This is how you love me
three mint chocolate chip scoops tall--
don't forget my brother's birthday

Age is a thing measured
by ice cream flavors and 
our finger smudges
on the glass case at the 
Premise Maid Creamery. 
My brother and I believed
in ice cream cauldrons--
Believed in cones for birthdays--
Imagined white back rooms with wooden
spoons-- They needed 
step ladders for 
the elves who mashed tasty-cakes
with their hands long after
midnight-- shaking the
walls with bells and candied
pecans-- grew rainbow sprinkles
from tiny clay pots like the other
herbs- spearmint and sage
each scoop shimmered with 
crumpled fairy finger nails 
and gold shaved from goose
eggs. The ice cream was guarded by 
the dark eyebrows of nut crackers--
Marched back and forth behind the
counter to protect the clerks
in paper crowns-- The nut crackers were
the only ones who knew the recipes
by heart-- kept instructions 
painted beneath their uniforms--
They took snack breaks
and fed waffle cones to the geese
It was my brother's birthday so 
we held candles above our ice cream cones--
wiped icing from our noses--
what about the flavors? and
will you read them to me?
Everyone who has ever truly loved
me has read me lists of ice cream flavors--
Down every label until something
caught me-- strike me cinnamon bun
and kiss me cherry garcia--
I always found my way back 
to mint chocolate chip--
I used to believe it tasted like
places I'd never been but that I wanted
to go-- like winter windows and comfort 
in the knowledge of Santa Claus--
knowing he was keeping track of everything
with a quill pen and a parchment scroll--
gun-fire spritz cookies and the 
gingerbread house the aunts sent
us to live in until we peeled
it gum-drop bare and royal icing wrinkles--
crunched down walls as a family of
Allosaurus after New Years--
You ask me how old I was and I'll
tell you I was Georgia peach--
I was Peanut butter tin roof sundae--
part of me is still mint 
chocolate chip your little girl-body
stacked three scoops tall--
and I hadn't known my ribs  
would stop me from scooping
December from a ice cream cauldron--
There is no fat in fairy finger nails
I can't measure my age in ice cream anymore--
it's meant for the winter windows 
and tongues that recognize
the consistency of gold goose eggs--
It's still my brother's birthday-- 
Do you believe only fathers 
understand a banana split?--
because mine father sure did--
and I could never learn to
stack myself outside of a waffle cone--
We waited for the
Toll toll toll of the chocolate clock--
cracked by the teeth of another
two-year-old girl learning what
December tastes like-- learning
how to spell her name on the labels
of the freezer case-- plucking
sprinkles from the herb pots--
I would mark my height in three
scopes of mint chocolate chip
ice cream-- my brother would
eat birthday cake from a cone--
and the nut crackers would take 
their snack break to steal ruby cherries from
our father's banana splits--
Yes everyone who has ever loved
me has known my name in ice cream--
what will you call me? Wait.
Let me read you the labels--
I'll start with cherry garcia
and tell me to stop when
I get to you--

Pulled apart by my cotton candy hair--
boy love mistook me for a funnel cake. 

What is love without fried
dough and powdered sugar?-- You
said you wanted me sticky and
warm-- the cocooned paper plate
girl-- because that's 
the best way to eat us--
shocked and naked from 
the oil-- shiver and  
drip from grease-- 
Our blood congealing to
form strawberries and whipped cream--
eat me with your hands like
a man damn it-- this is no
body for a fork-- 
It was only a matter of time
before you started pulling
out my pink hair in hunks
of cotton candy--  shake your
love for me like fire works--
For you I can sleet in gold 
willow trees and crack geodes 
on the horizon line--
kiss me carnival sunset boy
--click rock candy teeth
pushed up against the calves 
of a Maple tree who was also 
one of our mothers--
He was determined to teach
our bodies to emulate fireworks--
make love like a Ferris wheel--
stop at the top and trace circles
with our fat-fried words--
wash away powdered 
sugar left on our underwear--
You thought love was about
using your hands-- about
paper plates and how much of my
hair you could stomach--
You thought you would keep
me on the Ferris wheel--
live in the broken headlights 
of fire works-- carve our
names in the calves of the Maple tree
for our address--
My mother taught me
that we should fold
our bodies into pretzels if 
we were going to be eaten--
I told you not to
fry my love-- they teach
us girl bodies about baking
so we know what to do
when the rock candy boys are done
and we can't be these firework
mirrors forever--
we bundle in loaves and 
soft pretzel girl-love--
contort these elbows into angles
--untie knots left in my knees--
twist into braids for
the hair I don't have left--
I know to rub salt in my match-stick
burns-- this pain
is for becoming naked bread--
Full-- and sliced and butter crown so
you wouldn't be tempted 
to call me sweetie
Bake myself slow and rise tall
gold palm tree-- shattered 
lilac and orchard neck
glass cotton candy hair--
I grew these thighs like
pretzels just to prove to you
that love isn't in your 
funnel cake tendrils-- I 
wasn't your pink cotton candy dream--
this hair was mine to eat--
I'm pretzel twist and salt kiss--
this wasn't meant for sunset boys--
you were to much a type of
like a Ferris wheel--
around and around and 
cracked sky-- and powdered 
sugar still on pretzels--
I still try to be sweet
even though I'm not trying
to work in fire or funnel cake
for you-- I sit on Ferris wheels
alone unlearning boy love--
baking pretzels--
stone throw fat thighed loaves-- 

