drive us home

drive us home.
the tide is coming in again.
the sky bruises from
your body smacking up
against hers
in your uncontrollable
attempts at flight.
you were trying
to shatter a hole
through the sky to let
the stars in. 
they swarm like gnats 
buzzing against the flushed
face of a lamp bulb on the porch.
i drive home at dusk because
i like to watch the way 
the land changes in the dark &
how august grows out everywhere
to take you in--
you get to feel like a blood
vessel or a jupiter beetle.
whatever happened to all the lightning
bugs?-- i ask to no one 
from behind the wheel of my car.
i remember them as i'm 
bat by corn husk eye-lashes 
-- their bodies whipping 
under a trance
from the moon.
she's growing fuller
with each headlight philosopher
who pauses to think about how
much their bodies have changed.
we become part of 
the rising of tides of corn.
we're lost but we don't know it yet
because of how much different the road
looks at night with the shadows 
loaning their bodies to 
everyone's ghosts.
i want to be smaller & wet
from a shower--
pretending i just stepped out
from the rain forest--
i want my father to hold
me in a towel like a bruised
plum-- i pull leeches
out from under my eyes & my
skin is left the color
of the last notes of sunset--
we've written so many poems about
dusk that it almost felt futile
for me to try to tell you
about how the drive home feels
sometimes-- especially
when your car grows a sail & the 
tides rise under the glow
of the occasional porch light--
we're nothing really.
we're a collage of memories about
falling asleep in a passenger seat
& trying not to let the waves 
sweep us under & into the soft
wet soil--
i want to be peeled open
like an ear of corn--
yellow & white & listening 
for the wind to teach the fields
to hush--
i spend the whole drive wanting to just
pull over--
i don't know what i would do once
i was pulled over but
maybe i could run my thumb over
the bruised forehead of the coming night
sky-- 
pluck out a few stars like blueberries.
i'll keep them in my pockets 
 &
promise to give them back someday 
on another ride home when
i think too much about all
the hurt i've given the sky
to make her bruise so easily
under the weight of people
wanting
to go back to homes they no
longer have & bodies they
no longer live in--
i see her in the shadows 
off the stalks-- a small girl
as tall as an ear of corn--
i bite down & gnaw
her out of the road.
i tell her to help me
drive home without falling asleep
& she does & 
back in my room i wonder
how much of the roads we
drive are made from fragments of
our old bodies teaching us 
what it means to grow--
peeling us open & tossing away
each layer of husk until
we're naked & white &
laying face up on our beds--
body sprawled open
to catch any stars if they 
should fall-- buzzing & burned
from the scortch of the moon. 

on learning your body is a fig tree

the first time you wrap your
breasts you understand fig 
trees in winter. 
in the north east 
they grow like permanent immigrants--
a constant process of waiting-- 
passports in their pocket-books & 
they trim their finger nails
in the sink & think to themselves
how their body comes so easily apart
like the lobes of a clementine
or the unfurling of the moon
as it's whittled down by 
a dull-knifed god who whistles 
in apple seeds until there
is nothing left of it in the sky--
a dark night of star fragments &
cloud--
all of the lunar body 
sold away to keep his dandelion
promises 
& all there is left to do is wait
with your  
roots balled in the
back of a garage-- 
remaining
there till the windows clear 
of frost--
you grow figs on the inside of
your body-- plump & 
glistening like sugar stones--
you slice them off with 
a paring knife & crouch naked 
on your knees to see what the inside
looks like 
a fist of syrup dripping
between your fingers--
you say 
"this. this is my body"
wrapped tight & you 
spend the rest of the day
picking the fig fruit
from inside yourself-- filling
cardboard pints & giving
them away 
to let strangers 
eat them & tell you that
they taste strangely melancholy--
like stale gummy worms or 
over-ripe peaches--
brown & drunk with sun--
so i wrap myself up tighter
again & wait for april to
come with the fruits again--
faint & green protruding
from my chest-- i prune myself
in the bathroom mirror &
branches collect on the tile floor--
leaves clog the drain &
i stand impossibly ripe
in the shower trying
to stop my body's shape from
blushing hot in the sun--
i'm starting with a paring knife
across my shadow-- 
one fig at a time & then
wrapping myself up tight again--
i pray to stop growing like this &
i watch god replace the moon
with a heads-down penny 
from his breast- pocket-- 
he promises
tomorrow night he'll flip it
& we can make bets about
the color of the apples this year. 
being trans means owning
a body like a fig tree-- 
a clogged
drain full of leaves &
an obsession with watching
how gracefully the moon can change
her shape without thinking--

