sleep overs for fat girls;
did you lay in a pine tree last night
or play truth or dare with the frogs?

i learned when i was 10 that 
sleep overs aren't made for fat girls--
and neither are sticks of plum eyeliner--
draw the bulls-eye around my belly button
-- they taught me to 
avoid my own skin-- these hands
and their vampire desire to eat--
how dare a girl partake in something
other than air--
chant me into your 
truth or dare--
but i'll always be truth--
i'm scared of what skinny girls
would do if they had a dare to
use on a fat girl--
make my clothing into puppets
i ignore the laugh of a mirror--
see yourself amphibian-- glossy eyed
and full of ponds-- twisted 
lip stick staircases into a murky night
pull back like arrows--
impale me chalked blood 
on the bulls-eye--
bleed me nail polish on carpet
on thumb print
this is where you become a skinny girl's 
dice roll--
snake eyes of your unformed breasts--
make training bras from 
toilet paper and roll the dice
to turn 16 when they 
say none of us will still be virgins
how many doughnuts can she eat?
can't stop herself--she's like a dog-- 
a goldfish-- a fat frog ready for sex--
hold your fat body in
the lull of water in the sink--
the bathroom is a locked door--
pour yourself a bath of brownie
batter-- 
wait by the oven where your not a dare--
you become the corner pieces--
the misshapen sleeping bag
that looks like your stomach--
let's play
marry
fuck 
kill 
    the fat girls
so i slept in the pine trees--
pulled needles from my
sides-- and thought of 
who i would marry if 
i was a dice roll or 
new how to draw my eyes on
-- i would
marry the throats of the frogs
having intercourse by the ledge
of the pond in the back yard--
they warble brownies to each 
other and they like
their bodies fat for the winter--
i would be a queen--
a streak of plum eye-liner--
sleep is for girls 
who eat lipstick so
they awoke on the stale forehead
of another morning--
an open box of doughnuts--
broke in half 
as the last supper of secrets--
we love each other only
as far as we can measure a night--
they say
i didn't ever pick 
dare-- so they dare
me to be a fat girl again
and i laugh because that's what you
do when you're confronted with
a mirror--
eat the corner brownies so 
you have safe place to sleep--
marry 
fuck
kill
    the fat girls.  

The whale carcass:
our mother and our corridor;
we tie knots in our bodies to feel 
less empty 

hagfish
sold our jaws to the sand in order
to build the coral-- 
cut each other 
bouquets of sea lilies-- 
listened
to their shriek flutter on 
the backs of the mollusks--
we forget each other's names
in a tangle when we curl
knot
after knot--
pearl bodies into fish nets--
sexy and draped in mucus--
this is how we escape the grasp
of each other's hands--
i call you all sister 
because we each have known 
the underbelly of the sea
is rotting 
and waiting for us to feed--
there are too many of us to hold
tightly enough to a name to
remember-- 
tie these bodies tight enough
to form a memory--
our mother was the white
carcass of a whale 
and she named us all 
after her ribs-- made
room for us to walk through
her body like a corridor--
hold our sisters and silence
the sobs of another sea lily 
pleading to not be mistaken
for a bouquet--
our mother swallowed chandeliers
and candelabras to build
us a home--
drank bleach to leave
her bones white enough to 
fabricate a sun--
we watch her turn into 
a ghost of bone--
flesh for her children and
each sister has another name
to call her--
my mother was a corridor
and there was no where to
walk with me but
i wanted to know what they
call you and i wanted
to entangle my body with yours--
learn what it would be like
to remember a name for
once-- did you remember 
where we saw the sea lilies
or if they were only 
some other sister's recollection--
i lit the candles with 
the sacrifice of a jaw bone
when the crabs turn white as 
bone we know it is time
to give up on the mother 
who tried to lead us
down her hallways--
he have walked there-- sewn skin
into a vague promise to be
left with the turn of her spine--
the roll of the staircase
into the drop off 
of the abyss--
we protected her long enough
for the ghosts of the 
crabs waiting to take what was
left-- watch a soul get swallowed 
by a mound of sand--
candles extinguish 
under water and so in 
the darkness we crawl towards
a new mother--
call me sister-- sister
sister tie knots in my 
body-- i 
want to feel your skin on 
mine and i will ask 
if you remembered our mother
and if you remember what name you
have made for yourself there--
hagfish
traded jaws to tie our
bodies
in knots-- hold me 
and hang the sea lilies 
from the chandelier-- born
another mother from her carcass 
on the sea floor-- 
 

i taught my body to bloom in the larkspurs
from the back seat of an Oldsmobile;
milk and honey through the floor