Our clementine body climbed Mount Everest 
to remember what being loved was like.

Base camp
I wrote your name
on first page of my leather journal--
the one my father read me 
bed time stories from. He told
my brother and I
 about time travel--
about alien abduction 
and filling dresser drawers
with painted turtles-- sometimes
I would blink and watch the
walls of my room fall away like 
the peel of a clementine.
He boiled clementine peels
when he was done cleaning the kitchen
and the walls would
peel away into a home--

1.
My guide told me I was too
thin-- told me to wait a year
a month a week even-- learn
to eat mashed potatoes and 
pour gravy in pirouettes--
build volcanoes like a god--
 He offered me
a skewer of goat around the
heat lamp that night--
I told him I don't eat meat
and he laughed and told
me that we all eat meat--
the the mountain eats me
and that the mountain eats
names--
I didn't believe him because
we hadn't spoken enough 
mountain yet-- not enough
breath-- not enough knees 
not enough arguments with
God and our fathers
who we meet at the door step--

2.
There were two others. A couple--
kissed cold off each other's wrists--
and when I asked their name 
they told me "Us" and I told
them to call me "Air"
because I wanted to feel needed.
Instead they called me "I"
and I know that's what I am--
Us broke their granola bars in two
pieces-- they ate goat skewers
and left their notebooks at base
camp--

3.
Departing each camp felt like
peeling my memory slow--
careful abandonment of the peel
the smell of Christmas eve
and Easter and funeral brunches--
my fingers were sticky and 
we all called my nickname--
Air, air, air, air
I never asked the guide's name.
Air, air, air, air
And sometimes I thought again
about my bed room windows
and dressers full of painted
turtles and if there was someone
to catch my memory as I stripped--
walked naked minded into 
the white blank face of God--

4.
This is where we leave everything.
this is where we have no skin
or white veins to call ourselves
a clementine--
I remember feeling hungry
again even though we had just eaten
or had we just eaten? Had we
eaten rocks or the legs of the
goat or what was left of the 
Air, air, air, air
Us never walked single file
and the guide hummed 
prayers to the starved lips
of the rocks-- the carnivorous 
cold that yearned for 
Air, air, air, air
Where had I written your name?
Was it my name all along or
the name of my father?
Or the name of the mountain 
tricking me into some conquest
of love-- had we love top 
bring to the face of a God
who looked at the bare minds
of a his tiny frozen
meat-eating people-- where
we people if no one
knew out names--
what was us without a half
and the guide hummed
and it was me and him
at camp 4-- which is another name
for purgatory-- 
My journal is useless if
I don't have words left
in my mouth-- the mountain ate 
them along with Us--

Summit
We read bed time stories and my father
narrated each of my foot steps--
This was the first time since
base camp I could picture anything
about you-- it was kissing 
and kissing stones from
my forehead-- and me
kissing you like notebook 
paper-- kissing your name into
heaven who mocked me so 
close with the absence of 
Air, air, air, air
 you held me finally like
a painted turtle-- stripped 
me citrus and Christmas 
and we ate goat meat in skewers--
I don't remember breathing but
I remember being alive somehow--
And there was just me and you
and whatever is left
after your memory is eaten
by the air-- I saw it all
-- smelled your arms 
and the living room and the view
out the bed room windows--
and my father narrated us kissing 
and was it your name or mine?--
Oh! Who gave me hands to write
or lips that eat meat on 
the mountain top--
there was nothing left to 
call because your name
had only been an echo or
maybe a bed time story I repeated
enough to make true-- 
Oh! What does my love call themselves?
Call me-- call me
Air, air, air, air
and pull me peel back each memory
until our skin itself
feels nameless-- 

