awake

when i was seven & i woke up
in the middle of the night
i would lay there & wonder
if i was the only person 
on the entire planet who
was awake-- i marveled over
the fact that if a star fell
i would be the only one
to report it in the morning--
sometimes i'd sit up like
an obelisk & watch the
nomadic headlights of cars
peer briefly into
my dark room--
i would imagined walking in
my pajamas down the double
yellow lines of the street outside
me house-- the cars would be driven
by the tree's shadows-- night puppets
made from moon glow & cicada
witchcraft-- 
i would walk through the empty town
& go back to sleep
on the front porch of our house
as if it was halloween & i 
was waiting for trick-or-treaters--
the older i get the more 
the guitar strings in my forearms 
start to rust & the more
my movements sound like
soda cans spilling from the recycling
bin & onto the driveway--
my wrists are tangled--
a nest of red wires & double
yellow lines to walk down-- there
are shadows beneath my veins
cast by the moon--
i'm trying to cut light into
my body-- 
on my back i think of all
the places i could be laying
when i fall asleep again--
the underside of a leaf-- the
neck of a shoe horn-- the bottom
of the stainless steel sink
where my father is slicing
watermelon even though he should
be sleeping--
he flicks the black seeds out
with the back of the knife &
vines grow thick in the backyard
where the new plants take root--
they eat bites out of the moon
like a great lemon meringue pie--
& then i'm sleeping
& everything has flooded--
the world is full of water
& i'm on the back of
a string ray as she glides along
the bottom of a fish tank-- her
arms flap in measured beats--
her wings are 
the hems of my mother's summer 
skirts-- we fly higher & higher
until i look over the side & below
us is the ocean of soy beans 
& gravel roads & cows laying down
in the rain--
i ask what a string ray is doing here
& she doesn't respond--
i wake up beneath the tree in my
back yard-- pull on a sweater
to cover the rusted tally-marks
i'd drawn on my forearms--
no one needs to know about
the guitar strings i drew
last night from the corner of my
room while the headlights searched
the darkness for me-- 
i swear to you there was a moment
there-- on the back of a sting ray--
from the bottom of the kitchen sink--
from the trapeze of double
yellow lines 
when i was in fact
the only human awake &
i was so big i could
fill the whole night with
my arms stretched out
like the wings of a sting ray--
take a slice out of
the moon & leave the rest for
everyone else who will wake up alone
before we all reunite in the morning
to talk about the fallen stars 
we saw while everyone else
was asleep-- 

rainbow parachute, the modest death of butterflies
 & our hearts against a feather

