what to remember when eating our siblings &
the intimate perfection of strangers

when i was 7 
my father & i gathered tadpole eggs
like bunches of grapes &
watched the creatures
grow legs from commas-- turn into 
apostrophes and em dashes
in the tank-- they 
finished our sentences-- spoke
in the unparallel language
of silence-- they talked like
my brother who lets weeks
drown in his throat & 
cuts words from his own tongue
like thin slices of fine cheese--
smoked Gouda & brie--
so as the tadpoles grew they 
shared death together--
the commas falling like black
tear drops to the bottom of the tank
to disappear into the glossy terrain
of aquarium rocks--
the burial ground of a 
kaleidoscope eye-piece-- only two
grew large enough to no longer
be classified as punctuation--
these brothers swam
in a race against each other's tails--
my own brother has
been living in a race against windows--
i like to think that i know 
him & the moon that sleeps in 
the rims of his glasses 
but there is nothing more intimate
than knowing you have become strangers
& as long as you stand back
enough everyone keeps
a piece of perfection--
i imagine him always as a
small boy laying on the 
speckled carpet of the living room
to watch television while
the air conditioner turned us
into plants-- the boy who
looked at me from the other side of the
fish tank-- the boy
with a handful of fish pellets
eager to drop them like
a fist of commas--
i know me brother only distantly & 
i feel sorry that i don't write
letters to him--
that i don't tell him what he used
to look like on a white plastic
chair on the porch in the summer--
us both in our underwear because
we were too young for people
to be afraid of our bodies--
back in the tank the tadpoles
circled faster & faster
as if trying to make a language
between each other--
as if trying to expand the walls
that contained them--
so one day i came home 
from school to find there was
only one-- he was slow & mouth
gaping full of legs-- an 
almost-frog with the features of
his face stretching into place & 
in his mouth his still- shaping brother--
he swallowed & swallowed--
bent into a parenthesis--
but could not complete himself--
floated to the bottom
of the tank
to lay on his stomach on the
carpet-- listen to the filter
turn him into a stranger--
i watched the tadpole sink
to the bottom of the tank & when
my brother asked what had happen
to the other one
i told him that 
they must have grown apart--
i've written every poem in some
way addressed to my brother--
sometimes he gets to be 
the 'you' i'm talking to
but i like to keep it a question--
sometimes i'm talking to
the tadpole dying on the bottom
of his fish tank--
sometimes i'm angry at him
for eating his brother--
sometimes i'm sympathetic &
i listen to him cry about
the intimacy of loneliness--
i never ever ever 
meant to become him--
a comma-- an em dash
& eternal circling
until one of us 
drown in the other--

the peaches were heavy enough
to crush the kitchen table--

do you remember the year
we couldn't stop picking peaches--
our cheeks grew fuzzy &
our skin blushed orange &
yellow & we laid our
bodies on the kitchen table--
the entire surface was covered
& we took pictures 
like poachers & elephant tusks--
the table's legs snapped
beneath 
us & we fell into the kitchen floor--
red-speckled & harboring 
the skeletons
of arsenic mice-- the glue traps
pulled the peach fuzz
from our faces-- 
i split peaches in half with you--
we were the bond fire babies
who wrapped our feet
in tin-foil for the
forth of july-- you
waited
to peel off the skin
so you could hold me from 
the pit-- 
i have known many boys
who like peaches--
especially you who
plucked me
sour from
the tree in your garden--
premature flesh 
like an apple-- crunch--
don't wait for me to ripen
or i'll bring 
down the whole kitchen table
again-- you kept
my peach pits in your pockets
so when i left you could
grown my again
in the backyard under the
rotted out elm trees where the soil 
is full of grubs & worms--
love a girl in halves
like they taught you--
a pocket knife in hand--
we sliced them up-- the table
of peaches & my father couldn't 
stop picking by the basket-full
-- bag after
bag in the freezer--
we'll make pie-- we'll make
muffins-- we'll make jam--
we'll make peach butter
my mother chanted
with each slice of
ripe fruit-- the nectar running
between our fingers--
& the table broke in half
so we sat on the floor
& sliced from down there--
there was no where left to
store them but they just kept coming--
at your glass dining room
table i eat peaches by
the fistful & i swallow
the pits in the hopes
of growing myself
a tree from the center of
my stomach-- feel the branches
break through my
veins-- let roots attached me
to the earth by the bottoms
of my feet-- 
i grow my own peaches now--
you still collect my pits
as if you could reanimate
the type of unripened
peach-skin-faced love
we picked each other for--
next time don't mistake me 
for a kitchen table
made of glass-- i'm not
here to hold everything you
want-- i'm turning
my body golden brown-- freezing
myself in ziplock bags
& boiling in the pot
on the stove--
our mothers know how to make jam--
you can keep the pits--
my mother & i rebuilt the
table & we never picked peaches
like that again--
we learned our lesson about
the thrill of
abundance & these bodies
so easily bruised-- by a fall
oh boys who tried to re-grow
me-- i am blushy-- i am orange-skin
i am a mouth full of sun
& the snapped legs of the kitchen
table-- eat me on the floor--

this is where we give back our finger prints.