Smile like a tulip you
black hole girl-- I'm guilty of 
Instantaneous Combustion

I'm not going to lie
and tell you that I go
back together like
the pieces of broken plates
my family has sacrificed 
on the red-speckled kitchen floor--
the plates with the blue and yellow
flowers-- those flowers somehow always
so God damn happy--
Don't tell me to smile-- I'm not
your tulip or your Distelfink--
your pink bubble kiss--
I'm not your back seat--
wear the blue gum balls like pearls
and maybe you'll know what it's like 
for planets to fall into themselves--
You think of girl bodies like
black holes but what do you
know about escaping me--
Oh, boy-- I wish I broke like a plate
because we have duck tape for
that-- No--  
I'm not your
metaphor-- your manic pixie
dream girl-body in boy jeans--
You don't take tourism to
the mouth of a black hole--
this is where you learn 
about burning about destruction
and rebuilding yourself--
You aren't allowed to break
that easy like a smile flower dinner plate--
I don't break I burn-- I ignite-- I blaze
I radiate and eat light-- 
If you love me you 
learn to carry buckets of water--
I don't break and I have
never broken-- and don't
ask me about stained glass--
I'm not a halo-- not a Saint Mary
-- this is where the sun sends
her daughter to sleep--
I can't guarantee you won't burn
with me but boy it'll be
real quiet without the distelfinks
testing their voices--
I burned the sheets between
us last night again-- I know
loving me isn't a choice anymore
and the buckets of water are for
you not me-- I don't want a boy
who carries duck tape and tries
to put the pieces of my 
manic-pixie boy jean body 
back together-- I break
 plates on purpose to stop
myself from leaving this spacetime--
I want a boy-girl who knows how 
to stay out past my event horizon--
put out 
the fires in our sheets-- 
I want love to teach you him/her/them
to worship this reconstruction--
this isn't a phoenix this is 
me seducing space time for
my own bed sheets--
Boys always say they want a girl
on fire-- girls always say they 
want a body who can eat a galaxy
and lovers I can do both at the same time--
gender never named me anything
but super-massive and self combustion--
If you want to love me you 
have to break a dinner plate on the
kitchen floor and say
Fuck you flowers for being so
God damn happy! Don't you
tell us to smile-- we eat sunlight 
we shatter tulips
and silence distelfinks. 

Anorexic turkey-girls
and giving thanks for the
genocide of cranberries.

You don't want me for a turkey-girl-body--
my sad sinews knit me thin
-- white-meat waistline--
--and pocket-knife breasts.
This flesh is just another scar--
dark licorice and tar
and drum drum drum in my thighs--
come and tie my legs up behind my head
in Dhanurasana-- I philosphize here
in foil-- swallowed by the
oven mitts and the casserole dish --
Don't ask what 
I'll be eating this year 
I'm the body--pluck me clean-- 
I'll be a turkey-girl-boy--
the roast-- the sacrifice-- the plumage
Share me and carve me out
in slices-- keep the bones
in a bowl for soup.
This year I won't have to eat myself
because when I do I leave nothing
but wishbones
for siblings to choke on--
drum me on the kitchen 
walls and the inside of the oven--
pound prayer rhythm on our table 
and up the stairs from
the basement-- I'll marinade
in the ashes of my grandfather
who drinks Irish whiskey
at the breakfast bar--
This is hiding behind
my roasted skin. This is unearthing 
the mass-gave we hide in the trays
of stuffing. This is cranberry
bubble blood and the cuts 
on my arms from can lids--
This is Thanksgiving for girl-bodies
of wishbone and memory-tongues--
My thighs reminisce in pumpkin pie--
wear whipped cream on my forehead
like ash Wednesday
and you sprout brussel babies from
beneath me in the oven.
The chairs recall 
that we were unmarked graves in the
stuffing-- sleep between the femurs of
grandmothers and mason jars
of watery blue berry jam-- 
We woke up all together-- clamored
free of the soil to see cousin Macy
and march-- you
asked me if I could march anymore
or if my wishbones were too thin
for November--
pinched me shut like pirogues
and peas and tupperware--
you all ate roasted
chestnuts on a street corner
or the sofa--
got fat off bells and buttermilk
rolls-- billow above me
and my oven-- this is
hiding-- this is seeing
the moon in empty plates--
this is giving thanks for wishbones 
and ovens and my blood becoming 
cranberry marbles 
in the pan-- orange peel
and simmer and sugary genocide--
this is hiding and new moons
and the clatter of silverware
when you bang my drum stick
legs on the table-- this is 
breaking the fine china-- this
is where we buried our 
mothers-- this is my white-flesh--
what's left of my dark meat--
make me turkey-girl-boy-body 
and this year I can fill
my plate with my own bones--
fill in the spaces by bleeding cranberry
and waving to my family 
floating like blue berry jam
and buttermilk rolls. 
Keep my bones in a bowl
for wishes and soup.

