decades

when we lived on main street
my uncle told me that
eventually i would be 
one decade old & 
i was scared
because i didn't want to
wake up one day & 
feel different-- 
i used
to wait up till midnight on
birthdays-- watch the 
digital clock brand
each minute into the night--
hot irrevocable numbers--
i put my hand up
to the minutes & let 
the heat char my skin--
each minute a burn-- 
in the morning i would
go down to the pink
tile bathroom & wrap my hand in 
toilet paper so no one would
be able to see what time had done to
me--
i was turning seven--
like we all were--
i looked out my bedroom window 
& wondered if the world would 
look the same if i were to 
let myself fall 
asleep in the body
of a six year old & wake
up seven--maybe i would see
new colors like the butterflies 
or maybe all the changes
happened when you turned ten
-- i waited for
the moon to become a paper plate
& i sat out by the back porch light
in a merry-go-round of lightning bugs
& cicada folk songs--
i picked the moon off the table cloth of
stars & filled it with
fruit salad & birthday cake--
a dinner & a midnight snack & 
a breakfast--
i like to eat alone & my birthday is
no exception--
i always take a corner piece of
cake to get the most icing--
a red buttercream rose
stains my mouth & i kiss
the moon with pink lemonade lips
before i put it back into
the sky to hold another little girl's 
birthday cake--
still scared to fall asleep & 
wake up different
i wonder if people still count birthdays
after they're a whole decade old--
i light one blue candle & blow
it out-- i can't tell you what
i wished for or it won't come true--
i'm not the only one still expecting 
the wishes i made on thin dollar store
candles--
there are certain types
of magic that take time-- blue
birthday candles-- the bloom of 
butter cream roses-- the hot
kisses on the face of
the moon & the changes you 
don't notice as you wake
suddenly a year older--
the cicadas sing a 
happy birthday & it is you
who has to light
each star & blow it out again--

the miller's daughter & 
all the other girls who turn straw into gold--

how many of us have 
been the miller's
daughter &
how many times will
they tell us
to turn their rooms of
straw into gold? 
this is just
the story of another woman
locked in a tower praying
the sky clean of magic--
laying face-up in a book
of fairy tales whispering
to every little girl who
can read
to 
run run run
these hands
were not made for miracles--
there is little to believe
in alone in the dark &
there wasn't enough straw
weave a ladder to
the moon-- 
oh the miller's 
daughter sold
her herself piece
by piece to rumpelstiltskin
like all of us were taught to 
do-- to crawl into 
the king's bigger & bigger
rooms of straw-- our bodies
a vessel for precious metal--
have you ever been
kissed like a gold earring?
he saw our noses like 
diamond studs--
on the third night 
we all cut off our hair 
in the hopes he might mistake it
for straw 
& turn us into gold too--
& when there is nothing left to 
trade she promised
the parts of herself 
she hadn't held
yet-- the children inevitably 
waiting to become flesh & gold--
we all have a demon we pray
to-- give away ourselves
knuckle by knuckle
by wrist by elbow bone
but if i were the miller's daughter
i would send the imp home
on the third night-- tell
him to turn another girl's straw into
gold-- my blonde hair on
the wooden floor i would 
crawl into the pile of 
straw & sleep there until
morning-- 
when the king would awake &
my father would awake
& rumpelstilskin would awake 
they would all see how small
i was in such a big room--
they would all know
there was nothing left to
do but to cut off the rest 
of my head along with my hair
& all through the next day &
all through the next night
i would hum
straw into gold
straw into gold
& a phantom of the demon 
would taunt me & promise 
me the world if only i would
let him turn the third room
of straw into gold--
but i would die like that
& when the king cut off my head
my left over hair would
fall to the stone ground
as a fist full of coins-- 
a laugh of everything
locked in tower rooms--
we girls were meant to take up
so much more space--
we girls were dismantled 
piece by piece to bargain for gold--
we girls die when we stop 
dividing ourselves up
for the devil in our windowsills--
for our father who tell us
to build a sky
for the kings who build towers--
there will be other girls
who keep their heads-- there will
be girls without knives to cut
off their hair-- there will be
girls without demons to sell themselves
to-- but i'll die in a heap of
coins as the miller's daughter--
eating my name while
children sing out out of story
books 
"Tonight tonight, 
my plans I make, tomorrow tomorrow, 
the baby I take. 
The queen will never win the game, 
for Rumpelstiltskin is my name'"

