spoon-fed crucifixion

when i was in high school
my mom sent me to jesus 
camp-- but i was already
too far gone-- i had already 
performed my own
baptism in the flyleaf
pages of a notebook--
drank ink instead of wine--
i liked my own skin too 
much to believe in a god
who was disgusted when 
i touched myself-- a throat
full of blanket-- at the beginning
of the weekend  
a priest stood
up in front of our group
holding a thick crucifix &
proclaimed to the men
in the room that if they
weren't ready to give
THAT-- then they weren't
ready to have sex-- he moved
to the ladies & explained
on that we shouldn't
believe boys who tell us
they would give THAT for
us-- if this were true
then none of us would be ready 
to love-- i don't think
love is the type of thing 
anyone can be ready for--
there's not a qualification 
for it-- some of us love 
like nightlights & other ones
of us love like goldfish--
indifferent & staring forward
into the warped face of a 
mouth we fall into--
we played this game in partners
where we each made our own
bowls of ice cream & then picked
a slip of paper from a jar
instructing us how to eat it--
mine told me to feed my
sundae to my partner but only
after they had fed me-- 
the girl i was paired with had two
strawberry blonde pig tails &
her sundae was covered in 
oreo cookie crumbles--mine
with gummy bears & rainbow sprinkles--
she fed me slow & then i followed--
we tried not to make
eye contact with each other
& we nervously laughed at the clumsiness
of each spoon full--
at one point she stopped before
the sundae was done & we sat in the quiet--
the leader explained that love
was like how we were feeding another 
person a sundae-- that the best
type of love would be when
partners fed each other at the same
time & how each different little
pattern represented a different type
of flawed human love--
there was one group next to me
where one person didn't
get fed sundae at all--
that night we shared prayers
& partners & the pigtail
girl said she prays every night
that young girls & boys have the 
strength to stay pure-- i told her
i pray for homeless people because
it sounded like something i should say--
i went back to my room & sat at
the wooden desk-- exhausted & restless
& undeserving of someone to
feed me ice cream with gummy worms. 
i began to write myself a letter--
i thrust my hips into a page--
unwrapped my tongue in letters--
i wrote myself into a body again--
a body deserving of lust--
determined that love wasn't something 
i would be fed by someone else--
love was something i had swallowed
when i was very young & was in the process 
of pulled from myself--
they teach young girls so little
about unfolding & how to 
be your own spoon-- this is my 
self-crucifixion-- the kind of love
with stigmata is the love i eat
while you watch me-- 
this is where you wait while
i am busy becoming untangled 
in blankets-- 
i don't want your prayers for
my purity-- i want your prayers for
plastic spoons & boys who don't
think love his anything to do
with the violence of a god
who loved his hands full of nails--
how many times have
you used the back of a hammer to peel
yourself free?
i sat there & wrote myself into
a letter that i crumpled
& tossed into the trash--
in the morning we met by the
lake with the Franciscans in their
brown robes & prayed old words over
the water--
our father our father
or body-- my body i eat from
a plastic spoon-- 