We aren't vegetarians on Thanksgiving.

I am a vegetarian 364 days
a year or so but we all fall
victim to one day around
a table. I don't talk about
feminism here-- and 
dead names walk like
ghosts in salad bowls-- I turn
back into HER
-- wrap
the apron around my waist
and convert to puritanism
where we all came from-- no
this isn't about breaking bread--
This is about white men and
the Indian burial grounds--
this is about the ghosts we conjured
here-- no there is no SPIRIT ANIMAL
for puritans who shucked 
a coast of their own bodies
to build corn fields-- 
we wash our faces in 1952 and apple
pie-- fill ourselves 
with helium and call upon our ancestors
to march with us for cousin Macy
while people Stand like Rocks
on the land we bake into 
stuffing-- this table is Iroquois
casserole-- bake Sioux--
Cherokee grape leaves-- mashed
Navajo and a pie crust for
the Powhatan and Pequot to die
on the same land-- this table was built
by cannibals-- this table
tastes like small pox and Tippecanoe
and a ghost dance to remember
something about all the bones
this land has eaten-- I don't 
eat turkey-- I eat drum sticks
of a people whose whose hearts
we canned in cranberry sauce
and thumb-printed into ovens--
Standing Rock I'm sitting here
with a plate full of stuffing--
a family high on helium to look
down on the city of lights--
Standing Rock I am a coward and 
I might get to call myself a queer
feminist but Thanksgiving I am
a successful puritan-- and the day 
after that and the day after that--
I'm sitting at tables while the Rocks
themselves are Standing-- 
When I was in third grade
I named myself "Blue Feather"
and made a tepee in the backyard
where my brother and I hunted buffalo--
if only they had told me about winter--
about what the word "hungry" meant
in the mouths of trees--
about fences and the last buffalo 
on a white man's kitchen table--
heads of Lenni Lenape over mantles--
I had wanted to be part of a tradition 
that didn't involve cannibalism--
but no-- my mothers didn't grow corn--
we grew small pox and beer bottles to 
shove down throats-- force the trees
to drink because at least drunken 
ghosts are worse at haunting us--
I don't eat turkey but I'm eating 
Americans-- and I'm sitting at a table
while Rocks are Standing--
My people walk Christmas over corpses--
I'm sitting violently quiet--
and the tear gas doesn't work
on a people who've already walked
a trail of tears just to pray for
water-- I'm sitting while
there's a Standing war zone--
there's corn fields on fire
and at least we have our pumpkin pie
and our children in head dresses 
and our children who build
tepees in the backyard-- maybe
we should throw concussion grenades 
in the sandbox so they know
what white people do to Native Americans--
And all the words of queer feminist 
means nothing to stop a rubber bullet--
And there's no wound an apology has
ever healed-- I'm not a vegetarian--
call me puritan-- call me Thanksgiving table--
don't march with me-- lets drink
helium into the sun-- I want to Stand like
a Rock with you but I'm fed apologies of
helium-- white-turkey breast--
field churned with stuffing
drum drum drum stick the beat of 
all the hurt this skin has done 
and we blood sealed jars of cranberry sauce-- 
and we bake pumpkin pies
and we mashed
ghost dance-- baked
the Rocks-- Stood like pilgrims 
around a table where
I dare not claim to be vegetarian-- 

