another beetle to drown in the baptismal fountain me & you were drown like beetles in the baptismal fountain & no incantation to our saints could teach our feet to walk on water-- stand here waist deep with me in swim-trunks & pink baby skin-- deep fry me in consecrated oil-- this is blessing this is baby this is barbecue & original sin that still tastes like applesauce-- we're learning cannibalism here-- oh & dress me altar girl-- tied up with a white cord-- quick-- let's fill our pockets with bugs-- i'm wondering again what draws the stinkbugs & the beetles to the altar-- was it their mothers? did they get confirmed because that was just what beetles did-- took the name of another martyr who drown themselves in the fountain crying ave ave ave maria-- lived in the cabinets of the sacristy & sipped wine before it turned into blood only to learn they were one in the same-- no matter what the wine was always blood-- when i was an altar girl i washed the priests hands with a silver plate & a cruet of holy water & i watched from the altar the stinkbug take bite after bite of God-- bread blessed into blood into water poured back into a fountain-- the priest paused to look at the insect-- flicked it's small body from the altar-- mandibles fat with flesh-- the same day when i got the host i was startled & dropped it-- i could only think of the gnashing of the mandibles-- all the bodies of the beetles floating & piling up in the fountain at the back of the church-- PICK IT UP the Eucharistic minister said PICK IT UP only i thought he meant the stink bug-- dead body stiff on the steps to the altar-- drown me in the baptismal fountain with the other beetles.
02/23
stale fork of chicken fried rice, rotini staircase, and mornings i wake up in a beach house. sometimes i wake up at one of the houses we stayed at on the beach-- haunt a living room in salt water steeped-- the breath of the gulls that blew the morning into mist-- this is how we become ghosts in the matrix of a memory-- i walk in the same rotini staircase to the room that watches the lighthouse over the channel-- count the whirls of the light-- hang your picture on the walls of the house so that next family knows you're still haunting-- forge with me over leftover chinese food-- we'll eat the cold sticky dry chicken fried rice and reminisce about the cold crusts of pizza-- my father comes home with sarcophagus of doughnuts-- wipe jelly on the walls like blood-- scare the renters away and claim the beach house as our own-- open the windows and let in the broth off the bay-- this about pinning a taste to the feeling of a morning-- this is about the incense of toasted bagel and bare feet-- this is about how you consecrate a house's walls with your own memory-- ordain each wall with jelly and Boston cream-- raise me rotini back up the staircase to the loft-- toss poker chips on the floor as payment-- yes there's other ghosts here and on the horizon the statue of a viking walks-- boiling the water in channel pour mist mist mist in our windows until the staircase itself begins to turn al dente-- languid in the morning--my father stacks doughnuts like prayer beads-- i watch the sun rise in fried egg-- dried and refrigerator bitten from a fork of stale chicken fried rice.
02/22
moselem springs i'm filing for divorce. no i don't hate him-- i just don't want to love like that-- i want to love like the brunch buffet at moselem springs-- get cheesecake stains on a lilac dress-- when i was eight i got communion. white-dress bride like all the other girls-- we knew we were monsters to be training to eat our god-- nervously we gnawed on corn tortillas and sipped grape juice from timid plastic cups in the vestibule of st. mary's-- what we didn't know was that we were getting married-- our husbands on a cross-- neck crooked in agony-- isn't that what love is supposed to look like? cut yourself down to the width of a wafer-- i was taught that if i didn't feel the stigmata then i wasn't loving hard enough-- they crucified mary more than once-- afterwards everyone congratulated me-- hung rosary medals around my neck like a champion figure-skater-- what an accomplishment to be big enough to eat the skin of your father and your lover-- he tasted like sand and ulcers-- afterwards we went to moselem springs-- a flat little brunch buffet up the street and i remembered still tasting blood in my mouth and wondering if it was my own or my new husband's i wondered if we shared blood now and i checked my palms front back front back front back for the nail holes-- i beleived no one had something they'd let themselves be crucified and i've yet to prove my eight-year-old self wrong-- took hold of the white buffet plate and approached the aisle of steaming coffins to suddenly feel very dizzy and very sorry-- i was sorry i had eaten him and sorry that i had wanted to pile the plate as tall as i could to forget him-- slice me spiral of ham-- scrambled pillow of egg-- i bleeding fist of fresh raspberry to stain my lilac dress i had changed into-- i had wondered what the stain would have looked like against the white of my wedding gown-- i ate cake with my fingers and devoured cookies fast as the phases of the moon-- were you hungry? my mother asked as she watched to me wiping more crumbles from my palms to check for bleeding-- looked up at a room full of wood tables a drift in the hall of the body of my god cut into steam-- the chef was there with a long serrated knife and the hunk of ham under the heat lamp peeling slice after slice after slice that bled in fat juice on the table cloth white table cloth-- bleed raspberry bleed nervous grape juice-- how much communion tasted like blood-- no-- yes-- i think i didn't know how hungry i was i replied.