the june after the bridge floated away

one march
my brother, my neighbor dylan
& i built a bridge across the 
creek behind our houses--
it was a Frankenstein of rotted limbs--
twigs-- rocks & the biggest 
thighs of the trees.
little worms scrawled over 
the backs of our hands as 
we peeled the wood from 
the dirt-- beetles scurried & screamed
armageddon.
foot in front of foot we walked on 
water to the other side
where we mistook the old limestone 
kiln for the throat of god--
this is where we made a shrine
to our childhoods--
strung rosaries out of plastic beads
& mulberries smudged in our
fingers-- wrote on the walls of
the cave with sharpie-- 
we didn't know any profound 
words other than our names & dylan
teased that i had always wanted to
kiss him--
the creek takes time to grow thick--
each weed reaching taller
through the months of spring--
& before summer gets too rampant
we still had time to 
explore in the waning months of
elementary school--
escape into the wet land around the
creek-- 
this was where we swallowed 
ourselves & set all the words 
used against us at school on
leaves to float them back 
down the stream so they couldn't
be used to hurt anyone again--
this was the year dylan's father died
& my brother & i watched
the ambulances congregate outside
his house like screaming beetles--
we learned there
are certain things you 
don't say sorry for
this was the year the thunder storms 
took away our bridge after years
of service-- this was 5th grade for
me & before school let out we 
all watched some man from
the borough plant
a sapling at the edge of the
stream as a gesture of truce
to the nature we
cut
back to build the strip
mall with the CVS in it--
the stream took back the logs
& the twigs-- the thighs of
the trees took burial 
in the mud beneath the water--
& we returned to find there 
to be nothing left but a few 
scattered trunks--
it was just dylan & i
so we baptized our feet in the mud--
left our socks on a the shore
& waded up to our hips--
on the other side we sat 
on buckets again
in the throat of god--
dylan coughed his mother's cigarette
ash & there was no where to
be swallowed to--
growing up isn't a moment--
a come-of-age-dream
where everything aligns & you
are on the other side of
it all--
growing up is crossing the 
creek with a bridge & watching the
bridge float away
with the words you left on
dead oak leaves &
growing up is a process of
taking no one with you-- letting
yourself get swallowed & learning
there are times to apologize 
for nothing just because someone
has to say something--
i want to say sorry to dylan now--
sorry to my brother for
not building the bridge
stronger-- i was oldest--
that was of course my job--
somewhere there is a neck of the stream
where all our leaves are still waiting--
their backs covered in bruises
& somewhere the beetles returned
to the undersides of tree
trunks we dislodged & they 
mutter to each other about
how desperately humans try to
make everything they
make last forever--

what is the storm running from
this time

what is the storm
running from this time
on those
thin lightning-strike legs
that kick at the skyline?
our houses turn into bowling pins--
knuckles of balanced dominoes--
each footfall is another
step closer to our chimney--
the artery-- a telephone cord we
pulled from god's throat
to pray into--
we talk like radio show hosts--
god doesn't ask questions or pray 
back to us--
i have never been scared of 
thunder & lightning because
she is more scared of us
than we are of her--
spends her life time speeding-up
in an attempt to escape
her own destruction-- watching
the ground evacuate under her feet--
she wonders what it is about
her that makes everything shutter--
sometimes i feel like her--
a storm with unforgiving feet--
it's not her angry electricity--
it's the frantic sprint
& catastrophic qualities of
my own escape-- my arms 
spread the length of the road--
i connect my house
to the quilt patch of soy bean field 
tucked 
behind the water tower--
i fill the space under my
bed with my organs before i 
go running in the grey-- wrap 
them around bed posts-- try to
stuff the pillow--
i always need more space--
i'm making space under my skin 
for worries & metal spoons
-- there's no more
room for stomachs or
veins-- i take 
them out on the bed room floor
while my wrists snap like 
distant thunder-- here i come again--
thin legs kicking at the earth--
strike down the crooked rooftops--
shout into the chimney--
here i am as frightened 
as the storm running from herself--
looking for my places to hide my
veins where they won't just
become blue static in the hair
of the willow trees along
the edge of the farmer's market--
look at my hands full of
earth & husks--
my bed post
was also my chimney-- all four of
them--
don't be scared of me please--
i fill so much of a room
it's hard to keep me company--
i know my legs are loud--
i know it's hard to listen--
count the seconds after the flash
& that's how close i am--