i don't remember much about
elementary school-- it exists
only as a series of nonlinear
narratives
strung together with 
summers as big as my mouth could
hold-- full of blueberries
& watermelon & spitting
cherry pits off the side
of a brick wall in the park--
there was of course first
grade when we all grew butterflies
& let them go in the courtyard &
i wondered if it would be possible
to tape little letters to their legs 
as messages for whoever found them--
i would later learn that most
butterflies do not eat once
they emerge from their
chrysalis-- a water-color spattered
decrescendo of life
wing flutter until
she would fall as silent as 
a pressed flower--
we made our own sarcophagus 
out of clay in what i think
was 4th grade & mine had the head
of thoth (an ibis) 
because he's the one
who weighs your heart against
a feather
when you float down the river--  
& in 3rd grade we all made indian names
as our earliest act of colonialism--
mine being 'blue feather'
& we pretended the classroom 
was an iroquois long house-- a bound
fire made of construction paper
heated the whole room--
i forgot about picture day
nearly every year & sometimes
accidentally wore
the shirt with the hole in the collar--
recess a caterpillar tree & 
fifth grade girls learning to 
watch the boys play football &
learning how to kiss under the yellow
slide-- hang upside
down from the monkey bars like
trapezes artists looking
for a glimpse of butterfly flight--
of all the moments there
is nothing i'm more nostalgic for
than the rainbow parachute
from gym class--
i was the only way i had encountered 
to thoroughly pause time-- no
one was big when the gym
teacher got out the parachute--
we were all small children who
knew we were small children
& in the moment we only wanted to
be small small children who 
were allowed to hide under the 
eclipse of the rainbow parachute--
all hands gripping around the circle--
a merry-go-round of color--
pinwheel out the window-- we all
lifted up the sides
as one bunch of children who
would come to forget each others names--
who would get our periods next year
up the hill in middle school & mistake
ourselves for dying--
who would never come this
close
to touching one another but
for a moment we butterfly flew-- 
& pulled the parachute down around
us to make a dome-- we were 
a colony of obscured sun--
a kaleidoscope igloo--
we all had done this before & we
all knew the sky we had made
would fall & yet for a brief
inhale of the fabric clouds we
could see of each other across
the great lung full of water color wind--
we were all a package-- a dumpling--
& as we let the sky droop
& our colony flatten we were 
draped in the parachute--
we landed each all alone--
poked our head out from the swishy
fabric & begged the gym teacher to
let us do it again & again 
& again 
until we were in fifth grade
& the sky was closer to
our hands & the clouds were just
another type of pillow
& the walk up the hill didn't make our
legs hurt &
when we pulled down the parachute
we thought only of how desperate we
were for a summer-- any summer
day-dreamed of spattering
ourselves like watercolor
& filling our mouths with watermelon
seeds again to spit out
into the back yard
& silently wish they would
all take root & grow a garden--
pull the parachute over
the sun like an eyelid with me--
we can be a lung together & we
can pretend our hearts are 
light enough to be blown away
as easy as dried butterfly wings--
light enough to float high 
above a feather
when the god with the head of
the ibis weighs our hearts
in the kiln room. 

fossil hymn 

the wooden chest in my
bedroom holds all types
of ocean-- too alive
to be a graveyard--
haunted by the spirits 
of sea urchins who 
now spend their days in
a desperate
search for their needles--
i open the drawers 
& open my
mouth to let the fossilized 
sharks teeth sing 
through my jaws-- 
they carry
words without syllables--
without tongues--
full of sand & old secrets
about where to bury yourself
to  become a fossil--
the skeletons of the dried
sea horses interlock their
tails & try to float
out the window-- but
i always catch them before
they can escape-- i tell
them this is where the
oceans are now-- 
waves crash in the third
drawer of our wooden
chest-- 
my father & i stole
the ghosts off the
beach so that we
could have a special place
to get lost in-- 
sometimes
when i'm trying to sleep
i hear it singing a song
that we sing in church around
lent or maybe it's advent--
it's a kind of purple song
that reminds me 
of the inside of conch shells--
like a throat or the soft
belly of a toad--
this song tastes like
blue cotton candy or maybe
like putting a dollop
of honey on the end of your tongue
the song melts
until it bleeds away entirely
to the faint hush of car tires
on the road outside my 
window at night-- there's somehow
always a car passing my-- headlights 
blaring like polished tiger shells--
on mornings when i feel like 
the world is too much to eat 
i take out the sharks teeth
& replace my own teeth
with them one by one-- i
use the needle-nosed pliers
to yank out my human teeth & 
i sing with the
razor teeth of grandfather 
sharks & the birds outside
the window remember the song
from sitting outside
a church somewhere but
they too can't recall exactly
where they last heard
a melody so old & purple