it is a little known 
fact that the grim reaper's primary
task is to collect our finger prints
to be re-cycled onto new bodies--
he wipes them off
with the ratty-blue dish towel
from the downstairs bathroom--
the one you dry the cutting
boards with when
your father in done cutting watermelon
in july--
death holds the labyrinth lines
that once made up your body
& saves them on the
surface of an ink stamper
tucked into his black robe--
he apologizes for
taking them as if you had 
another option--
he kisses your forehead
as you lay on the sofa--
runs a bone hand over your
cheeks to steal back the freckles--
they jingle in his
satchel like dislodged
sleigh bells &
your face feels lighter than it ever
did-- he pulls the wrinkles
from your knuckles &
knots them the cord
drawn around his waist--
he had begun the steady process
of dismantling a body--
the work is slow until
you find weeks drowning
in your skin-- I
eat time 
twirled on a fork--
angel-hair & spaghetti--
i'm keeping myself together
in secret--
this city of a body
is still a place to get lost
in & as long
as we remember our fingers--
we can turn these bodies
back into subway stations--
we stop in Staten Island
& you comment about the graffiti
& how there's nothing 
left of art & 
a bent trumpet
echoes in the deep trenches of
my thumbs--
you said music is quiet--
i always fall in love 
by accident again-- it's always
at this stop--
& i always disagree with you
& fall out of love 
& assume you never tried
to
hold onto a thumb print--
i disappear
with the sway of the train
the water from the channels &
river ways rushes around me--
there is no body like new york--
her finger print eternal &
brilliant & kept in the robe
pocket of the grim reaper 
who secretly believes in anything but
death-- 
i've kept my finger prints
saved stamped in ink
on the back cover of my
notebook-- i show them off
to boys who think too much
about dying to prove
there's a way of
holding things still--
i hold my whole
body by the noose of a grip
hanging from the ceiling of
the train--
i turn to you who sits next
to me & tell you
i would give up
my finger prints
if they would use them 
as the blue prints for
another city like new york--
& you tell
me as the doors open
& the machine breathes
that
they already have--
that you know
you've taken a
walk in central park
& been reminded
of nothing other
than the pathways i
keep trodden in
my hands-- 
oh death will have nothing
to do with my finger prints--
i retrace the patterns 
so i won't forget--
you said you always
wanted someone
to get lost
in. 

the ritual of a goldfish funeral &
brief moments engaging in flight

i want to get goldfish bowl
lost with you again
-- look at your face 
through the thick warp of glass
& witness the small moments in
in which you achieved flight--
you dive off the arm of the sofa
into the pile of couch cushions
sprawled on the living room floor--
we live with the curtains drawn
& the brown fan clicking--
we play a Beatles cd in my 
boom-box-- the one with a green
apple fresh enough to eat
off the cover of the album--
our fish died again & we 
play to ignore 
the corpse for hours--
our family is not one 
for fish funerals--
there is no reverence in a toilet
& besides our father 
is our coroner
so it's best not to dwell
too long on the limp body--
still you & i cannot help
but wander back to
your room to stare-- there is
something so sorry about stillness--
in the patient dance of
a un-animated fin-- oscillating
in the tank from the 
hum of the filter--
the fish's eyes peer
open & without purpose--
our pet remains 
looking across the tank wall
to the fleshy faces of you &
me-- i want to scoop it
out with the green net so that it
will stop looking at us &
you tell me over & over
that that's dad's job--
i removed the lid from the tank
& the filter sputters--
i ladle the motionless
body of the fish whose
name
changed every morning with the 
whim of it's young parents--
a brother & a sister
& the god who lives in warped
goldfish bowl glass--
we walk into the bathroom
& the walls sing the kind
of chorus only the children
still hear--
it's the elegies of
the collective of goldfish
who sing their brother
into the pipes--
around us float
all his incantations--
fans of fin & silk scarf
tails-- you don't believe
me when i tell you the
mirrors
are water-- we dip in
our green nets & find feathery
skeletons & frog legs
folded like cloths pins--
the door locks & becomes the wall
of a fish bowl-- our faces
bent & bug-eyed we look through 
to see pink fingers
on the glass--
flakes of fish food fall 
like something between
snow & leaves in december--
we eat them with gaping lips
off the tile floor--
we run a bath-- force our
heads
under the surface in 
the tub to breathe while 
the room
slowly fills to the ceiling--
but you remind me
that we are creatures of
flight-- turn the door knob--
pouring water all
over the carpet-- we escape the bathroom
& you follow me down the stairs--
we return to our practice of
flight & don't say a word about
the eyes of dead fish or
the way we both watched 
each other become aquatic 
even if only in the brevity
of a mirror--