what good is a seat belt?
lock me into the cushion in the back seat--
lay that body down like the corpse 
of another martyr refusing to decompose--
i pull milk and honey 
from a hipbone and pretend it isn't blood--
you say i smell like flowers
but it wasn't boys who taught me
how to open my mouth like a larkspur--
you say you'd pull me apart one slice
at a time
your clementine artist--
hips bound by roses-- 
prayed at this window-- this bulb--
what will 
you call me savior for? 
call me benediction
in the form of an open window-- 
write your hands in breath on the glass--
i'm peeling open the tulips before
they're supposed to bloom-- pulling
free the sun-burn faces of the daffodils--
push me bulb and root and nest
of my own hair-- planted grass seeds
in my legs so i wouldn't have
to tell you why i don't shave anymore-- 
this is the place i grew one 
tight fist of pressed petal between my legs--
i was the valley and the abyss--
a kiss from the forehead of a mountain 
we only had the courage to shave the tress--
yes we saved the thorns--
i lay in the back seat of the Oldsmobile--
find myself a rapture of rust-spring 
and cushion-- a mouth full of foam
trying to taste dew through the upholstery--
no it wasn't a boy who pressed down on
me to teach me how to break through
the floor of the car--
my petals eat metal and bone--
i call my vagina a larkspur and a 
car door and a jar full of raspberry jam--
call her a window and a martyr and 
an unbuckled seat belt waiting for a red light--
this seat belt was to keep you from
taking me back inside where
i can't take my whole body into 
the bruise of a violet grasp--
we tore through the floor of the car
to make ourselves a body here
painted on the 
yellow stripes of a road only leading
towards milk and honey--
i became a sculpture
from my thumbs-- 
call my body citrus and throw 
the skin out the window-- 
it wasn't boys who unpeeled me like
a tangerine-- it was a
backseat stained in cigarettes 
and my own blood
turned sweet as milk
and honey. 

In search of my grandfather's fossils;
our ashes in an hourglass
and these bodies were only ferns

have i told you yet how
i learn my body into the
shape of a fern leaf?
i had been in search 
of my grandfather's fossils--
all we had wondered what
more was left of him other 
than his ashes
all sideways and poised
like an hourglass of sand--
he never struck me as a man
who would have accepted being 
returned to dust--
he remains a box of fruit snacks on top of 
the fridge-- 
a fist of amethyst
to grind to sugar
--a walking stick
in the back of the coat closet--
the one with the metal rubbed smooth
from holding his hand
like the wife who we all know 
only ever existed to become a metaphor--
we still see her in the snow
that falls the color of her shoes--
we learn to simmer 
his name over our nightlights--
meet his face 
in the dismantled body of a chicken coop--
our grandfather has a habit 
humming in the carcass of our
house-- only i can never hear
what he says and i ask my father
if i'm supposed to listen
but he responds by tipping
over another hourglass--
plays a bar chord on a hand
full of rusted guitar strings
and names another song after us--
i woke up my brother
and i from our bunks beds--
told him we were going to 
dig tonight-- deep enough
to find him as a photograph--
dug with tablespoons past amythest
in the backyard where there
used to be the red chicken coop-- 
he doesn't believe me
but i promise discovery--
i promise to tip an hourglass
of our our own ashes 
into a tablespoon-- we won't be
be a memory of ash--
we take solidarity 
in shovels 
and light a fire to keep us company
from behind the television screen
in the living room--
dug past stuffed animal eyes--
the yellow wandering string 
of an unwoven sweater--these
threads tied us back down
to the soil--
down into the cistern--
past a pile of white nurses shoes--
measure blood in green pennies
stacked to remind
us that we all fell from
the pockets of a cold statue
marooned on Ellis island--
we uncovered eight pocket
watches all humming a different
time-- thirteen hours
to fill the morning--
and by the time the sun came up
all we had discovered was 
fern fossils
like the ones my father
and i stole from a creek
when i was six--
cracked layer after layer
of these past bodies through
fingers of leaves--
is this why i remember the rain forest?
i ask my father-- who surveys
the holes we cut
into the yard the night before--
he throws his guitar strings
into the dirt for another
child to untangle--
we press our hands to 
the memory of the leaves--
our fingers to the sinews 
and we realize all our
veins fold into the
leaf bodies
like finger prints-- 
and my father flips over the hour glass
again-- reminds us to turn out
the fire in the screen of
the TV before 
we return the silhouettes 
of our own bodies back to the fern fossils--
i ask my father which fossil
is my grandfather
he lies and says
as many as you can hold in your hands
and as many as we can bury