To those
who ask where anorexic 
girl-bodies come from-

Six years from now when
you find yourself in love with 
me again--it will be
easy to find me--
you can start by
sowing yourself into the 
hem of the dusk. Take
out your paint rollers
and dip them in the bruises
on our forearms-- soak up the tar 
night left smooched around
our eyes.
Pluck out
your irises and replace
them with dried watermelon
seeds or freckles of a full bellied-
moon-- if you're lucky enough
to catch one impersonating
the sun--
Yes. 
You know where
I walk when I want
to leave my body-- we can meet
half-way across the 
soy beans field that was
once a corn field and was
was once my bare arms
shaven in a kitchen sink
full of full-bellied 
watermelon rinds-- bite
me down to the honeydew 
green grin--
I'll be here
in the field where the foxes
write me love letters with
their feet-- the field that
was both your mother and my
mother and somehow our sister
and the curled toes of a pie
in the oven back at home
Our home-- your home--
the foxes home dug
out of the moon--
-- Yes you
can meet me there-- only on
my terms. Bring your paint
rollers-- we're sealing 
the sunset behind us
and becoming a skirt--
don't be afraid to unfurl--
You can be a woman here--
It's okay-- I'm not one either--
and I'm queer as the fox feet
but I still fall in love 
with boys-- scared of
paint rollers and using
the corn field for sex--
I think boys are scared of 
being dirty and
I think it's funny how a species
can know so little
about soil and claim to know
so much about kissing--
yes my love is the kind
of love that bruises you--
smooches you black under your 
eyelids-- my love 
haunts sunsets and 
speaks in watermelon rinds
and spits the seeds 
in the Lima bean field-- 
I'll say
     Did I ever tell you where
     anorexic girl bodies come from
And maybe you'll try 
to find where my legs
become roots-- 
And maybe you'll ask
if I'm queer because 
I've spent the last
few years learning all
the different ways
a boy can bruise you--
just to come back to 
the field and re-plant myself
each time
I'll say
     Did you ever walk across
     the Lima bean field
     Did you ever eat soil
     Did you ever carve out
     your full belly and lay
     shaven in the sink???
I'll teach you how to kiss--
and I can't promise it won't be
dirty but I can promise you
will curl like the toes of a pie--
take out your irises-- see with 
your skirt hem-- no see
with the watermelon seeds
no see with the hollow of a
tilled field and 
that is where we grow
anorexicgirl-bodylove
so bold there was no food
left to feed it to help 
it grow fuller-- I paint with
bruises and boys are terrified--
this love is going to 
dress us in skirts-- walk us
across smooth skin in the sink--
Meet me on my own terms
and I'll teach you what
kind of love I can eat 
with all these bone empty 
rooms-- I have
spaces for you to sleep in--
spaces to grow Lima beans--
spaces to kiss--
spaces for listening to
the crust and curl of your flesh--
if you want to unfurl tonight.
Sow the hem of your skirt--
Roll into the soil--
It's just me and foxes
and whatever sunset we decide
to paint. 

 

How to love 
bad luck girl bodies and
why we break mirrors.

1. 
My lovers keep dust pans 
in their backpacks. 
They have deep pockets. 
to stuff extra mittens. 
They know
I punch mirrors sometimes
and they never let me pick
up the pieces of bad luck 
all alone-- pull the purple
and blue glass
from my knuckles and laugh
at all the confetti-mess
we make on the kitchen table--
They know I don't eat anything
other than sleet, poetry,
and my own ceiling--
call me rose thorn
call me pink rabbit's foot--

2.
Now we've got seven
years to figure ourselves out.
We can make stained glass
windows where there used
to be bathroom sinks--
take showers in the sleet
and wash our hair away
until we are left as a pile
of scabby leaves bunched by the
side of the road-- wet sleeping
bags and soggy smores--
you tell me you love 
bad lucky girl-bodies
and I say that I do too

3. 
Don't ask what
I mean when I say 
Umbrella 
Because for me it's likely
that the ceiling of the room
could begin to fall again 
and I'd need something
to catch the stars in
if I ran out of coffee mugs--
if the rain became stained
glass-- if we bled
and needed something to 
catch bad luck in--
Fuck me tonight under umbrellas 
and sleeping bags--
Peel off these leaves
so we can be naked--