the ultimate fullness of nothing & our mother's
fear of us becoming moths

i walked down main street 
yesterday-- 
felt the wind absolve
my body of bones & i became
a paper airplane & a pinwheel
out the window of my father's
blue jeep--
i know little about religion 
but i worship the god
of jasmine flower necks &
fake gardenias on grave stones--
& when i resolved to become nothing
i found my way to the back porch 
of my parents house
in the body of a caterpillar--
tossed my skeleton
to a wind chime to use for
a song--
crumpled the notebook paper
lines of my rib cage--
everyone is praying i'm not
a moth & i can feel it when
they look through me--
i wrap myself in the type
of bed sheet you can only get
by walking up to the clouds
& asking for love--
god is hidden & sometimes he's
in your postcards--
the ones of stonehenge & 
seeing as i have been
forgiven for my body
i can  be there now too
in the mutual tourist
photograph that once attempted
to capture the knuckles
of other humans who
have long ago become
another piece of the air--
i am the disappointment of
a moth-- power-winged & 
hungry for light while 
i stand on main street like
a stone in a stream of
monarchs & swallow-tails--
how did everyone get so vibrant
& i end up so muted--
i was incarnated a body
that is best for listening--
& breaking-- crumpled like
notebook paper
on the lamp post behind our house--
a paper airplane from our
my brother's bed room window--
she had hoped she could use
water color or acrylic--
my mother say from the kitchen table
& painted this moth-child & 
called me butterfly--
called me as tempting
as jewelry in the window of the
the thrift store-- so
hopelessly extravagant & dead--
so i collect mosquito bites 
in the park pavilion-- peel
open a notebook & write about 
a boy again-- not because i want
to but because i'm write his apologies
for him & seeing as i gave up
inhabiting the sidewalk
in a body-- i have no way
of asking for one-- i write
my own apologies & lay on
the picnic benches so drenched in night
my skin is nothing
by night cloud & the high cheek bones 
of the moon--
i don't mean to always fall back
into the images of the 
stars but there is an ultimate fullness
in being nothing & ultimate
lightness--
i get to be nothing but a fragment 
of wind & everything that pulls
leaves from the magnolia tree
out my bedroom window-- i get
to be a handful of periods at the end
of apologies & our reunion
in a postcard photograph--
next time you love a girl
make sure she's not a moth--
we're dull & there's not enough nail polish
for our mothers to paint us
into anything but air--

all sidewalks lead to andromeda.

if you go out for
a walk alone at night
you are bound to walk
out of this galaxy--
we all have that 
impulse especially in june or
august when the sky is heavy
with handful after handful of
stars scooped from
the glass candy jars
god keeps on his end table
next to a tall glass of water--
he turns the pages of 
a compilation of poetry
written by humans
& sometimes gets up
to replace the lights that
went supernova while he
was reading-- on occasion he
look up to see you who left
orbit-- you who used the sidewalk
too religiously & ended
up on the farthest arms of 
the milky way-- breaking
gravitation pull with your
canvas shoes--
if you keep walking & 
remember all the nights
you spent trying to mine
the sky for constellations--
plucked the big dipper
from between the celestial
circus to stir your mug of
tea-- Capricorn took you
on his back so you could rest your
feet from walking-- you have
a tendency to forget time
once you pass the threshold
beyond our galaxy--
they told you andromeda was a memory--
a spiral woven into the foreground
but all sidewalks end
at the door step to
another galaxy-- you wipe your
feet at the door-- this is as far
as you constellations will 
follow-- here the stars are different--
they make new animals & 
kitchen utensils to 
teach humans how to 
eat the sky-- step inside mosaic
wall of someone else's suns--
pick up the planets
like marbles to take home 
with you on the walk back--
before you leave
you walk the parameter-- see
in the distance another galaxy take a
cartwheel & one galaxy merge 
with another in the greatest motion
of love since the earth
submerged into in oceans--
green & static blue in the spiraled
arms of each other--
there's no greater force of
gravity
than the perpetual motion
of the love of celestial bodies
keeping each other in spiral
& magellanic burst--
ursa major walks you home
like a good mother & before
you know it there's cicadas 
humming again & the sidewalk
is thick with august
& your shoes are wet from 
walking deep in light & star
& before you come home
you take from god's glass jar
on his end nightstand--
he's too busy reading
a poem you wrote
to notice-- and out
your window another star goes
supernova & no body mourns--
but you laugh for her
& hurl another in her place--
your pockets are still full
of planets--
all sidewalks still lead
to andromeda.  

supernova and other manifestations
of my depression.

