texting with the trees

i message, "have you seen the news lately?"
the trees have not. most people don't know this
but their fruits are their eyes 
so trees can only see for a few months
of a year. their vision swells & then fades.
gone as their apples or their stinking ginko nuts
fall to the earth. the non-fruiting trees 
just do not see at all. sadly they don't
usually text back but today they do.
they say, "please please please please."
i wish i knew what they wanted.
whenever i can i try to leave offerings.
roasted squash & poems & sometimes even
a bird feeder to hang from their branches.
lately, they have been hungrier. nothing is enough.
their mouths like pits of spoons. 
i've brought them signed celebrity portraits 
& even a streaming service so they can hear
stories & fall asleep to a myth. 
i know that my friendship
is a little selfish. it is my hope
that one day they will braid me in.
teach me how to plant my feet & turn them
into roots. i have never lived anywhere long.
this is the first year in my adult life that
i have not moved at least once. i envy how
for trees their lives are a place. the details
they must know about the small creatures 
& the large ones. their conversations
between the sky & the soil. sending messages 
from lover to lover. i'm sure there are 
hard days too. days where i text them
& they just wish they could run away & 
not be so sewn into everyone & our wars
& our fires & the ways we eat each other. 
i have run away so much. burning driveways.
a city full of blinking fruit. the truth is
we are just like the trees. peaches in our hands
wandering along the side of the highway.
i tell the trees, "i am scared so much lately."
they reply, "the worms, the blue birds, &
even the tailless squirrel." 

waiting for cicadas 

i buy the cicadas barbie shoes & leave them
in the dirt. an offering. i am hoping when they come
that this time they will have an answer.
some kind of prophecy. "here is how
you save yourself" or, even better,
"here is how we will save you." the year before i left
my hometown they broke free. left their
shells like brooches all across the pine tree trunk.
some of them became pendants in the amber sap. 
i harvested as many as i could. put my ears
to their husks & heard them sing.
they told me, "get as far away as you can
from yourself." i bought wings on ebay.
half price. found the last living cicada.
he was putting on a suite & going to a wedding.
followed him & then kept going.
there is more than one edge of the world
but they all have cicadas. a brilliant metal chorus.
i got to forget enough to stay alive. i thanked them.
cut holes for them to pass through my ears. 
a little latent circus. i put on a show when i die. 
they are coming again this year & i want to know if 
they remember me. if they remember
how far away i got. will they be disappointed
that i came back? the soil thick. the sky heavy.
i like to hope not. after all, they are spirits of return.  
rosary bead creatures. held between thumb & forefinger.
i too have asked to be counted. to unzip 
from my skin & scream. when they come we will
put on the good costume jewelry. we will
curtsy to each other. bathe in the moon's
bronze bell ringing. chimes in the trees' fingers.
i will lean in close & ask, "what did 
you learn in the dirt?" 

apiary

i keep the swarm a secret until
you punch a hole in the wall 
& there they are. the hive, the body.
it started with a lost thumb.
i breathed onto it until it became
a queen. there, the workers came
with all their urgency. build & build.
the young like exclamation points
thrumming in their sleeves. you are furious
with me. the secret, the size of our house.
their song behind every wall. 
i don't know why i thought it could just
be a room. just one hive. just one queen.
you ask me, "what did you think
you would do with all of them?"
i admit to honey. to sugar but in my teeth
i know it was something more. i wanted
company. someone to talk to who would
listen. turn my stories into dances.
i do not want a television. i want a lover
& a new house. one without all the piles 
of nonsense & one without the flies 
& one without all these bees. i know i let
them in. i whisper to them about how nice
i hear it is in maine. maybe they could
take a road trip. maybe they could
make a new friend who is weak & lonely.
they do not catch the hint. instead, 
they grow. spill from the chimney
like smoke on a hunt for a flower's
blushing face. you weep. i tell you that
despite it all, the honey tastes so good.
i get a spoon. fill it with gold.
you shake your head. you say, "i want my
old face back." i don't know if you're
talking about mine or yours. 
i get you to eat & i take a spoonful too.
the bees applaud. you admit, "it is good."
i want to ask, "is it good enough?" but
i stay silent. let the bees' hum envelop us. 