discovering the earth is flat

part of getting
older is figuring out
which parts of yourself
are loudest at night--
i'm here listening to
the cobblestones of
broken blood vessels 
up my thighs-- i'm sorry
body for making you
into a welcome mat
to wipe my muddy canvas
shoes on-- 
coming home again is
a process of taking
yourself apart--
learn to love like
shoe laces-- 
at night i lay awake
tired & full of tall-tale
stories not meant to be 
shared-- 
ones about
living on the inside of
my uncle's drum as he
walked down a road in
ireland 
we flow like
a trickle of blood from galway--
before the sun started
to blush tonight i
walked my feet full of blisters
& broke open the ocean 
beneath me as i stomped 
through puddles--
the water was a stained glass
window from the church where
i learned that we hold
god in our right hand--
when we were young we 
sat on the end of
our mother's bed & watched her
change out of her tight
cloths & thought nothing
of nakedness-- only
of the soft smell 
of her lavender-colored 
smell-- like a pretzel knot
of arms keeping you safe--
i have learned to keep
my discoveries 
inside myself but at
night they get louder--
whisper from both sides of
my pillow like two
lovers that i lay between--
i observed when i was very
young that the edge of the horizon
is flat & i'm not sure
what that means because no
matter how far i've gone
i don't think i've fallen off
yet-- i just know there's a ledge 
waiting somewhere over
the dotted yellow lines 
of the roads who get lost
in the corn & the soy beans--
when my mother told me the
earth was round i told
her that i couldn't see
any curve to the edge of
the sky & she told me the earth 
was too big to see a curve--
i'm still skeptical--
i look up old nautical maps
where giant ships spill off 
into the mouths of great beasts 
with elbows full of scales--
& the sensation of falling can
be so loud in my body 
that the pillows shatter
like puddles or stained
glass windows--
i scratch myself open
like horse hoofs clattering
on the stone roads through boston
that are too small to be
real-- 
my body becomes loud
about its smallness & about the smallness
of the earth-- how
dare we think we had escaped
the inevitable
ledge just because the earth
is a sphere-- the earth is
flat when you go too
far in one direction-- i wipe
my feet again 
on my hip bones-- ring
a door bell nestled in
my collar bone where you
learn to kiss me-- when 
i finally prove to you
that the earth is flat 
all things will be quiet 
then-- it will be morning & 
the sun will be back to 
cast shadows between 
our ribs-- what we keep 
lock in our own rib cages is
no one's business but our
own-- i get louder
& louder 
sprawled out
at night 
on the edge of my bed which
is also the drop off 
the side of the earth--
water gushes & sizzles
against hot pin pricks of stars--
i fall & for a second 
everything is louder
than a broken stained glass
window or the rapture
of a single blood vessel 
on my thigh--

adult swim monsters & watching
the titanic sink in the diving well

i make up a legend about 
adult swim--
i don't tell anyone but
i imagine 
that the lifeguards
have to let loose 
the sea monsters
lying dormant in the 
blue depths of the deep end &
they know that they won't
eat a few adults doing laps
back & forth in the big-kid
pool. i eat a twin popsicle
& i never split it right down
the middle like
i want to-- i eat cheeseburgers
& sometimes soft pretzels 
dipped in artificial cheese 
& my mom says it's gross 
but i secretly wish that all
cheese was bright orange
& warm & goopy--
when adult swim is over
i wash the crumbs off
my hands on the first dive--
open my eyes underwater to 
the blurry deep & i see tentacles
reach up around me--
the bold bright eye of a giant squid
opens to watch me-- i'm afraid of
the deep end monsters
who wriggle out of my dinosaur 
books-- still waiting
on my spongebob towel in
the grass-- a megalodon grins--
mouth full of dull kitchen knives--
brushes past my ankles--
so i pull my feet in & sink deeper now--
i wonder if i'll grow gills--
a mosasaurus makes a snap at my toes
& i resurface-- squirt water
out nostrils & spit chlorine 
from my mouth-- the air
is whiter & static from the chlorine
in my eyes & some high school kids
play basketball in their swim suites--
the thump of the orange ball on the
asphalt court sounds like the creaking 
of the mast of a ship--
i look & see in the diving well-- the
final glimpses of the bow of 
the titanic descend into the cold--
everyone knows the diving well is the 
most arctic place in pool--
i swim under again-- blink as the lights
of the ship blare at me & i see 
various items floating up
& away from the ship-- candelabras--
frilly napkins--
opera glasses & the bow of a violin--
when i listen closer i can hear the phantom
of the band still playing on the deck &
i think of how many passengers are still
below deck & i know that history
is like a tape deck & i can't go down there
& save anyone from becoming
part of the ocean-- 
when i come up again for
air my brother billy
is sitting on the side of the pool splashing
his feet-- he's eating a blue airhead
& he doesn't know anything about
what all is under water in the big kid pool--
they call adult
swim again & i leap out--
having survived brushes with prehistoric
monsters i'm not prepared for anything
larger that might come out
in search of children's feet like mine--
from our towels we split cheese fries
& i try to convince billy to try the diving
board-- i don't think he'd be able to
see the last moments of the titanic so
i don't tell him that i did--
it would make him sad to watch
so many instruments fill up with water--
echoing their sounds into the tiles of the
pool--
we go to the baby pool where the water is 
shallow & warm--
sit side by side under the mushroom
fountain & pretend it's a waterfall--
we're loch ness monsters--
bellies full of cheese fries
& feet & hands wrinkled 
like wet raisins from a day 
spent submerged in chlorine-- 
we dry out like used twin popsicle 
sticks on our towels--
watch the sun melt into a dreamsicle--
orange & creamy at the center--
i can heard the violins
swallow water & the megalodon
scream into the diving well-- 