4.
Learn that I only count
kissing if it happens under a ladder--
climb me to the ceiling 
and we can rain and we can
sleet and we can find some
way to wash the bad luck
out of all my cuts-- no
you didn't have to notice where
the roses grow on
my forearms-- I'm not dying
I have seven years left--

5.
If we fill the coffee mugs 
13 times we could empty
the room of all the purple mirror--
These stained glass windows
tint our skin to look like 
saints who fell in love
be accident--
I never meant to kiss
anything
other than a dove-- 
You were so quiet under the ladder
that I thought I might
just be kissing myself
in the mirror again before
     everything
     breaks
          and broke
I know you want to name me 
Judas-- but I don't hang myself--
and I don't deny him
   I speak louder than cock crows
      and leaves
I rain and umbrellas start to look a 
lot like halos and halos
look a lot like laying in leaves 
and that's where we sleep
when you forget that 
you're supposed to fill
silence with each other's lips

6.
It's funny how we cut
ourselves on confetti
and only we know
that the black cat has a name
and her eyes are made of
stained glass and she 
has the throat of a pile of leaves--
opens umbrellas in our
windows so no knows
how tightly I'm holding on
to you--
Don't leave me halo boy 
and dove feather-- 
I broke all the mirrors
so we could be alone--

7.
Did you notice the confetti 
turn into salt on
the kitchen table? The stained
glass windows followed
and the room tasted so much
like sleet
and like the ceiling
and like kissing you
when you couldn't remember
my name--
you asked if we were going
to eat today-- I told
you that you love a bad luck
girl body-- and that there
were still mirrors to pick up
and leaf scabs to
peel from my forearms-- 
I've started growing roses--
We can pretend to be saints
or at least apostles-- I have
always been a fisher of men--
not Judas men-- but men
who deny God three
times before the cock crows--
You ask me what it all has to do
with mirrors and I say
nothing 
and everything
I'm eating poetry-- I've never
kissed you under a ladder 
so give up and sleep
with me under these umbrellas--
we have seven years
and seven days in
a week to figure out 
what do with the roses
and what to do with the scars
and if you really
love me enough to fall from
the ceiling 
and shatter like a mirror
or leaves or like the salt of our
bodies we poured on the 
kitchen table.

Hunting for an evergreen, choking
on tinsel and
the ghosts of statues outside the window.

We all woke up earlier
than usual.
We felt winter ponderous our stomachs--
laden like statue thighs-- like
quiet cashews-- like chocolate box lids 
like stir-fried tinsel--
caught in our throats so that
all of our voices sounded like
cracked bells--
silver bells silver bells 
silver saw blades on the kitchen table--
The wind came with us to conspire
when we met around the 
the boney hearth of the radiator.
We spoke in murmurs and shooed
away the ghosts by lighting
the advent candles early-- 
In retaliation they rattled spoons on 
metal surfaces trying to drown
out our plans-- breathed
heavy and yanked the last leaves
off every maple tree--
They knew what the snap of winter was for.
They knew our melancholy task--
the infamous annual expedition
to hunt down an evergreen tree
to keep watch over the living room--
keep the ghosts of the naked
sculptures from crawling
in the windows at night for warmth--
we all knew it had to be done.
We all knew it was my father's job
to hold a saw blade.
The statues had already
given them warning--
rustled and whirred their
voices through the veins of 
the trees to tell the evergreens to
hide themselves-- cover
their breasts in dried leaves--
shave off their needles-- and 
pretend to be oaks or birch--
curl themselves into wreaths
and die slowly like the bees--
My father told me to wear 
two pairs of socks and 
my old ripped Chuck Taylors--
We were too nervous to sit
down for breakfast so we
stood at the counter and ate
while the statues ghosts
watched us out the window--
my father ladled
Cheerios with a soup
spoon-- cracked his diet
coke can like a geode on the counter--
slipped the yolk down his throat
and reported the taste of tinsel--
and told us we didn't have much
time-- 
Even the windows were sighing with
all the ghosts who wanted 
to put their stone feet on the radiator--
We check the frost for foot
prints.Cast more ghosts 
from our lungs to try to 
smell needles bleeding in
the rock-bitten air--
My father nodded and held high
the saw blade-- we had never
liked the saw blade
though we knew what we needed it for--
we needed it for tinsel-- for
family-- for radiators and 
to keep the naked statues out of the 
living room-- we needed it for
advent-- for blood-- for penance 
and Pentecostal fires where
we could talk quieter than the 
cashews or the chocolate box lids.
Evergreen are terrible at hiding--
we only needed to flow the odor
of their fearful sweat and the 
timid trail of needles she
had tried to wash down the drain--
no the evergreens can't wear enough
dead leaves to trick our family--
we are trained well in the hunt.
It has always been my job to corner
the creature-- her back up against the garage 
we begged my father
to let her go just once--
just this year and my father 
raised the saw and my father cut
and my father slit, slashed, gashed
and lacerated the evergreen free
of her own legs.
Everything is quiet after something
dies. The ghosts stopped their protest
and went back to sulking outside
our living room windows-- picked up
piles of leaves to cover their bare hips
and tried to warm their chests 
now open to the freshly
cracked winter--
in a low hum they sang about silver bells
silver bells silver bells
silver sticky-blood saw blades 
so that we could only feel 
apologies in our stomachs as cold as statue
throats or tinsel.
We helped our father drag
the evergreen by her severed thighs
into the house to keep watch
while winter played spoons
in the pipes of the house
and on the windows-- we washed
our hands in the frost-- and my
father said silver bells silver bells
silver bells 
and swept her leg hair down the drain. 

