i'll be a man with
no ribs--

i picked myself
apart rib by rib
to rid my body of 
every remnant of you--
your commas your-- 
dried stems--
your tongue behind
my teeth--
you ate through
my mouth as if
my lips were the 
tight flesh of a
red delicious apple--
don't tell me 
about temptation--
next time
you want to share fruit
i'll be the snake & 
you can be eve
instead of god
like you always get to be--
i'll bite your ankles &
you can learn to wear my wounds
like i wear yours-- 
in the hollow
of my chest where
you once planted
a rib like the stalk
of a sunflower--
the bent neck of a cherry
blossom tree--
i am an april snow--
i could fall only in petals &
oh don't
we all want to know
when//if we will be missed 
& for how long
i want to know if you will ever
find a space within yourself
as vacant as where i dislodged
you from--
i have found other uses
for your ribs--
i stick them in the soil
behind my house--
one becomes an apple tree--
another, an empty
picture frame i
use to remember the shape
of my body when 
you stored a piece of
yourself inside me--
& i'll watch the cardinals
use those other ribs as
the base of their
nest & when their
children shed their 
downy feathers they'll drop
like petals or snow
& they'll know nothing about
what lengths boys
will go to own you--
i am your adam with no 
ribs-- your 
snake-forgiving brother
picking up
apples from the back yard--
i'm on my knees 
in the garden-- making
use of your bones--
i fill my chest with 
with branches & when
it snows in september
i'll collect the
feathers & send them to
you--

my windshield wipers stopped working
& the world filled up with water

maybe i won't sleep at all
& i'll get up from bed--
moth wing heart in my throat
& go outside in the
rain wearing only
my boxers & loose
black t-shirt--

last night when it rained 
my windshield wipers 
stopped working & i plunged
into the ocean-- witnessed
the storm turn into
a sea & i rolled down my
window to touch scale--
feel the thrum of a 
passing 
school of tuna fish--

i hoped that if the car filled
up with water that
i would at least
get to witness 
the great body of a hump-back whale
somewhere nearby-- looming
in the distance--
it's shadow a storm cloud--
a skyscraper 
with dwindling lights 
left on in a few offices 
as other people rejected their
the concept of sleep--

i'll just stay up all night &
barefoot in the parking lot
behind
my house i'll spit out
bottle caps & plant 
them in the hopes of attracting
my father--
he knows how to get me to
fall asleep--
he used to leave little piles
of his beer bottle caps
next to the rocking
chair while he waited for
me to fall asleep--

what's the use in sleeping
if the windshield wipers
aren't working & there's nothing
to see but water?

i can sit here all night
& watch flowers sprout
from the meandering brown & green 
glass bottles 
in the parking lot--

maybe i won't sleep at all
& i'll wake up
in a different bed 
in a different body-- much
older & maybe my shoulders will
ache & i'll wonder what
put the soreness in 
this body's muscle--
where do you feel your worry?
what color glass are
your knees?

when i drive at night
without windshield wipers
i drive slow & occasionally 
i'll pass someone on the
side of the road & they'll
resemble an eel-- a hood
pulled over their head &
i'll want to open
the door to my car & tell
them to get in-- tell them
that we'll
go where they're going--

that i want to know
what kind of ocean
they keep in their
wet shoes & if they've recently considered 
no sleeping & just
letting each day fall into
the next like rain
filling up the earth until
the whales crash into the 
sky scrapers & the street
lamps become only approximations
for stars--

the world is filling up--
the water is to 
the second story windows & oh 
what if i just stayed up 
another hour 
to watch--?