vending machine pilgrimages 
to the edge of a dial tone

1.
approach the vending machine &
try several times to insert
the crinkled dollar bill from
the back of your pocket--
the one with someone's phone
number scrawl above washington's
head like a password--

2.
write down their number
in your phone contacts 
& tell yourself you'll
call them one day &
let them know that their
phone number is on a dollar
floating above washington's
head like a halo--
maybe a lover scribbled 
the contact down after a night
in the city together--
by the light of passing street
lamps in the back of
a taxi 
he promised to call back--
he always promises to call back 

3.
enter the code
for the item you
intend on purchasing with 
the crinkled dollar which
the vending machine finally
accepts after several
pleads & presses

4.
enter 'EXIT'

5.
wait a moment to ensure
no one else is watching you--
no one else is allowed to
be watching you--

6.
when you think you're
alone is when you should be 
most cautious--

7.
open the flap & reach your
hand inside like you mom 
always told you not to do
even if your bag of twizzlers 
was caught on a rung
on the way down--

8.
there is a moment of 
disbelief when you first encounter
a vending machine-- it's
as if you alone have the power to
conjure items from 
the slot at the bottom--
when i would visit my mother
at work i liked to sit 
in the break room &
parcel out my quarters to make
the most items as possible
fall from the little rows
inside the vending machine--

9.
now open the flap wider--
yes wider--
yes like the mouth of a snake--
clutch the quarters in your fist

10.
now it's wide enough to 
crawl inside--

11.
crawl inside--
make sure you shut the
flap behind you-- you wouldn't
want anyone else getting ideas--
this is yours now--
all yours--

12.
peel back past the rows of
marching items--you're here to
go deeper

13.
you reach farther & your
hand touches a dark damp
surface like dewy grass &
you can't see anything but
you know you have to go further--
it's dark back there behind
the rows but it's getting
bigger & bigger & less cramped--
& after yanking through the snugness
everything is open-- black 
& vast & blaring--

14.
silence can be so loud

15.
you don't think about
leaving or how you would leave 

16.
you think about wrapping your
entire body in plastic--
you think about silence & 
how loud it is
you remember feeling around
at the back of your closet
after reading 
the chronicles of narnia 
& wondering if there would
ever come a day with a door
just to escape through

17.
& in the darkness you
remember the number on the dollar
bill-- you repeat it over & over
so you won't forget but
for the first time 
you can't find your phone so
instead you whisper the numbers 
over & over as if pressing keys  
in the air with your tongue