Dear brothers,
I became a vampire to avoid 
brunch buffets and photography.

No, I have nothing against
the sunlight-- 
in fact it's the thing
I miss most about
being human-- 
--other than you
of course--

I collect
rays from my window 
using the bouquet of
triangle prisms you left for me.
--Unfurl them to grow sunflowers
under a new moon. I pretend
I'm nothing but my brother's shadow
that he chases at recess-- fade in
between shrugging elm trees--
I wonder who will tell him
his sister resolved to 
become a vampire--

I tan this skin pale
by lunar sun dance and have no need
for mittens or coat pockets
-- I drink blood
of bird feeder blue jay and 
feed off innocent back porch
feral cats with paws of milk--
I collect pebbles to feel
less lonely-- because
their flesh is like my own--
no we're different now
and I don't want to be warm
plates or family portraits--

You tell me it was cowardly.
You tell me it was selfish suicide
to become a vampire
but I became this for 
both me and you--

You know I wasn't buffet
blooded like the rest of you
-- and what else would
that leave us with? Arrange me
on a plate and I'll be the edible 
flower--I'll be the fork and the spoon
if you'll be cilantro and 
planks of wheat toast-- let's scrape
jelly from our hair--
I never trusted the size of buffet plates 
and I don't believe in dessert tables--
they have always wanted to carve 
me in slices of a heat-lamp brisket--
take pictures of me in a Sunday dress
all freckle-punctured and napkin
on my lap like a trampoline
or a blue jay belly--
You know I love pancakes-- but
I'm scared of getting trapped
between the layers-- scared
of them scrambling me
into the comforters of egg
whites and saliva of the yolk--

No one wanted to watch my skin
thin out and drip drip drip
from my skeleton 
like blue jay birthday candles or
like butter bricks perishing in
a skillet--

I didn't want to be your picture--
a freckle prick or sunflower--
Didn't want to know what a camera iris
could see in a girl-body 
who had resolved to melt--
no, no you won't watch me in another 
picture-- but you can still
peel me from out between the elm trees--
chase your shadow and wait for it to 
turn around and become
your sister-- can you forgive me 
for the feral cats? For the blue jays?
For the hands and elbows 
I traded for moon rocks--

I miss you here but at least 
I have stones-- and blood
doesn't taste like anything without
a tongue so I hope you eat pancakes
for me-- hold edible flowers
and play with them in your hair
before you eat them-- 

I still see you in every sunflower
I grow from my prisms
I still see you walk on the haunting 
smell of bacon from the diner up the street 
I still come to watch you play at
recess and take pictures of you
to fill my buffet plates--

I eat moon now-- I eat
love and I eat your shadow-- 
No you won't find me in the old pictures
you have to pull
me out from beneath the pancakes
cut me thin slices from 
brisket-- 

Oh! Forgive your anorexic 
vampire sister-- I just
wanted to escape the buffets 
and the photographs-- come back
for me and we'll eat cilantro and
walk to each other across
silhouetted planks of toast.