1999, for carole
(maybe to arouse an awakening for poetry)
-love tom

this is a different version of 
the story-- in this
life i fold
chocolate wrappers into
the tightest squares on my 
end table but never toss
them in the waste basket--
in this story i nod to the titled
hat of the night light 
nearest my half
of the queen sized bed--
i eat books like 
fun size milky-way bars or 
cream filled hershey's kisses
only when i'm alone & not
attempting to fold myself
into bed with him--
during the day sometimes 
i take a moment to lay on
my back in the middle of the living
room & i imagine it as a biplane
falling from the ceiling towards
me-- i re-write my will
in my head & i leave the jewelry 
box to you-- my mother left 
me a necklace with one ruby
missing & it reminds me of us.
i don't wear the necklace
because he says he feels
like the remaining two rubies
are glaring at him & says i should where
the necklaces he bought instead--
the one with the sapphire & emerald
in the shape of some sort of
"forever" heart.
i hate new things.
i want to rust 
like old poems crawling free from
their silver wrappers.
i wish you would stop leaving me books
& writing in the front cover.
i think if he saw your handwriting
in all the red ink
he would know i'm irrevocably in love
with you.
i don't want to be careful--
i want to be precarious.
i want to have to wash
the pillow cases when you leave.
i live by looking forward to 
other people's birthdays-- 
i distract myself-- this year
my michael asked me to make
those chocolate lava cakes you
like-- you know they're from a box-mix
right? i keep telling myself
i'll try a "real" recipe but
i don't want to disappoint anyone--
maybe he'll change his mind
& we can have cupcakes--
i love candles in cupcakes even if 
they are box-mix--
if i make enough birthday cakes 
& light enough birthday candles
this year we can skip me turning
older & pretend
you're giving me a book of poetry
for no occasion at all--
just as a lover would 
on made-up anniversary--
i tuck the book under my pillow
& unfold myself like 
the edges of a reese's cup wrapper 
while i wait to share the bed again--
he gets in & takes the light from half the room 
if you're going to keep reading--
do it downstairs
-- he says
so i click the switch on my own lamp
& lay facing the other wall--
i was just paging through 
--i say
& close the book again--
i regret to say i find it hard to
read much.
the first page of most books is
good enough for me-- i like
to imagine an ending-- the endings
we imagine are always better
than what someone else can write--
oh you don't know what it
means to be awakened, tom,
it is a sensation that only grows
when i turn off a the lamp
& your words on the inside cover of
my books turn into the branches
of veins up your wrists
when you wrap me up like your very
own hershey kiss--
next time write in black ink
& we'll awaken together in
the rusty mouth of a dead poem--
he reaches over & touches my arm 
& i flinch because for a moment
i thought it was you--

a thank you letter to my father who
taught me how to eat--

bananasplit is how we cut
my hair & spiked it with
a fist full of gel.
my father & i ate
our own boats. we sunk
in a pair of a swivel
chairs at the diner counter--
i was the chocolate syrup
in the black & white milkshake--
this is how you fill a sandwich
with potato chips--
we navigated our own 
banana splits at
the malt shoppe 
after i broke five boards
for my black belt test--laid
out our bodies long on the end of
those sundae spoons-- the type
you could use to 
slide all the way out of
a second story window
& into the front lawn.
my father opened my mouth wide
enough to fit another spoon full 
of chapter that night.
he said to 
bite hard into words &
stop only for air-- one chapter
more one chapter more-- this is
how we ate ourselves into 
other lives--
how we rebuilt
the bodies on the dinosaurs
from fern fossils-- 
how we woke up early together 
& munched on 
weather channel jazz.
i used to eat all the raisins
out of my father's raisin bran
cereal but i don't think he noticed--
my father cracked
thunder on the telephone wires
like the side of a bowl--
swallow us whole-- we slurped
the storm like spaghetti 
from the back porch--
electric on our lips-- 
i watched how he ended the day
in the bottom of the sink
on the rind of a watermelon--
i eat the black seeds in
an attempt to grow a garden
from my stomach--
we were waiting for
the bagel pizzas & it was school
time so that meant my brother
& i were waiting at the counter
in the kitchen--
my father cut my hair again
but this time so my head would
fit better in a kick boxing helmet--
he always told me that i fight
like a boy--
never come up too long
for air when you're caught 
in a downpour of words-- eat 
faster & wipe your mouth only
when you drop a comma--
my father kept spoons we could only
use for feeding me sentences 
from the rocking chair 
next to my bed--
my father taught me how to eat--
tore out the pages each book
& fit the wadded up paper
in his mouth--
we swiveled around on the diner
stools to see the storm 
whisk the clouds into a froth--
we burn in the bottom
on the pan sometimes-- me in
my short spiked hair
getting mistaken for a son--
my father taught me how to
eat-- everything
is better in a sundae dish--
if you break make sure you snap
clean in half--
a black belt boy--
a fork twirled on the porch
in thunder-- chew before
you swallow.
he showed me how
a rocking chair could
be held together
with the punctuation 
of a chapter book-- he held one
open like a bible--
a sundae raft for us
to float down
from the second story window--
we eat rain from
our palms & all the ink turns
the books into chocolate 
syrup-- 