18.
dial tone
dial tone

the birdcage metaphor

i will be another person
to describe my body
as a birdcage-- only
this
time it's being used 
as a garden & i can feel
the purple petals of the
african violets pressing
up against each rung of
my chest-- 
i spit out flowers & my
esophagus become a stamen  
my tongue grainy & dripping
with pollen i double over
like daffodils after a bite
of post-winter frost--
heave yellow dust from my
mouth & out my throw crawls
the heads of the hydrangeas--
i open wider to pull 
them out-- 
one by one--
each cloud of petals reminds
me of tufts of cotton candy
& i take a bite but it reminds
me how bitter flower petals are--
i take a match stick
to the dripping purple & blue
hydrangea skulls & they ignite--
burn like basement light bulbs
or dim porch lamps cluttered 
with moth wings--
the petals push harder & harder
on the inside of my chest--
there's no way out but through my
finger nails & there's never been
enough fire to take from the
moon to prevent my body from
going up in a blaze of vine
& bloom-- 
this is the kind of
death we get;
on our knees mouth wide open 
& full of burning flowers
we can no longer pull out--
this is another birdcage 
metaphor about what it's like
to live trapped inside a body--
& the hydrangeas are my mother's favorite--
she says they used to grow 
around the outside of her grandmother's
house-- & sometimes i ask myself
what kind of house i'm living in--
with no room to breathe between 
the impatient fists of violets 
& the grit of yellow pollen
on my teeth--
i bloom burst & take my freckles off
as seeds to plant some flower
less likely to catch fire in the
heels of my feet-- stems
branch up through my ankles--
wilt with me 
in this post-winter frost--
can't you feel the pollen under your
tongue? dry & sweet 
& prying apart your teeth
to make room for more petals-- 

candles.

when i was seven or eight
(or some other age lost in
heaps of summer)
i used to prayed for power outages. 
the silent flicker & then
darkness in the flailing arms of
july storm-- the whole family in 
the living room screams 
at the abruptness of the dark--
we're reminded what we've been
using to sweep night from
the living room floor along with
the tails of the poisoned mice--
my father would
open the top drawer farthest
to the left all full of lighters &
half-used boxes of birthday candles
to take out
our baptism candles because those
were the thickest ones
we had aside from the pink &
purple ones from the advent wreath--
we could have pretended it was
four weeks till christmas--
lit a candle every hour
until midnight-- without the clocks
we could own time & 
i secretly hoped that it would go on
for days--maybe forever even--
i could imagine being
happy in a future without 
power & maybe i would tell my children
decades later after they were born by
candles that there was a time
when lights flickered like
eye lids & the street lamps 
carried our names like postage stamps--
i walk out onto the
porch & notice that my skin
glow out there as if my flesh were 
a white burning candle ignited
by the wind striking matches against my
skin-- i become the first candle
to only flicker under the barrage of
rain-- nothing put me out
& my father sits on an upside down
paint bucket &
inside two candles sit on the
kitchen table-- a third my mother
finds 
makes the room smell like evergreen
forest & the christmas tree's ghost
comes back a skeleton bare of needles--
the lights flicker back on suddenly 
as we're climbing the steps to bed
& i am always disappointed &
i always imagine myself running around
the house & turning everything off
again so that is can be dark &
we can glow on the porch--
match stick bodies-- each
inch of skin struck into fire--
the night becomes a mouth of 
ash-- we blow out the baptism candles
but the room still smells faintly of
of a pine scented yankee candle. 

for reader,

some people nimble
on flyleafs like
stale potato chips or
waltz with their tongues
savoring the forward but
i am a devourer of
dedication pages--
i want to know what the story
would be like if we left
off there-- in
the lips of an author
attempting to leave their words
for someone-- so many books
left to mother's without
names-- let's all write
a book for our mothers & 
leave it on her door step--
& maybe she'll never read
past her dedication page or
maybe she'll read the whole
thing & feel like it didn't
have an ending--
if i open the book & only read
the dedication maybe i'm
a different type of reader 
sifting for a life at either 
end of an novel--
a brief shout of a human who 
tattooed their mouths into
pages-- kiss
me like you would or mother--
i become frantic--
tearing through all my favorite
books to find out who they're for--
stuffing crinkled pages into 
my mouth--
for eugene-- for ester--
for my brother-- for ted for
jeanne & art &
the front steps of my house
that have become my jaw--
for the porch in the summer
leaking with rain-- for mornings
without power in the great snow
storm-- for dry june thunder--
for wet grass turning into
an ocean-- for the windowsill
in the girl's bathroom on
the second floor of the high school
that still hold our worries--
& i sit on the floor
of my bedroom in a mess of books 
stripped of their dedication pages--
mouth full of someones
& i bend over to pull them all
out again--
no one is vast enough to 
hold so many names--
after i get them all
out of my throat their
names are still printed on
my tongue-- i hold up a napkin
that is also the first page
of a book i'm still writing--
i kiss it & it
says
for reader,
this is all for you--
for eugene-- for ester--
for my brother-- for ted for
jeanne & art &
the front steps of my house
that have become my jaw--
for the porch in the summer
leaking with rain-- for mornings
without power in the great snow
storm-- for dry june thunder--
for wet grass turning into
an ocean-- for the windowsill
in the girl's bathroom on
the second floor of the high school
that still hold our worries--
for reader,
for everyone who will
ever open a book-- peel out
the dedication page 
& thrust it to the back of their
own throat like a promise 
to read deeper--