02/21
the 9 stray cat lives of the angels. and god taught gabriel-- fear not for from the first day that you set your heart to understand and humbled yourself before your God, your words have been heard god took a hand full of marbles from a draw-string bag-- green and sapphire-- captured hints of an ocean moon-- lips of the hydrangea-- what do you know about the eyes of the cats? and he flicked the glass-eyes with his thumbs into the gaping-sockets of the stray cats-- bodies limp -- strewn about his workshop 1. and so god takes back the wings of the angels-- spits them out from the clouds in the bodies of the stray cats to learn how to love the humans-- 2. we all had wondered why cats land on their feet from however high they fall-- they have to make it from the back stoop of god's porch-- thrust off by the nudge of his checkerboard slippers-- 3. gabriel had been a calico with eyes of drooping tree-sap-- raphael the tabby-- lucifer-- white and mismatched marble eyes glinting with the kind of curiosity that knocks over candles-- 4. they preen feathers with their tongue-- 5. they had never suspected that the humans had so many things to fear-- 6. they learn feast and fat bitten through the black skin of a trash bag-- 7. god's love was nothing more than the hands of the neighbor boy who hands out ring bologna-- 8. god spoke through the pools of rain-water collected in the uneven pavement 9. but the worst part was the urge to devour the birds-- they could handle eating mice but there was something easy about coughing-- mouth dry with crumpled feathers and the fear of having no control over eating another animals who had once flown so much like them-- 9. return in never the same 9. some angels keep their marble eyes in the pockets-- fling bodies off the back step of a cloud-- 9. what god didn't expect was how many angels would refuse to come back-- 9. eyes still float in their reflect painted in a pool of rain water--
02/20
lace. we expect to be hunted by wolves. we tie our sleeping bags high in the trees so the black bears don't smell the stretched shadows we stuffed inside-- slap the mosquitoes from our wrists as if they are the hands of a watch. ladies drink arsenic to make their skin into milk and moon lips-- here we find ourselves hunted by a throat barbed with lace-- the wedding train of the jelly fish who pretends not to be circling closer-- the kind of waltz that drowns all approximation of beauty-- she claws at corset strings and you beg her to pull you in tighter tighter tighter-- we all live so delicate and deadly. no one remembers being hunted-- swallow whole a fist of ribbon-- shards of a pale stained glass window. put on your halo just to fall like the dinner plates where we served the moon-- she devours you slow the way you like it-- there is nothing more intimate than being made beautiful.
02/19
i loved you like a crown of song birds. oh you ask what it was about you that prompted the swans to speak-- pour their tongues into your skin born new into feather-- i loved you like a crown of song birds-- circle me song-- you the girl who shed a body like a cough of dandy lions-- what could i know about the fickle heart of a Christian? i worship a swan. --tried bapatism by devouring you in a mouth of mist-- told you to make your voice as loud as the circle of bluebird throat--tune strangled in the neck of a sparrow-- remember me when you melt free in march-- pray to empty stone. A snake swallows another apple. you take off your feathers to make way for June. Chain yourself to the mouth of a dragon with me-- write me into poems if you find your hands again-- i'm saving a basket of your feathers so you might remember us-- i'll be on the other side of a thinning mist-- look through the circle of the crown-- i'll sewn you into the otherworld with the beaks of only the morning doves.