our ashes on spaceship earth 

when i was six 
my uncle took me to disney world.
i thought there was no need
for travel if the whole world
lived in epcot-- 
each country around
the lake--it was a showcase set out just
for my small feet.
i watched
the foreign flags spit angry fireworks 
at the florida sky & we climbed
into spaceship earth--
the silver prickly pear orb
where we were all born.
we were all there to float
down the river in a basket
like moses.
our caravan halted as we were
passing the animatronic 
michelangelo going over the 
same brush stroke of the sistine
chapel again & again--
we became trapped 
in his time loop curse--
our hands stiffened in the arthritic
grip of his hand around his paint brush--
we stopped like hand prints
in the wet frescos of 
sixteenth century ceiling--
after a time we all began to chatter
& from ship to ship--
passed messages-- suspended 
in time we thought about
getting out
of the boats & assuming roles in
the different scenes we had passed--
discovering alphabets in
the teeth of stiff Phoenicians 
or riding roman chariots
into orbit--
my uncle explained to me that they 
had to stop the ride because someone
had released ashes into the
water-- ashes from
someone they had loved-- 
my grandfather was 
ashes in an urn in the
attic so i understood
what kind of ashes he meant--
back then i thought we all died like
that-- a disintegration of
our bones like mortar & pestle
in our own sockets-- that 
maybe we all just eventually fell
apart into black dust--
we all just waiting 
to be scattered by someone
who loves us.
i wondered why
anyone would want to be part of
a spaceship perpetually  
trying to tell
the story of earth & always failing--
there were not enough animatorons
to show all the people we all
could have been-- 
there was no boy playing chess
with himself outside a cafe
in a small town that seemed
too big to leave-- 
there was no
diner stools or girls setting
dandelions to float
down the river outside her house
where the air smelled like golden
husks of corn in september--
i told my uncle while we were sitting
there-- waiting for time to start back
up again--
that i would want someone to plant
my ashes underneath a tree or throw them
around outside in the wind--
maybe in toss them to the creak
that feeds
the duck pond at fleetwood park
where i had grown up & leaned to ride
my bicycle
in the parking lot--
not all of us make alphabets or
paint the ceiling of big churches
but we all were born from 
the great metal spaceship earth &
we all fall apart in a jar
full of ash gripped tightly in
the lap of someone who loved us--
i reached down & grazed my finger
over the water near by the ship
to see if the water felt
different with someone's ashes inside--
it felt cold & the ship tilted slightly 
so i pulled my finger back inside raft
& eventually we finished
our trip through all of time as
we know it-- as usually my legs
felt wobbly
at the end of the ride &
for a moment i wished i were 
ash so i could choose
where to scatter myself
when the time came-- 