the right two people 

i want this to be
a story where the right
two people just need to
kiss for everything to
mend itself back together--
i can lay here sleeping
& pretend to be beautiful 
if it would mean all
i needed was a kiss
for the grass to grow 
lush on my legs again--
up my thighs-- green & 
thick & full of anxious 
jupiter beetles
& resting lightning bugs
all waiting for night to
come back so they 
can walk in the blaze of
the moon--
they kiss each other awake because
that's the only way they
know how to begin again--
i often dream about replaying
a day to try again--
instead i feel like
i fight each day like an 
ice cube-- 
fading valiantly 
into a sweaty water glass
grasped tightly in the callous 
right hand of my father
on the porch outside-- 
his arms are collecting sun burn-- 
i think maybe if
i gave back my eyes--
let the crows kiss them out 
like black olives or 
fat grocery-store-grapes--
maybe i could feel tired
again 
& the stars would
stop fidgeting under the
supervision of the moon-- 
this round wound
tore in the night sky
also happens to be
my mouth trying to swallow
air to breath--
it keep getting clogged
with flecks of star light
& lightning bug homilies
from the grass--
maybe i'll be the one
to find those two
people-- the ones
who need to kiss each other
to make everything right
in the world--
i'm sure it's not
me because i spend most of
my day kissing picture
frames & escaping into
the grass growing
tall as the pussy willows
on my legs--
i hope they don't try to love
each other--
i hope they kiss & walk past
each other-- 
give a cordial
bow of mutual thanks for
mending everyone on earth
& continue on to opposite
sides
of the sky-- the sun eats
the moon 
every single time--

backseat poet; 
the art of stealing your
family member's tongues

my whole family fits
on the side of a pill capsule.
i plant it under my tongue
to remind me of how to write
about this kind of love--
it's dry & silent to swallow--
full of so many voices
all tangled in saliva & 
crooked block-tower teeth--
we gather our yanked molars
collecting under each pillow 
& my uncle gambles with 
his baby teeth that never
fell out-- 
we play black jack at the kitchen
table between mounds of dirty
dishes-- we used the fine china so
it was probably christmas
before our table shrank to
the size of a pill capsule--
that's how i like us--
a quiet pocket of voices 
all knotted in my mouth--
you like to make jokes now
about how you're all going
to end up in a poem & it's 
true because you will-- 
i have all of you under my tongue--
& every bruise-- every plate--
every night where the moon
was too thin to hold a deck
of cards-- they're all
right here burning ulcers
in my gums--
count to twenty-one with me--
bite black licorice out
from between the grey night clouds--
my parents had two sons
& a back seat poet--
every single word i swallow 
until i'm too full of us
to not break open in stanzas
stacked next to the piles of 
dirty dishes that christmas
when we counted to twenty-one
until the moon was too heavy
for all of our teeth--