02/18
bless me body for i have sinned i first noticed my waste band when i was in third grade & the halo red line my jeans pressed around my stomach-- me saturn-body me neptune's faint hula-hoop & my teacher ask me why i kept running my hands over the circumference of my stomach-- an attempt to find the equator-- take a compass to figure out which way i could travel to become unravel the layers of my hips-- i a mirror was meant to be a confessional for us to enumerate our sins oh bless me body for i have sinned against you from the first time i painted targets on my eyes with olive eyeliner to my hips i packaged in the neon ribbon of a thong-- oh bless me body i have made you playground-- poured mulch for the little boys to stomp through-- these breasts of sand he used to build his castle-- i'm sorry for every time i said YES only because i believed my mouth was meant to eat apologies & saying NO is another kind of death-- measured my height in the tally marks on my wrist-- my hips turned into the twist of a bonsai tree-- cut me cut me cut me into the shape you want the sun to make me-- i'll strip from you in front of the mirror to make it show-- grow taller-- break the walls of the house-- burst head through the roof-- i've run these legs until they turn to bologna-- kielbasa kneeling on the floor of a gymnasium-- i promised myself i'd stop wearing flowers in my hair until i actually start letting myself grow hydrangea from my torso-- i don't want to be that tulip kind of body-- pursed together like a smile whose trying not to eat-- i want to take the whole side of the house with the unbridled blush of the larkspur-- the hyacinth-- the amethyst bulb shatter mirror of the soul-- take the trow & plant sunflowers in my freckles again-- eat snow peas from the damp grass of the farm-- oh forgive me body for trying to love you by selling you to boys with thick hands-- who i teach to eat me like scabs of monkey bread saying-- take me take me take me & build me into something to be fucked-- to be caramelized to be wrapped in the foil of your bed sheets-- forgive me body for making you breathe through measuring cups & the worn edges of the table spoon-- kiss like a half teaspoon of peanut butter body forgive me for the bowls of brownie batter i washed down the sink out the fear of the memory of licking the spoon-- oh bless me body for i have sinned it has been twenty minutes since i last checked my reflection in a mirror-- bulls-eyes painted black-- lips draped in uneaten red velvet cake.
02/17
my aunt's house is haunted by unsent birthday cards, rainbow chocolate cookies and the ghost of their sister my aunts believe in sending birthday cards to all the dead relatives-- set their pictures on the end tables to populate their house with black and white memory-- pull their hair in cotton balls from the medicine cabinet each morning-- and aunt Flo still writes to Frank even though his car horn stuck blaring-- broke his neck year ago through the windshield of a red Thunder bird-- my aunts sleep in the living room now-- the attic is too populated-- and the hearth of an air conditioner churns loud enough so they don't hear-- their sister Joan trying to play duck, duck, goose with them as they sleep-- some nights she's twelve again-- mary janes and white tights stained from kneeling in the front lawn-- the youngest girl skips beauty and moves on to radiance-- other nights she comes home with the plaid jacket of a boy-- hangs it over the bar and mixes her sisters Manhattans as they sleep-- plays with their perms and kisses their foreheads as if they were her mothers-- Joan died there in the living room sewn into a white bed with all her memories already bled into the walls the house-- and as she died she heard her nephews calling to the ghost of their mother from a Ouija board on the attic floor-- she sang Ave, ave, ave maria MARIA her sister Mary who counts everything in decades of the rosary-- wards off unwanted demons with charms of ring bologna and prayers cut in cubes of cheese-- each holy mystery is accounted for-- and aunt flo still worries the lightning storm will bring the roof crashing down and all the ghosts crowd the living room-- Joan puffing on a cigarette and Priscilla writing poetry in the squares of a crossword puzzle-- talking in the language of the Ouija board-- their nephews painting their names on the basement wall like hexes or prayers-- aunt mary sips coffee now and reads her fortune in the grinds at the bottom of her dead sister's mug-- they tell her to count the branches of the tree in the front lawn-- harvest the pears sunk into the grass to make a pie for the ghosts-- they're hungry-- they play the organ when the three tv channels don't serve them well enough-- Joan, Joan who should wear the fish necklace? mary asks Joan out of tradition not reverence and Joan is only six so she breaks a plate on the dining room plate and laughs in the pipes-- mary marks the morning with a stack of birthday cards for the ghosts to descend from the attic to collect-- leaves out a plate of rainbow chocolate chip cookies so the ghosts won't eat all the ice cream when they sleep-- i'm never going to die-- says aunt flo splits a cookie with her sister-- seals another letter to Frank written in the voice of a car horn-- Priscilla leaves poems in mary's coffee grounds-- kisses aunt flo goodnight and eats the last cookie off the glass serving plate--