we were told that the doves don't
know how to stampeded--

we opened a window last night--
swallowed a sack full of feathers
and watched god light the birds
on fire with the shriek of morning--
empty your pillows out the window with
me-- this is our chance to rid
our bodies of all remnants of sleep--
did i tell you i have always 
wanted to be kissed in the 
flush of another blizzard--
how do we know it's winter
when it refuses to be cold--
all we feel is the heat of the 
burning of another flock of birds--
artificial sun that turned my
windows white--
the best way to fall in love
is sealed inside the hem
of a snow storm-- 
i'm thinking about pulling my
brother
on a sled and stepping out into
a field as an astronaut--
this was a crater ice cream
scooped from the surface of the moon--
i told him we would get home
and take off our wet boots--
i promised we'd keep our toes
if only we kept walking--
our world was a sled--
we opened the window last night 
in the vague hope of holding
onto our teeth like
match sticks-- i strike
a fire from your tongue--
light the feather on fire 
to melt the ice off our toes--
god left us flowers on the porch
to remind us he made snow storms
to make people fall in love--
i'm setting them on the end table
by our bed piled high with downy--
there's something about blankness 
that conjures up a feeling
of want in all of us--
want of a porch
a window
a ledge
a solitary match stick 
a stampede of doves hurling
themselves into the earth
in an attempt to become comets
become craters--
become my brother seated in
a blue plastic sled--
what do you know about
your own toes?
there is a sort of fear that accompanies
a snow storm that is different
than the dark end of a hallway--
it is the eternal fear of 
being swallowed up alone--
becoming blank-- becoming
another dove suicide to cover
up everything that once held color
or flecks of sun--
hold onto me and eat a fist of feathers--
do you feel yourself becoming softer?
kiss me cold and 
i'll save the flowers for you--
paint ourselves against the 
backdrop of dove bodies 
in the window and the yard
and all over the roof top--
i'm asking you pull me on a sled sometimes
and sometimes i'll be as cold 
as wet shoes
and sometimes i'll hold you like
a blue plastic sled--
step out on this moon with me--
i'm waiting with flowers 
on the porch-- 

Tell me where you hide your seal skin;
what you said to me in the black net and 
wrapping these bodies in nori 

i've been trying to find where
you keep your seal skin--
it's not
behind the scarves in the closet
or beneath the doormat like
the house key--
i want you to know
you can stop hiding from me 
i want to go back
to the ocean too--
we're only putting off the inevitable
pretending to be humans--
drinking glass after glass
of viscus air--
we are people who swim even as thin 
as breath but i know
that we can't wait forever--
sometimes 
i have seen you hold
your hands too long under
a warm faucet
you're imagining
that we're under a waterfall
only this time i'm a river
dolphin and you're the hooks--
i have known 
you in all the lives of the sea-- 
shimmer skin--
jostled 
in a vein of tuna--
a throbbing kelp forest-- 
flicker in the tangled arms of
sand roses--
was it you who died next
to me in the black knots of a net--
called me sister-- called me 
cephalopod-- told me
you wished to be born again as
a giant squid so you could swallow ships
and make the waves--
instead we were born 
alien to the air-- a whole body 
engulfed with thirst--
lay here with me
packaged in dry skin
like nori-- hold me
in soft sticky rice-- 
did they make our tails into sushi
so we could have these unsteady legs?  
these days i see
the jellyfish bloom in medusas 
when we flip pancakes-- 
i mistake the windows
for another tank-- punch a whole
in the hopes of a rush of water--
another wait to be dressed in wasabi
i'm telling you
we were chop stick muses--
swam into soy sauce--
now darling where do you keep 
your seal skin? 
i can't have you leaving without me--
devoured by the drain in the shower--
take the house key with you if you
go-- i don't want to remember
sleeping again in rice--
it reminds me too much of a black net
of a door bell--
kiss me like a the medusas of the jellyfish--
a bouquet of bioluminescence--
sweet scales of ginger-- 
now tell me where you keep your seal skin?
i'm coming with you and find
a sea rose to put in your hair--
we'll make offerings for the giant
squid-- and he'll teach us 
how to make a wave-- hold 
us tight as sticky rice--
use your skin as a doormat. 