black piano key teeth 

tell what you think of me now--
i ask my ten-year-old body.
i meet her at the
front door of the malt shoppe
with her crisp black belt slung 
around her neck & an audacious spoon
in her fist.
i tell her that i've become a mouth of empty 
bowls & a voice of 
vacant swivel stools--
i explain how they're
stuck in my throat as squeaky
hollow apologies
to my body.
she doesn't say much &
holds to door open for me.
she has bare feet that must
feel cold on the checker-board
linoleum floor.
she think it's funny that
i send myself sympathy cards 
full of spoons- we laugh
when i tell her how they clatter on
the kitchen floor when i open the
envelopes
& my OCD seems
so absurd when i'm talking to her--
like motions from a children's record 
telling all the boys & girls to
spin round & round like spiders--
i tell her how i  
lick the sweetness off stamps &
i confess that
i'm so afraid my own teeth
that i want to take them out one
by one--
watch--i say--
as i chew with the sound
of black piano keys.
oh black belt girl if you
could only pull out
my spine like fruit roll-up--
the flick of your wrist that once 
moved the floor boards to
break themselves-- 
peel me out of this body
i want to be stronger-- i want
to believe in something
other than the tally i've been
keeping on my wrists--
i say
i ruined us-- i ruined us--
the malt shoppe is 
just like it had been--
a row of red padded stools &
candy jars in a line like
the canopic jars of a pharoh's
tomb-- only i'm not prepared 
to burry her here--
she asks me where all my hair went
& i tell her one morning
i woke up to the sound of
morning doves on the ledge outside--
opened the window & their
wings sliced it all off--
i explain how i
watched it fall in the front
lawn like the dead branches of 
evergreen trees-- their ghosts playing
tag by the mailbox &
i ask her what she thinks of spoons
& she tells me she thinks of
them like boats. 
sarah scoops
a bite of banana split into her
mouth & we float in the channel
between chingoteague & assateague
in a kayak again-- 
we can see my father
ahead of us & clams click their
jaws like castanets all around--
i ask her where she learned to 
float & where she got her
teeth from & she tells me that
we're both floating & that
they're my teeth too  
& we're back in the malt shoppe.
she wipes syrup drunk strawberry
from her elbow & offers me
a bite of sundae--
i refuse & sip my diet coke--
i imagine the ocean fizzling around
me-- waves of foam & bubbles 
in our stomachs-- i ask her
where we went wrong-- i ask
her how she could ever think she
was me & she doesn't look up
from the banana split-- takes
spoon after spoon of herself--
we float in the peel-- spotty & brown--
i brace the counter & cough up
all the spoons in a clatter
of black piano keys
& the radio plays
"the leader of the pack" again
& the walls are poodle skirt pink
& i ask her what she knows 
about re-learning how to eat--
she picks up a spoon 
that's fallen on the floor-- wipes
it off with the fabric of her
karate uniform & hands it
back to me & we're floating
again & this time the sun is setting
& we both reach up & take spoonfuls
of the sherbet sky--
she laughs & tells me that 
she likes my nose ring &
i tell her that i love 
her neon blue nails--
she tells me that sherbet 
has milk or cream & that 
sorbet is different because 
it doesn't have dairy--
it's just frozen fruit--
so i ask her what the sky tastes 
like-- & she tells me
it's with-out-a-doubt 
sherbet but
that everything she
eats with me always
tastes a little bit
like a sunset or a 
black piano key--
we eat until 
there's no ceiling
left to the sky--
hold the cold spoons
under our tongues &
i tell her i'll send
her post cards & someday
she'll find me floating 
with her in the cupped
palm of one of the thousands 
& thousands of spoons
we could float on.

we put a cupboard in the fireplace
 & filled it with mason jars--
 my mother's pickled beets &
 sandy mustard glowing like 
rusted halos-- boiled blossom
 rows of raspberry & blue berry
 jam-- we kept our summers in
there like a fire burning in december
when our christmas table gets 
smaller & smaller until we all
open up the cupboard & stare into
it like a television of sun--
we remember the smell of fresh sage
& eating berries until we were sick 
& wearing stomachs like steel bowls
of this fruit-- one by one we crawled
inside & closed the doors behind us--
& of course it was my birthday again--
the finger nails of july--
& the cake tasted only of firefly
glow & the inhale of the corn 
thrashing in a gust of wind
from my father's blue jeep as it
races with a railroad tracks--
each bump a calendar square-- we
run away from the seasons around
us-- seal summer in mason
jars for safe keeping--

skin.