trust me with my own body

or what is left of it--
re-loving yourself is so much
like looking in a window--
i watch myself
take off my overall dress--
next, my knee high socks--
i wrap my shoe laces 
around the banister
as i creep downstairs to 
sneak out past the television's
night time vigil over
the living room as it tries 
to comfort the house with infomercials. 
i lay naked in the backyard
again-- an act of self-eviction.
the grass prickles me
like my own leg hair &
i don't notice all the bugs
like when i was eight
& my own freckles were too
loud to feel the soft
feet of ants or jupiter beetles--
i replace my femurs
with the connect-the-dots
of constellations-- 
i'm the big dipper
for you to fill with cold
soup or vanilla bean ice cream--
the cancer that grew claws 
& cut off orion's belt
to make a sling-shot--
i use it to fling softballs
into my neighbor's windows--
sometimes mental illness feels
like you're your own real estate 
agent-- only you're looking
for what place you used to
call your body--
every day brings another musty
type of rain-- the kind of rain
that smells like rotting books
& luke warm tea--
peel open the book spines 
looking for the way your own back used
to bend like the stitches
of a softball-- the window
breaks & the house fills up
with cricket prophecies & jupiter
beetles trying to hold
onto what was left of the moon--
there's a 'for sale' sign 
painted in red on my chest--
but that was always there--
he painted it on when he tore
off my shirt-- when he first 
used his claws to clip 
off my bra-- a sling shot
cut from orion's waist--
i only use my bras to throw softballs
now 
since he used mine as a 'for sale'
sign-- i've been up 
& down this street four times tonight
& none of these bodies
remind me of my own-- so
i lay down again-- set back to work 
replacing each bone with 
a pair of stars clasping hands--
my hips were made from the 
bodies of the gemini twins--
i feel like them-- like 
a mirror breaking into itself--
begging the red out of skin--
trust me with my own body again--
wherever it is i'll pull
it piece by piece
from the teeth of ursa major--
from the belt buckle of 
orion-- taking off his stars
to stand bare-bodied
in the heat of the moon--
there is no bed room to go
back to-- only a yard 
where the stars ascend in
the bodies of the fireflies--
i catch one in my cupped hands--
press her back into the
sky-- she dangles like a light bulb
on a string--

hook

we went fishing in 
the duck pond--
let my father skewer 
each wriggling worm on our
hooks--
they spoke to 
us in a sign language
we pretended to not understand--
watched them spell 'fear' 
in the contortions of their
bodies-- handfuls of hearts--
i heard each one louder 
& louder until the hook
entered their body & the worm
coiled into herself to relinquish 
all semblance of language--
mute at the violence of the hook--
we dangled them to catch
& release blue gills &
trout-- sometimes we
wouldn't have worms & my father
would ball up potato rolls
to stick on the end of the hooks--
no matter what i was always
scared of getting them caught on
my finger or any other part of my 
skin-- one year when the whole
family rented house in cape may 
a cousin flicked 
his line back & caught
his hook in his brother's freckled
shoulder skin &
with a flick of his wrist
tore into him--
ever since i have
trusted nothing about hooks--
so it is amusing now
that i open my bed room window
& sit on the ledge as if it
were the rock we cast lines
on-- this is another catch &
release only this time 
i'm plucking out the stars & using
them like potato rolls on the end
of a hook that
i found in the old tackle box
in the garage--
i'm fishing for my body back
after all these years of
living between the hearts
of a worm-- i'm here to eat
my own sign language-- 
bite into a hook & watch it
puncture my gums-- this
is the only way to come back--
catch & release 
catch & release--
there are not enough hooks
to hold onto my body--
i have gills as deep blue as
the night sky in july--
all full of moon belly &
lightning bug morris code--
i pull the hook out & the world
tastes like metal--
i know i'll have to haul
my body back up from the water
again-- this is what healing
feels like-- like fish hooks &
stars rolled up like potato 
rolls & you father listening
to your muddled sign language
that neither of you understand--
this is how a body cries for help--
this is how you catch yourself--
hook in mouth--
release me when you're done
so i can swim-- 

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--