1.
i think of reaching up into the sky
& squeezing the stars like blue berries
popped in between my fingers--

2.
when my brother & i were little we
would go blueberry picking
& i would sit behind the
rows of bushes to eat
the 

3.
stars-- bruised 
between my fingers-- i learned
to keep them in my pockets
for when i forgot
the names of the constellations--
Orion Orion for whom i 
wear worry like a belt--

4.
laid them out like marbles 
in the soil so that when 
it got dark & the sky threw
a slip of cloud over
her torso i could 
still remember where
Castor & Pollux stand
to raise a mirror of me--
call me gemini--

5.
we were all bound to
expansion-- there is no
such thing as the life
of a star--

6.
nova meaning "new"
meaning tulip necks & nooses
& the hooks to drape dish towels--

6.
nova meaning "new"
meaning telescope i shoot myself
with onto the surface of mercury
for everything to 
burn like the head of a match--

6.
nova meaning "new"
meaning watching Kepler
fall from existence is a burst
of all a star once contained
1604 & the sky bombarded itself
with the entrails of another star--

7.
the stellar evolution of death--
the last stage-- the fireworks--

8.
i watched fireworks from my 
father's lap at the carnival
while i ate peach rings
& if only briefly i forgot
both about mortality &
about the stars--

9.
supernova: the art of dying
fabulously

10.
the final catastrophic destruction
of everything that was once a star
swallow in explosion--

11.
i fantasize about my 
body in supernova-- not
in bones but in the collected
silhouette of a constellation
made out of a handful of blue berries--

12.
the supernova may disperse all
that was once remaining of the star--

13.
i fall apart at 30,000 kilometers 
per second so i can-- if only briefly--
outrun light--

14.
all i once was can be explained in
gravitational waves--
i make the other stars
question morality & the impermanence 
of a constellation--

1.
this is likely caused by 
gravitational collapse 
inward on the star's core--

1.
folded inward like a cave
of sand dug with blue
plastic shovel at the beach--
dug & dug until i found
where the white crabs were hiding
the un-named planets--

1.
& the shockwave is known
to cause the formation of
new stars

1.
nova meaning "new"
meaning wake up again--

1.
nova meaning "new"
meaning unlearning the desire
to die--

1.
nova meaning "new"
meaning re-configuring
your body into a new
constellation & accepting 
the inevitability of
gradual degeneration
& one final fantastic
supernova

our life on the backs of state quarters

when my brother billy was 7 
& i was 10 
we spent a time living on the backs
of state quarters-- my brother
was the collector-- a binder set
to find all fifty states & his
only set back was a sister who
liked to swipe a few here & there
when her frog-shaped wallet
ran out of enough quarters
to buy cheese fries at the park's
snack shack-- everything changed
when one bored afternoon
billy reached into the quarter
from georgia & removed the silver
peach-- stared at it &
shared bite after bite
till we reached the metal pit--
billy put it in his pocket &
we scurried to the attic
where no adults would see
our discovery--
pulled the oak tree out
of connecticut & leaned up
against it's solid torso--
should we go inside?
he asked, holding up oregon--
the coin held 
the pristine pressed image of
a ridge of evergreens
over-looking crater lake--
so, as the rain raced down the windows
& thunder cracked 
like eggs on the corner
of our mother's metal baking
bowl
i lead the escape onto 
the backs of the quarters--
once we walked the parameter of 
the lake in oregon we
took a walk to the metallic 
glory of the grand canyon 
in arizona & snuck behind
the gigantic american bison 
in kansas--
we listened to the common
loon call from minnesota &
sliced off pieces
of cheese from the wheel
perched in wisconsin--
as the day began to close
& we watched the forth 
space shuttle launch over 
our heads from florida
billy asked me if we could spend
eternity on the back of the quarters--
pretend together that our would
was quiet & shiny & clean &
full of oak trees to sit
underneath--
i said that when it was nice
our the next day we would find a real
oak tree to sit beneath--
it wouldn't be a silver as
the pemaquid lighthouse
in maine or the magnolias 
we laid on in mississippi--
but it will be sturdy--
& we will flip a coin heads or
tails to see who will get
up & walk to the
snack shack to get
cheese fries--
i use the notched rim
to hoist myself from the
top branches of vermont's
two maples-- reach a hand to 
billy & pull him out
onto the attic floor--
the quarter lay scattered
as our journey--
billy stuck his hand back 
into georgia
to return the 
pit of the peach.

what kind of flower would you be?