how you fall is no one's business
but your own--

am i enough pieces
yet to be your stained glass
window? 
my tongue shattered on
the open mouth between the curtains 
& when the sun comes up
in the morning
(tomorrow)
you will look down my 
throat like a kaleidoscope?
when i lay next to you
on the roof i am reminded of
how in wind storms the
shingles would break off
like fish scales & scatter
in the yard--
my father would tell me to go
find them & i would
pick them up to fold them in half--
my tongue wore a halo
so the brave people in the first
row of pews would know 
everything i've had to do
to bring the color
through my skin-- these
bruises turn me into 
a catastrophe of light--
my favorite type of stained glass
windows are the ones that don't
try to tell you anything--
the quiet ones full of
different types of broken--
the ones whose patterns
take your eye out of your skull
& spin them to the dark side
of the sun--
this is where i go when i'm
tired of being marveled at
for how i break & how
i have broken-- this
is the place where the colors
of my body are quiet & there's no
one to notice the glass
stuck in my tongue--
i try to speak but something
in my throat turn all my words
to red & green & blue
as we lay there is scratchy 
prom clothing-- your tuxedo--
my puffy dress--
your bare feet-- my heels-- knocking
free shingles onto the lawn
like a storm--
how you fall is no one's business
but your own-- i'll put
myself together from my windowsill
so when you wake up you'll think
of no colors you found in me--
i don't want a lot of time--
i just want to be able to 
pull out the ribs that felt good &
keep them as a place
out of context-- a place for the
sun come back to &
light knocks on my front door
with a mouth full of halos--
oh sleep quiet & alone if
you want to keep any colors to 
yourself-- this stained 
glass body was never yours
to look through & there will
be mornings where you see the
sun come through your window
in a storm of glass--
knock the scales from
your back-- i'll toss my shoes
from the roof to find them
later & snap off the heels--
how you fall is no one's business but
your own--
let them think it hurt-- 
hide behind the sun if you have to

why aren’t my hands pot holes

to hold rain water
after it falls?
so that boys in rain boots
can splash murky waters
at the girls who pretend they
don’t love it.
so i could look into my hands
& hold everything
in a missing bite of earth--
god built the atlantic 
slowly by chewing away
at the dirt until his
mouth was full of fish
when I needed to pour
into new places
i’d spread apart my fingertips
to let the clouds drop
hail like glass eye balls--
but my hands are dry from space heaters
that cough me into raisin dried-sleep
& I feel like bent branches
that once held a girl who
was going to climb 
to the top of the tree
snow takes deep breathes
but somehow always drops
through the hardwood floor

*

i've been googling the galaxy

sometimes i think it's all so small--
all the clouds of star & comets
who always slither themselves
away like the decrescendo of a snail--
yes i guess it's all far away but
in a picture a being as small
as me can stand back at it all--
a pot hole in the road-- 
a stagnant pool of tadpoles who are
actually meteors chasing the bones
of allosauruses who burrowed
beneath the craters that would 
become lakes-- that would again become
oceans-- a scar above 
god's left eyebrow when the
moon stone-skipped on the
surface of his face
i've been googling the galaxy 
in an attempt to feel larger
but we are so small--
i reach out to extend to the walls 
of my room-- a fist of saturn--
my hair in the eternal fires of 
mars-- wrists wrapped in 
andromeda 