i tattooed the clouds
on my skin last night.
every inch was
moving with the insistent
pull of the wind &
i grew my
hair long again
to feel it fall off in
october. it fell in clumps
& gathered
at my feet with the rest 
of the leaves--
blood-red & brown--
& when you touched me 
you felt the sky move
across you-- 
a laugh of static &
storm--
i stood your hairs 
on end like soldiers & you told
me to roll-up the windows--
veil me in fog-- your bride
of backseat love & 
driving to 
park in strip malls to say 
i love you in the kind
of way you can't in a bedroom.
you can kiss my blood
into rain but you can't
take my skin--
it's not something that
can be shared-- & you will call
me selfish for leaving you
only with storm clouds painted
on your shoulders--
i point to my arms & say
here i tilled the rows
of my wrists to write
my self-love in thunder--
my freckles grow into 
watermelon-- 
swallow the black
seeds & grow vines from
your throat--
silly backseat-lover
with a mouth
like a window full of fog--
leave hand prints on 
my collar bones--
i have had match sticks burry
their heads in my forearms--
i light the birthday candles
with my fingernails-- 
this body
has know windows-- 
this body is in  
violent love with itself &
this is what loving a boy
full of clouds is like--
i don't want you to eat the 
fog away with that mouth
of yours-- 
i want you 
to pass the clouds over your
shoulders & feel how heavy 
water can be when it 
becomes a storm-- we're about
to rain-- we're about to rain--
roll up the windows 
the water is getting in.

sadie hawkins & our hair
full of hindenburg fire

she sits on a bench in
the park-- pushing back 
the hem of her cuticles--
& november is a face
laughed full of leaves--
she's catching love with
a thick leash of rope because
sadie hawkins knew that 
that freedom was a mouthful
of white-picket-fence boy--
my first dance 
in high school was
a sadie hawkins dance--
as if a 9th grade girl
could have a say in what
boy she picked to excavate
her body for a night &
every 9th grade girl knows
sadie hawkins-- she yells
at them to call them 
"little sluts" as they pass
her bench in the park--
she was a homily 
woman-- still a "girl" 
at 35 because she was
doomed to be a fisher of men--
she shift for
them like gold--asking
for god to keep her name 
under his tongue--
oh we all knew sadie hawkins--
believed her-- trusted her-- 
learn from her & with our
butterfly nets out we
hunt for red velvet cupcake
love from the bake sale 
in the lobby--
oh how they would eat us--
our soccer goals bellies filling
up with disco balls-- 
he brought
hammers & picks-- a shovel
& a pan to collect my pieces in--
no fourteen year old girl could have 
known yet that boys eat geodes--
use women's own ropes to tie
them to their park benches--
gnaw open with teeth-- our 
bodies crowded each other 
like gymnasiums reverberating 
with light & sinking balloons--
we fell like hindenburgs--
each & every one of us as we
thought about all the times
we had run away from her
when we walked late at night through
the park on sleepovers--
heard her calling
"slut" & "Whore" into the disco ball
moon as if attempting to banish those
words forever from underneath 
her tongue-- when she was done screaming
she would sit still for a few moments--
panting & sweaty from the moist
lips of august-- fail to 
light a cigarette & instead set
flames in her hair & laughing
like a phoenix she told us
to run & never believe anything they
tell us--
in the bathroom mirror 
i stared at my own smudged face
after the dance & never felt so
devoured--
i sat on the toilet & cried--
ankles sore from being perched
in black heels-- this was only
the beginning of what it was like
to have a girl-body--
the art of giving away yourself--
piece by piece so you're 
easier for him to swallow-- 
my body became a gymnasium of
sound-- i lit
the match & held it close to
my hair-- considering how fast
my bleached hair would erupt
in fire-- i blew it out & dropped
the match stick in the sink--
it sizzled softly like a faint
neck kiss-- a brand-- a burn--
& i'm still unlearning 
the doors he opened for
me on ever inch of skin--
this is a prayer to sadie hawkins--
the patron saint of 9th grade girls--
we believe so firmly in you
& they'll tell us
we choose to dance 
these bodies into ash
smudged on the bathroom mirror--