--i ask because there's been
enough poems written about both
flowers & love so i figure i should
put the two together & in the 
hopes of subverting your expectations
but instead i realize that
you could never ever ever be
just one type of flower
& to call you a flower i would
have to buy you a brownish ceramic
pot & nice warm soil to
keep you on the porch-- i wouldn't
want to compare you to
a flower unless i could be one too--

if i called you an African Violet
i would be right that you're 
patient & better at listening
than an orchid--
you'd remind me of
home because my mother used
to keep an African Violet
right next to the sink-- she
would water it when she did the dishes--
but i would be wrong because
your voice is nothing like
a violet-- violets are too
quiet & they don't ask questions
about sinks-- they wait
for you to come back to them--
in a perpetual bruise-- healing
themselves like thumb prints--

i had wanted to call you a hydrangea
because you have a type of volume only
measured in blues & purples--
like the bushes outside my grandmother's
old apartment-- the one with the duck
fountain & the holly bushes beside you--
the problem is that hydrangeas
die each year and crumple up like 
kettle-cooked potato-chips & i
can't imagine you letting
anyone take the color out of your
petals--you're not a perennial type
of person-- you don't believe
in an absence of color--

you tell me you think of yourself
like a tea rose-- 
& i think i can agree
but only if i can be a tea rose too--
i don't want to compare you to a flower
unless i get to be one with you--
i've got potting soil & i'll admit most
days i feel much more like a dandelion
than a tea rose but i think i could
live up to the standard--
we'd shake dew from our faces in
the morning & i would tell you
stories about drawings i had made
from constellations-- we'd drink 
rain & pretend we were the ones
controlling the wind chimes
hanging over head--

for girls who will sit 
on the second floor bathroom
window ledge at kutztown high school.

i used to sit on the window ledge 
in the bathroom
between classes, in classes, &
when study hall got 
to feel too tight--
we lived in a make-shift ant farm--
busy twitch of antennas
& each of our six legs 
folded into ourselves--
there was a pervasive desire
to run though none of us knew where yet--

i had spaces like the library 
& the art room to exist between but
the window ledge was the only
place i think i truly
felt like i was comfortable--
a strip of territory
i choose to still call home--
i opened the window &
dangled my foot over the courtyard where
i watched grey and blue uniforms
go through the hourly performance
of gym class-- i want to
undress them & show them how
tender & freckled & scabbed everyone's
skin is beneath it all--
it was freeing
to know i had the option to jump--
i imagined myself in sudden free fall--
tumbling past the windows of the
trigonometry class-- the teacher 
might have the students measure 
angles & consult the Pythagoreans
to determine how far i fell--

another day in the thick 
heat of April-- i would
enter
to find the window wearing
a veil
of fog-- i would want to write
something profound & inspirational
but always find myself drawing 
hearts instead-- it was the only shape
my hands knew that they wanted--
heart after heart after
heart in a sort of Morris code
sent to the elementary school students
who sometimes noticed
my silhouette & single swaying Chuck Taylor
from their view at the adjacent playground--

i took pictures of myself with my cell phone
& sometimes i didn't even share them--
sometimes i kept them to myself
as a silent elegy to  a body
of a girl who spoke love into Morris
code-- broke her body like a host of
bread among boys who never 
believed she would jump-- 

from the ledge i could see 
the place where i had my first kiss
next to the blue bench between the slide
& the monkey bars where a red-headed boy
& i had held worm funerals
after it rained & got married
there
it was the first grade so
i still think it counts--
on the other side of the school
yard the trail krept up the spine
of saucany creak where another
boy used my body as his monkey bars--
undressed me & told me i liked it--
you learn a lot about yourself
when someone tells you what
they want you to be
& you perform it-- i listened
because i thought maybe
love was supposed to make
girls feel small & want to crawl
out second story windows--

i never told anyone back then i was
raped next to the playground
or that i liked to sit & survey
the spot from the bathroom window
between classes--
i didn't even call it rape--
if anything
i called it a gap-- an open
mouth where the words dropped
out into the court yard--

some days i put on a gym uniform 
& became an ant-- crawled in & out
of each room as a mechanism--
other days i wrote
poetry on sticky notes
from the bathroom window-- 
tossed them out the window
for no one & everyone 
to find--