When i say i want to haunt you 
i don't mean like a shadow;
joining the hallways and 
the possession of an oven door

when i say i want to haunt you
i mean it only because 
i'm falling in love with you--
i promise not scare you
too often from around the curve
of a corridor or
from behind the closet door--
i'll refrain from
becoming the seeping 
silhouette of another maple tree vein
in through your windowsill--
at night i'm just another ghost
in this house with 
glass windows to eat the moon--
hold my hand as a shadow--
i don't know if you're one for 
a lightning storm 
but i want 
to watch the sky crack into 
pieces with you-- watch 
the clouds gnaw holes 
in the night sky with their 
teeth--
this is what i meant when i say
i want to haunt you--
i mean if i were to fall out
a window i would like
to bind my body to this ground
rather than risk a gate--
i think of you like a door frame--
like a loose door knob
dropped on the carpet--
i'm a girl-body of lost keys
so if i walk this hallway enough
times maybe the floor boards 
will change it into a staircase
for us--
the wood bones moan while the 
house takes a breath--
i've been a body for staying
with that is safe-- and
i know these other ghosts from
the foot of my old bunk bed--
clap three times to wake you
up at midnight to remind you
to forget another key 
in the well of a pillowcase--
this is how we get lost from our
bodies--
out a window-- in staircase
-- burned into a radiator--
when i was 10 i was afraid of the
staircase from the kitchen
to the sun room 
because it didn't used to have windows--
it was a perfect place to frame a portrait--
let the gravity weigh your body 
in floor boards--
my parents told my brother and i
someone had taken their life there--
let the kitchen pull
their body 
down
down
into the open mouth 
of a cold oven-- 
aren't we all afraid of hallways? 
but it was me who fell out the window--
i want to haunt you so you
don't use hallways alone-- 
i'll keep the trees from
letting their arms turn into snakes--
the old woman who owned the 
house before us
wakes up at 2:45 am to 
make cookies with me-- she
always forgets the sugar--
so i steal some 
from under the radiator--
possess the living room with 
the smell of a vague holiday
or blushed chocolate chips--
this is how i haunt
your counter top with cookies-- 
the open and close of an
oven door like a picture book--
i'm leaving you strawberry 
shortcakes in
the cupboard when you least expect
it-- and sometimes when you
leave
i'll get lonely 
and throw brownies 
out the window-- water 
your plant from the windowsill--
i tell the old woman
who died in the living room
to stop trying to start conversations
with you over breakfast--
i tell her that sometimes
it's impolite 
to converse with the living--
i'm different because
i don't haunt you like
a shadow--
i haunt you like an oven door
a windowsill--
the sound of the house cracking
her back at night
when the moon is hungry again--
i'm here waiting in the back
of the closet 
under some sweaters and 
orphaned socks
holding another plate of meringues--
oh you won't be alone down
a hallway-- hold hands with the 
shadows
it's only me. 

did you expect to win me 
like a carnival goldfish?

we do our best with ping pong balls
and i was your first lover
in a fist of water--
laugh at the stream--
i'm lost between the kaleidoscope
and 
the carnival--
dropped in through
the water-- i swim with
a jazz laden menagerie
of stars with broken radiance
-- a mouth
of soft pretzels and mustard--
i'm left awake from 
the pop-rock electric shock 
of another sunset in june--
we were young enough to name
each other--
what will
we make of this world together
now that everything is so dry
and we've shared in the ritual of
cheese fries--
carry me in a plastic bag
and name me with the prayer of
a ticket stub destined
to become another gold fish body-- 
tell me again the story of
how you won me that night
with a ping pong ball--
what was i to you and where
have we ended up now?
how did you introduce me to your
mother and did she love me
like you did?
i learned to walk with the
legs you assigned me that night--
a medusa of funnel cake smudged
on the walls of my zip lock
skin-- 
i had requested to be
let loose in the stream
behind the playground--
back where the carnival couldn't
wash my in light--
where the older kids carved their initials 
on the park benches--
the head of a match stick--
the smoldering comet of a cigarette--
the polychromatic kind of
sex that feels like drowning
in a fist of water--
drown with me and we'll sell
my scales as ticket stubs-- 
remove the sun from the gold
and call me a silverfish--
call me a soft pretzel mouth
or the knotted brain of 
funnel cake-- powdered sugar
to remind us to be lighter than
the outside air--
this is an exchange for staying
up past bedtime--
do you think i will learn to swim
up stream or do you think this
was only you and me and the ping
pong balls--
sometimes i like to think that you chose
me from all the others--
i like to think that you meant 
for us to live
together
from either side of a plastic bag--
i know we've come here 
so that i can go back to the stream
and next year you can carve your name with 
a match stick--
garish your legs around a lamp post--
tell me again how you won
me-- i'm peeling off each scale one
by one until i turn back into
a flick of your wrist--
the splash in a bowl-- 
i'll eat the neon for dinner--
shiver like another sunset
thrown carelessly that the feet of
june. 