*

the rock store in search of planets

my father keeps a wooden chest
where all the planets have come from--
some of them sleep in beds of cotton 
coffins-- pockets of galaxies
where the suns are quiet for now--
sleep & uninterested in burning--
fern fossils that were once 
the scales of my neon tetra
fish-- the ones who ate themselves 
to death because my brother
& i didn't know to stop
feeding them pieces of saturn ring--
we went to the rock shop when we
wanted more planets-- you can
never have enough planets
just like planets can never have enough
moons-- enough children
to keep in their own dark
cotton galaxies-- the wooden chest
that waits in the attic 
for us to take our planets to--
the ones from the shelves of the rock shop--
the tyrannosaurs teeth from us who
would be king-- the bite of a memory 
of we carnivores  

you can travel too--

my mother says because that's 
what mothers are supposed to
say to their children who
tell them there is so 
much to see between
the corners of their room--
i google mapped to see
how far away you are &
it tells me there's no walking
directions from pennsylvania 
to berlin-- it makes
you take a plane but i think
google maps has little belief
in the will of humans to
walk across water for their
brothers--
it tells me if i were to
take a plane from the philadelphia
airport this afternoon
i could be there outside
your door in ten hours &
ten minutes-- 
don't ask me where the ten minutes 
came from-- i'm assuming it
is acknowledging my tendency to 
get distracted on street corners--
maybe it knows i stare too 
long out airport windows--
maybe it's guessing i'll get lost
in berlin without a knowledge of
their language beyond being
able to count to 7--
it's not that i don't want to
walk across an ocean--
i do-- 
it's just that i feel
like i'm too big to travel 
that far-- i'm 
already filling up this room 
so much with the sound of my
fingers across my laptop--
this is keyboards turning 
into rain--
this is another night when
the moon tries to 
come in through the window--
i tell her she's too big
& i'm too big & there's not 
enough space to store anymore
planets in here--
but moons are impatient & she
finds her way in by breaking 
the window from & tossing the
shutters to the side like 
stiff eyelids--
i have a habit of letting 
her do this-- so i stay away
with her until she falls asleep again--
she tosses & turns until she's
warm in a black of star & 
darkness-- i'm not sure
anymore if the night sky is the
ocean between  us or
the sky that i would walk on
to visit you--
i am a tourist of my
own bed room where
i talk the moon
into going home-- 
i'm a nomad down
the same sidewalk-- i watch 
june draw the night
around us like a lid over
a pot of tomato soup-- our mother
is making on the stove-- & the 
house always smells like the spice
cabinet crashed in through the window--
i'm a pilgrim on the front 
porch-- & there's a home somewhere
that we come back to but it's not
a place--
it might be where the moon
finds us or it could 
be anywhere we travel to--
i am the door knob sightseer--
i am the ten minutes on
a street corner in one of our two cities--
i am feet on an ocean &
the persistent belief
in my own ability to 
fill up an entire room
before the moon comes crashing in