02/16
the process of dying on the backs of our mothers we alone attempt to think our way out of morality-- there has to be an escape-- another ending that other creatures haven't thought yet-- they don't think enough-- you know? they waste their bodies on motion-- drink sun light with fat pink tongues-- what a waste it is to have a jaw calcium carbonate in your bones-- our escape from death will only take planning-- the calculation of the cycles of the moon who splashes her face clean in the bays of her bathroom sink-- we have made these bodies without all the fixtures that remind us of dying-- we gave up our finger nails in the hopes of never coming to wrinkle-- traded blood for the undulation of the waves-- salt water and breathing in sand and bone-- these bodies made a body-- groom our hair with the cartilage carcass of another shark-- we think sharks are the funniest of all the animals who neglect to listen to us-- thrash their way through more and more blood only to die as suddenly as their jaws delve into another body-- it is easy to consume and die that same-- there is no one but the parrot fish who dares to consume the coral-- push water vein-- ripe tide us all into eternity-- feel the ocean encompassing-- at night we hear the whispers of all the dead-- only the coral learned how to speak to ghosts-- we try to tell them it's time to rest but their bodies turn white and they swim deep deep and we can't sleep still possessed with memory of the teeth of an angler fish-- we hope to die in the day light-- the dark of an ocean is too wide to hold another death-- mistake us for a flower so death might forget what he was supposed to do with all these bodies-- our many many bodies-- each branching-- these thick and gnarled vein-- re-grow these skeletons on the bones of fathers-- oh to eat is to remember is to only forget again-- the coral-- she write down the memories of the ocean and talk their ghosts into submission-- it is only the coral who would ever know how to talk through the silence of a whale corpse as she's devoured by the mouths of the hag-fish-- oh! and there's still so much time to think-- so many ways to think-- my mother thought sometimes briefly about air-- i think of it too and then i remember the face of my father as i grew from his rib cage-- and i listen again to the flux of my blood.
02/15
the bees stay up with me; build faces in the nightlights and dissolve our blood into honey-- the first time i was stung by a bee we made a covenant-- i was seven & the stinger dug into the arch of my foot-- i told my mother i was going to die there-- felt the sweet caramelization of my veins-- the bees laughed my mother hummed & the colony came home with us-- the workers trained their mouths to pull honey from plastic daisies & larkspurs piled on my head as a crown-- mistook me for their queen-- built a hive into the ceiling of my bedroom-- no one else seemed to notice the bees or the statues they made of me out of honey grids-- when my mother turned out the light they started their game of faces-- distortion of the shadows off my nightlight-- the bees haunted my room with the scuffled beard of my dead grandfather-- articulated their bodies into the grotesque & skeletal-- i grew afraid of bees-- on the 3rd night of possession i asked them what they were doing & they told me they were being human-- making a body so that they could walk with me in day light-- how long they had wanted a body to hail-- to love-- to sting & die as martyrs for-- don't we all want a god i only wanted to walk barefoot as time has passed my blood gets thicker by a moon-- & no one still sees the bees whose hive murmurs in a calliope of throat & fan blades through the night-- i count the beats of their parchment wing & my legs grow lanky-- branch-black-- my eyes a kaleidoscope-- they dress me as their insectual goddess-- burn my wrists open like crème brûlée-- drink nectar from each open palm-- this body was always a hydrangea bush just like my mother-- i stay up with them through the night-- feed-- dissolve my blood-- this honey in boiled mugs of water-- hang the tea bags from my ear rings-- your chamomile-- christened queen of hibiscus-- stab my through the arch of my foot again-- i'll be your queen i'll be your queen-- your face blurred in a nightlight-- your honey & your blood we don't sleep-- we sing.
