small pint of 
pistachio ice cream because
i've always been intrigued by
the notion of the flavor
& i had never tried it--
it's not much to get excited
over but i finish the pint
& i feel colder than i had before--
on each window i write 
help-- help-- help
& then wipe it away because
i don't actually know what i
want help with--
i want someone to open
all the windows & let everything
melt-- i want to drip
like march-- peel off
dead leaves from me knees 
& no i don't want to write 
you a happy poem--
i want to breath hot
on the page until the words
congregate-- lock arms--
hide in nutrition labels 
& make thanksgiving in
july--
yes i pushed aside
the row of ice cream gallons--
crawled forward & out of the 
tundra--
orange dreamsicle in my
teeth-- brushed feathers 
from my shoulders &
stood up to see
the woman with the frizzy brown
hair still looking
at the gallon of rock road
& the old man in the navy hat
pushing his
cart of tv dinners--
& the freezer doors
still wear my poems--

a poem about people who kill house plants

this is a poem about
people who kill house plants--
who set their orchids in
the windowsill & water them
till they wilt
& drop all their bright
lips to the floor
of our bedrooms-- we
use lipstick & paint
their scars on 
our own mouths-- open
the window to let their ghosts
frolic out in the backyard
where my mother's potted
herbs sing old hymns to 
each other--
the basil whose body dried
& broken-- shedding
wings like bassinets
the thyme who came apart 
like the second hand
escaped from a clock face--
i had a tiny woven tree
who dunked her legs 
in a bed of stones & drank 
water from her knees--
her death was slow & 
she would eat nightlight 
with me & i would tell her
stories about how someday she
would grow big
& i would plant her in the
backyard of my house when
i was all grown up--
she died that winter &
i didn't tell my mother or
my father that i cried & 
dumped out her brittle 
bones behind the garage 
where we had goldfish
funerals--
my grandmother used to 
keep african violets
next to sink--
i used to think of them
as thumb prints or bruises
or wrong-color kisses--
their necks thin & 
faces tilted
to catch mouthfuls of
sun in through
the glass sliding doors
to the porch--
they haunt each sink i 
go to-- they giggles 
& leave lipstick marks
on the backs of my hands--
kiss mauve & gold &
black & eggplant purple--
some nights as i wash dishes they 
hand me a towel to dry 
my hands-- ask me where i
had been all day & tell
how lonely they all were--
not just the african violets
but all of them-- the herb
plants singing Ave Maria
& the little bonsai tree
who thought that he could 
grow tall enough to hold a swing--
the tomato plants without fruit
& the windowsill orchid without
a face--
& when i come home 
they're always happy to see me
even though i could never
take care of them right
when they were alive--
i rub my thumb over their
petals or the underside of
their leaves & 
water them with apologies--
i say
call me a rain cloud--
one with a grey-chin
& we sit together through
the sunset telling ghost stories
& chewing on the last
pieces of sun
that somehow
always tastes like peach--

red velvet cake sirens

here is a love
poem for my middle-school dance body--

take me for fat, 
     dissolving fingers, &
clumsy sticky bun skin--

let's all lean into the bathroom
mirrors--
     kiss three-day boyfriends
into forever from the hallway
behind the gym-- 

oh, no that
wasn't me-- 

     i was the one becoming 
a white brick in the wall 
of a gymnasium--

a lobby-walking 
     boy
whose body bit into 
red velvet cupcakes at
the bake sale table--

my best friend & i stood
at 
either           end 
& got
icing on our noses &
it was almost like kissing--

i wanted to kiss 
     my friends
& sometimes my own elbows &

sometimes 
my sweaty reflection in 
a middle school girls 
bathroom mirror
      where
i knew my own body 
as a red
     infection 

i stain lips-- i drench
your teeth maroon--
     & blushing rust
& scarlet blood

this body was sirens &
another thunderous song 
challenging 
our own heart beats

     oh who wasn't 
scared of their own body?

& i forgot deodorant 
so i used the runny 
pink soap in the 
bathroom to wash out my
armpits-- 
     let's make these
bodies clean again--

get redder with me--
hot oven coil cheek bones
   & they'll make
a game out of asking you 
to dance & 

you know your own body 
as a paper wrapper 
holding in the blood--

this body was used pads
rolled up like 
     scrolls

write your crushes
name on the wall of the
bathroom stalls you 
don't belong in

     yes 
it's time to be a brick--
lay heavy & cold
outside-- feel the music 
like fingers drummed 
on the sides of
     you head

splash water in your
face--

walk into a girls bathroom
mirror

     stain 
teeth siren & 
     tell them this is
no your body 
this is a hotel room

without a telephone 

& i eat a red velvet
cupcake &

my friend asks if
i'm going back inside 
     & i say 
not yet
& he waits there too 
     & the walls
turn our heart
beats into a song
we don't know the words to--