the hurricanes will
name themselves after us

i want to live so
loudly that the wind blows
my body apart like the
head of a dandelion-- 
let the people come 
makes wishes
on my limbs-- 
take my femurs
to use for oars for the flood--
we will
live full of storm-- full
of cracked-egg rain 
& jaw breaker
hail-- 
cracking our
teeth into pollen-dust-- 
to live as a poet is to 
watch your body roar gold &
then thin out into
soft white flecks of word--
you become so weak you 
have nothing left to do but
let the wind take each of your
words &
plant new bodies for
them to dare call weeds--
oh yes we grow like weeds-- a contagious 
kind of bone--
what have you known about
how the hurricanes name themselves?
out in the atlantic their bodies
knot into fists-- 
they tell their father's to spin
them on the merry-go-round--
or twist them on the swing set--
tighter & tighter
& they hollow out their
centers to call an eye & that
is where they sit to decide on a
name 
& what better to name a hurricane
than after 
a girl whose eyes are full
of lightning-- who breaths
louder than thunder 
& stumbles
as her body shakes the pollen
from all the plants on earth--
live so loudly that the hurricanes
fight over your name--snap tree
like wish bones to haunt
your mouth-- open wide to
eat the eye of the storm--
live live live 
like a dandelion--
unashamed to exist only 
for wishes & falling to pieces--
live like a beautiful disease
that takes root in an open mouth--
open your own mouth only
to catch hale in your teeth--
the fragments of moons shrinking
& falling to earth
out of their assigned orbits--
when you are finally tired & you
have scattered each one of your bones
the children of the hurricane
will come out of their hiding place
to collect the words you
leave strewn about the streets--
the ones that bent stop signs 
& ripped the red from traffic lights--
don't ever stop even when it hurts--
living loudly is like watching the 
world scream but when you
open your own mouth
all you can do is shake the
ground full of thunder--
& the hurricanes all pick my name
this year & they read my
poetry & throw my words 
violent tongues 
& catastrophic laughter--

where my umbrellas elope to

i've been wondering where
all my umbrellas have gone to--
i don't have any right now
& i have become one
of those people who 
duck & run through the rain
with their hood
up & their arms 
sarcophagus-crossed-- 
like every small girl
who measures herself 
in crayon lines on the wall
i opened like a field
full of umbrellas-- 
a wet sock 
goddess-- a rain boot
girl who splashed
in puddles with her mother
when the sky could not
longer contain all 
she was feeling-- 
there are few greater moments
of relief than watching 
the heavy clouds in july finally 
let themselves go 
in the type of rain that hit
the windows of our house
like a car wash-- like
a fist full of water balloons--
like a burst of sky laughter--
we take to the porch 
& she sighs the biggest sigh--
free of umbrellas & roofs--
none of us tried to cover
our heads & we
all soaked down to the marrow
of our bones-- we were rain
bodies now-- movements 
of the ocean on land--
& the land was the sea was 
the sky was the rain--
oh & in the highest moment of
the storm that's when they 
got away--
the umbrella by the door--
the one on the window still--
tucked in the coat closet--
sneaky little devils all opened
like poppies or like tulips
in april-- tangled themselves
in the laughter of the clouds 
& ran away with each other-- 
handle by handle eloping
to somewhere in the fists 
of rain
where they all hang-- suspended
by nothing but a belief 
in crying with your whole
body-- a belief 
in the eyes of the storm
to open like poppies or like
the umbrella over
our heads when you walked
me home-- 
you had to hold it
for both of us
because you were taller--
you were always taller--
if you decide to come back 
meet me when it rain in july--
when the tree in the play ground
behind the elementary school
pulls out her hair in the wind
in a destructive kind
of joy that only leads 
to temporary rivers 
down main street-- maybe we'll end
up there in the field
of umbrellas in the sky &
we'll be able to walk beneath them
& watch the water roll
off their heads like tulip petals--
i'll want to take one
home but i'll know it's where
they belong--
next time one of my umbrellas
finds love & runs away from
me i'll think of you & walking
me home & the moments we'd
let the rain soak through
our bones-- i won't look
for it again-- i'll let it
hold hands with another lost
umbrella-- plant itself
in the soil by the front 
porch--