fountain hunger

sometimes a poem 
only has a title
so the author can 
pretend that they
meant something cohesive 
by writing it.
i make a lot of poems without
ever writing them down but this
is one i'm writing down & 
also throwing away on the
face of a penny-- this
is a poem written on abraham lincoln's
nose-- so small you can't see it--
i've been thinking about
the fountain at the mall
i used to go to in high school--
the one with the pet store
where you can hold puppies
once you get a driver's license--
with the food court on the second
floor-- chick fil-a behind
bars on a sunday 
between taco sensations
& subway--
down below right outside of
boscov's is a big
fountain with a wooden bridge across--
i've dropped so many pennies there
& i wonder if they're still waiting
to become a wish i've long ago forgotten--
i've concluded there's probably someone whose
job it is to collect them-- angel or
maybe a janitor who works
the night shift on the first weekend 
of every month-- they keep bags of 
everyone's fallen copper desires--
do they buy a taco upstairs with
them or spend them on a sundae at
dairy queen outside the front door?
if it were me i wouldn't be able to part with
them-- so many relics of people who
all wanted to take out a piece of themselves
& throw it into the fountain--
-- there is a certain
type of empty hunger
that makes people throw their change
into an artificial blue
body of water-- a sort of hapless
type of hope we give to our children--
my uncle was the first one to
teach my brother & i to toss
pennies into fountains-- eagerly
he stopped us on the bench
next to the bridge & pried open
his leather wallet-- dumped
a handful of pennies into his
hand & split them between us--
confused we watched as he tossed a few
as examples-- a spurt of water
following the satisfying plunk
of each as they descended--
i remember asking when the wishes
would come true & my uncle had said
eventually
eventually we all will take
our hungers by the handful &
throw them away to drown--
i have kissed several boys on that
bridge above the ghosts of people's
pocket dreams-- the fountain is a graveyard
& an open mouthed wind--
an ocean-- i'm writing this
poem because i have wanted to walk
into the fountain for a long time--
take off my socks & shoes at the edge
& wade in-- water to my calves--
i want to catch the wishes as people
toss them-- hold the coins up to my ears
& tell the presidents to whisper--
tell me all the secrets we can stuff
into a pocket or the bottom
of a shoe-- i want to know
what parts of you believe
enough to throw your change in a wishing
in the artificial fountain 
outside the boscov's at the mall--
i want to collect enough pennies
to buy you an ice cream around the corner--
sit on a bench & talk about all
the boys we've kissed on bridges
& all the pennies we've dropped
into the fountain as a resolution to
a hunger that filled us up
far past the depth of the 
blue water beneath our knees--
this is one of those human places
we don't have to understand-- this is
the bridge where you're allowed to forget
the details & it's sunday remember
so chick fil a is closed up stairs 
& the fountain cleaner is coming tonight
to fill a bag with pennies & use them
to buy himself tacos for dinner
all alone right before he locks all
the doors & stands on the bridge
alone-- only to repeat the process
by tossing his own pennies
off into the water-- 
sometimes a poem tries to describe
a feeling we don't have words for--
i'm calling this the hunger of
fountains-- a purely human endeavor--
a type of modern baptism 
in search of a god who would
grant wishes-- 
we built
a fountain

trick or treating in june--

ring the doorbells 
of the lamp posts 
& we'll fill
our pockets with lightning 
bugs in candy wrappers--
you ask me how many more months
it is until halloween 
& i laugh 
& tell you that it's tonight--
i can tell because of the way 
the moon is following us
down the gravel pathways through
town-- 
the ghosts stir
in the teased hair of the maple trees--
the cockroaches are walking
into the veins of the houses
on main street--
so we sit on the front porch 
& carve a jack-o-lantern 
out of cicada melodies-- light
the fire in it's belly
with the flicker
of sun flame burnt on to 
our shoulders--
the lightning bugs
push free from their wrappers &
fly out of our pockets to bang their
heads on the lamps & fly
higher to the stars--
bang their heads into Orion's belt--
we ring more door bells & 
no one seems to have stocked
up for the night so we buy
a bag of candy corn
to plant in the backyard for 
next year--
we're going to grow a maze to
get lost in together between
the stripes of white, orange,
& yellow--
we put on our costumes
even though it's thick
& soupy outside-- after all it
is halloween--
you're dressed as a witch &
me as the grim reaper from
when i was eight & just becoming
fascinated by death--
plastic sythe in hand
ready to collect the souls
of a the crickets who chirp
out the temperate & the spirits 
of the cicadas who 
wait for us for 
sixteen years underground--
we sit under the street lamp 
again with empty pumpkin buckets
& i tell you i had been
hoping most of all to score
some Twizzlers & you say you 
would settle for 
any type of chocolate--
you make me want to kiss the orange
into the leaves on the trees
for you but instead i ask
to kiss you & you say yes--
i love you like cicadas who 
become jack-o-lanterns & 
our front door we imagined in the torso
of the street lamps--
i love you so much the moon
followed us home & got stuck
in the hair of the maple trees--
i love you like halloween in june--
unexpected & too early
& too late-- bright like
the sun fire off our shoulders--
bright like the open
mouth of the jack-o-lanterns
we carved 
on the front porch--