Let's haunt each other like lighthouses 
in the winter-- read our mosquito-bite 
hieroglyphs by flash light 

what did you take with you
the last time we climbed the lighthouse?
i carried a chunky camera--
the type that reminds you that
you're a thief of faces-- a terrarium 
of a skyline-- and it we me
who said that the whole island looks
like muscles and bruises 
from the top--
lean me over a railing again
and tell me love is the 
space between you and the ground-- 
it was only you and me and the
sun who paints bodies in the 
empty corridors of August
and we said that surely someone
must live in the lighthouse 
all summer to keep the fire
in the top from burning down the sky--
we slept on the stair case--
laughed at the funny faces of the
moon trying to wrap the night
around her like a blanket--
laying there you read my mosquito 
bites like braille-- said that
the insects were drinking
blood for the sake of poetry--
plucked the couplets from my back
and said we made a language 
from all the places we lost blood--
and i told you that your bites
were more like hieroglyphs--
i knew they were a language just
out of reach like a body
in August-- 
how far up did you think
we would climb? there's not enough
stairs to escape a summer
and i always knew i would wake 
up some morning with the light
quiet and downstairs 
seeping with cold-- 
i re-lit the fire in the brain
of the lighthouse in the
vague hope that it would warm
us back into the haphazard knees
of June--
but the front door was
open and so were the bug
bites
on the backs of my thighs--
i wrote down their alphabet to
try to figure out if the insects
knew where you had gone away to--
at light when the moon
swallow gulps of heavy October,
and November and December 
and January-- sweet bruised
clementine the season had
become--
i still slept on the staircase
so you'd trip on me when you came home
and tried to look
at the fire without me--
when a storm comes i pretend 
it's thunder
and i see you when the island 
stretches the sinews in her shoulders
when she wakes up too early in 
March--
i measure the distance from the top 
to the ground in the hoping that
the mosquitoes will come back 
with another prophesy to 
embroider into the space
at the base of my neck--
i want to know how i let myself
become so haunt by a lighthouse
and what is even left of you 
here-- i burn the tips of my
hair in the beacon as a sort 
of offering
but even when summer comes 
back the bodies only remind me
of everything you said about 
the blood of a poet--
i wonder if you still
laugh at the moon when she
tries to cover herself--
i wonder if you see my bruises 
in patches of a oyster clusters--
i wonder if you count
the beacon as a star-- 
what is left of the words the
mosquitoes left for you on
thighs?  

We swam with my father in a can of soup,
conjured bagels into diner stools, and
flew away on a napkin ring--

my mom made our family inside a crock pot--
lifted a lid to set clouds free in 
the kitchen-- 
my father was her serving spoon--
a bowl on the counter after school--
he didn't cook--
at best he could navigate a defrost button
or conjure bagels from a toaster
to dress in a block of cream cheese--
when i was sick home from school
with him we built a day in cans of soup--
a sharp metropolis and the metallic
snap of another lid--
here we entered the
orbit of Italian wedding pearls-
meat ball irises blinked us
into a front door-- and oyster cracker--
becamse gold fish crackers together to cross
another chasm of broth strewn with
endive and escarole--
and some night when my mother didn't 
leave instructions for dinner 
my father was left to pure improvisation
he became the steering wheel chief 
of an empty crock pot-
the summons of Mamma's Delight pizza
waiting on the door step--
a tower of pepperoni breathing
cheese into another February--
but my brother and i's favorite meal
our father made was 
spun on a diner stool--
we learned flight out a window again
and again-- the lift of tiny airplanes--
today the hanger at the Airport Diner 
lays hallow--a gaping mouth
relic of a hive of bi-planes--
the diner overlooked a working runway--
the three of us would take a booth
seat to observe the bustle of the
planes as the ran into the sky--
my father folded paper napkin
rings into planes to coast across 
the table at us while
we were watching a propeller 
grapple with a cloud--
we took our utensils and 
pinned club sandwiches in our pockets
with tooth picks to
board the papers airplanes on
a trip across a black and white milkshake--
and my father told the story again 
about driving to Canada and
seeing the stars how they're supposed to
be-- made a promise to take
us someday and both my brother and 
i imagined travel by means of 
paper planes-- 
my father had flew in the yellow
biplanes-- touched down in a
bowl of Italian wedding soup
only to fish us out of the lumps of kale
and spinach-- i clung to a meat ball--
we came back to earth sometimes 
in the form of the rounded side of
a bagel becoming a diner stool--
a clear glass filled with orange 
juice and a tiny box
of cereal for my brother to 
eat with his hands--
if nothing else my father's cooking
taught me to swim in a bowl 
of condensed soup-- paddle 
with a spoon-- trust 
your existence on the arch
of a paper plane across a table--
we were black and white milkshake
straws and the vibrant frills 
on the heads of tooth picks--