car riders to the car port 

we all knew there were
different ways of going home--
some children walked with their
siblings out the double brown
doors at the front of the school
& the crossing guards
conducted the cars around
them in a sort of symphony--
fifth graders in safety patrol
badges letting their minds
escape down the sidewalks--
take root in the cracks
of the cement--
where did you grown your
afternoons?
the of course the bus riders
separated by
their numbered & colored
bus & sat with their book bags 
in their laps while
a lady in the cafeteria 
called "blue-seventy-two"
& "yellow-four-ninety-eight"
& i was a young girl
with my father's haircut &
two mismatched chuck taylors
& a lunch box full of clouds--
i want to pick myself up 
in the car line today--
drive back eleven or so
years ago-- 
i'll pull up in my green
volvo & the 3rd grade teacher
mrs. bowman will ask
who i am & i'll explain that
i'm myself only about a 
decade older
when she gets in
the front seat
i'll tell her
she doesn't need to
wear a seat belt--
that today we're
going throw her spelling homework
out the window & 
read e. e. cummings & 
discover everything you
can do to a sentence--
pluck the periods out
of our chapter books--
plump blueberries
plinking in a steel bowl between
us-- i'll show her how
you can wear question marks
for earrings & for dinner
we can eat gas station doughnuts
& i'll ask her to tell
me about the boys she has crushes
on & how sometimes she
writes
their initials on the inside-cover 
of her math notebook--
i tell her to peel off their
names & drop them on
the backs of a dead leaves
in the stream-- 
i say that it's okay
to day dream about them--
let the water
tension keep their bodies afloat--
& sometimes it's okay to drown
in sweaty-hand elementary 
school love--
she asks if i ever got
to love someone & i tell her
i have & that you don't finish
loving people-- that you never
finish loving people
& that's why the leaves grow back
each year so we have more
vessels to drop in the creak
when we turn crimson & marmalade--
she gets tired early because
i forgot how early elementary
school children go to bed
& at nine she lays out 
on the bench in the park &
i pick her up like an infant--
put her glasses on the dash
board & i drive her back
to her rain forest bed room with
the rain sound machine pounding
on her windows--
i lay her in bed-- 
gently brush her
hair out of her face &
leave her
with a bowl of blueberries--
washed & ready to be used in
poems-- 
i leave her a notebook 
& tell her to fill the first
two pages & forget to write
more-- this is the process of
teaching words come home
to you at night--
i tell her that tomorrow
her father will pick her up
at the car port in his blue
jeep & she won't remember me
& the fifth grade safety 
patrol officers will break
free
into a rush down the sidewalks 
& her shoe laces will tie themselves--
oh girl with my father's hair cut &
a blue denim jacket--
keep your pockets stuffed 
with sweaty-palm love-- 
baptize yourself clean  
in the creek & pick up
the pages of spelling home work
we threw out the window--
kidnap the words from
their pages--
peel
the blue lines 
your the notebook
paper-- 
braid them into 
a cloud--

i bought a telescope 

i bought a telescope to use 
as a staircase-- 
it's the only way to
get there you know? 
you unscrew the
eyepiece 
& walk right
inside-- a corridor--
a passageway--
the back door
we were all missing
& it resembles the long
hall in my grandmother's 
apartment-- the one
with the cats lingering
at the far end or
maybe the hallway at 
my parent's house--
always too dimly lit
so that it makes you 
want to run through it--
race into the telescope
with me-- arms 
open-- unafraid of burning
up in the atmosphere--
let your body become space dust
& climb this aisle 
of stairs on all fours
as if you were a child again
going up to the attic to
discover card board boxes--
when we get there the moon
will be empty & we'll 
leave foot prints &
sign our names in the dirt so
that the next person to
walk up there will know
they are not alone & 
i'll have brought butterfly nets
& i'll hand one to you &
show you how easy it
is to catch the stars 
who wonder away 
from their constellation--
you can pinch them by the wings &
we'll set them back where 
they belong in
the sky--
connect the dots & invent
our own star-bodies--
i took the big dipper &
made it into a dragon's head because
that's what its always looked like
to me anyway--
we can sleep out here in
the tent & zipped 
inside it'll feel like
july & lightning bugs will
find the telescope hallway 
& become 
wall sconces-- flickering 
quiet candles--
i'll tell you how 
tomorrow we can climb to jupiter
& you remind me that it's a gas 
planet & i tell you that
part of the fun of a telescope
is pretending that everything
is only a staircase away &
you agree that we can take
a walk on jupiter even if
it is made of mostly helium--
we can steal rings from
saturn to ordain ourselves
& make little halos like
the ones the saints wear in
stained glass windows--
what is the night sky by a stained 
glass window so close
to shattering from 
one of our tossed baseballs--
you remind me that we have to go back
& i let you crawl back inside
first-- through the corridor
light by fireflies
we emerge
in the sun room of our parent's house--
the big bay windows gaping open--
full of street lamp &
blushing with 
the passing headlines 
down the road outside 
the house--
we put back on the eye piece 
& rush-- race
down the hall-- the one 
that's always too dimly lit

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--