terrible shepherd

i know i would end up on my phone
or something & a hawk would come
& steal my sheep for his own.
he would start a sweater business 
& i would have to see ads for
"perfect authentic wool sweaters."
the worst kind of jealousy 
comes from when the loss is your fault.
i look for a way out. hate the hawk.
hate my own eyes for wandering. 
flockless, i would start to gather ghosts.
shear them too. they would sigh 
to lose the weight of their lifetimes. 
i would try to knit catacombs 
or at least a bunk bed from all that matter. 
the mountain shrugging around us, 
the shoulders of an old man. 
at night i would sleep like a dog. curled up
in a nest of ghosts. i would cry for the sheep.
see them in my dreams. their hooves.
their soft voices. i would get up 
with the first tongue of the sun & go
searching for them. has anyone ever
come to save you? it is sometimes
an amazing feeling. to be remembered.
to be fought for. the sheep will be
forgiving creatures. they will not lie to me.
they will admit i am a terrible shepherd
but also that they love me. that we can walk
back down the dandelion crest 
& eat our skeleton's weight in gold. 
all my sheep walking with me, cut to the bone.
their bodies like windchimes. 
clouds descending on the earth
to grease us in fog. one big sheep.
what is left when it lifts, i do not know.

giant squid

i have had to take care of 
the giant squid for as long as i can remember.
fill the bucket with stars 
& carry it down the basement stairs,
sloshing all the way. i tasted them myself
only once. dipped my finger into
the cool & brilliant liquid. 
it vibrated with a pineapple loudness.
i tell no one about my creature.
sometimes, i see his eyes on the ceiling
of our bedroom
like peepholes into the void. 
i try not to look into them. it is too much
& i am too tired these days to see the universe.
every once in awhile i try to quit him.
try to see if maybe i just
stop bringing him food if maybe he will
find another disciple. it never works.
when he hungers, so do i.
i'll wake up weeping. search for the ladel
in the dark so that i can go & tend him.
i have apologized, saying, "please 
forgive me." he always does. 
never is a grudge-holding beast. instead,
he takes me back. wraps me in his 
enormous arms. shuts his eyes 
as i shut mine & we float in the wild dark
of the cellar. if anyone else found him
i don't think they would understand
why i do this. i think they would see
a sick girl with a ghost on her shoulders. 
i know the truth. we need each other.
once & only once he broke out.
it was the angry middle of summer.
daylight. our soft skin. i had 
to chase him through the brambles.
squid blood & spilled planets. 
i gathered him like a beach umbrella.
stroked his head & said,
"let me keep you. let me keep you."
he's done the same for me. plucked me
with his monstrous hands from
a parking lot at the world's edge.
he said, "i am your hunger. let us eat." 

loose moon

my dog's teeth are starting to come loose.
i tell her, "bite down." that is what i do.
no one else is allowed to get older. 
i find celebrity deaths upsetting even when
i don't know who the person was because they
come & go so fast. i'm like damn is 
that as long as we get? even if they put
our face in a worship caldron? 
the moon wiggles when i fuss with it.
you scold me, "leave it alone."
if i were a tree i'd be the first to spit out
my fingers in the fall. i buy some gorilla glue
& twine. get the step stool out
to go & try to help the moon. it covers
its face & whines. my uncle still has
all of his baby teeth. stalactites (& mites).
i always wondered what it would take
for the new ones to come in. is there
a new moon beneath the old? 
in some early legends of the moon 
people believed it grew like a fruit,
ripening just to be eaten over & over
bite by bite. i have a nail gun. i have a mirror.
i know i can get the moon to stay full 
of salmon & wings. a rainstorm is rolling in.
there are not enough hours to sleep.
i cut myself down the middle. send one half
to make sure the moon does not come loose
& the other to burrow in the ground.
i taste soil between my teeth.
a bruise the size of my father's fist
lives on the moon's cheek. i stroke its head.
feed it bread & butter pickles. i tell it,
"hold your breath" but not "exhale." 

debate team

we meet in the middle of the night
to try to argue with a new planet 
who just arrived. he is loud as a smacked drum.
won't stop calling everyone he sees,
"a flute master." we don't know
what that means but we assume
it's derogatory. when i am feeling really hopeless
& all my arguments lead back to a hole
in the dirt. i start tearing words apart like fruit leather.
i am too used to arguing about 
my body & my teeth & my blood. 
in this country we are all a christ figure
at some point whether we like it or not.
i would prefer to be a flock of geese bound
for a different place. the planet doesn't budge.
crouches down & pees in the dead leaves.
when i need to rest my dread i get all dreamy
& think about the other life forms
in other galaxies who will never know 
we existed. it is nice to get to feel
some relief from the pressure to find
the right words to prove you are,
just like all other cells, just trying to breathe.
the planet scrambles on & we are left with
a stinky yard & arguments made of glass.
from them, we construct mirrors.
i admit to a room full of strangers that
i am happier the less i look at myself.
this is what i have. a little ghost on a leash.
i tug the leash. tell him to heel. we finish
the dark by losing each other. shadows thick
as lentil soup. the smell of cumin. 
a cookie-cutter hole in the sky where
they have been saying the new planet will
get to live as a king. i do not sleep for weeks.

pink

the geese have started carrying guns
to protect against the threat 
of another war. i found a doll in my mailbox.
it did not have a head. i did not know
if it was a threat or a cry for help. 
my neighbors turn into piles of salt.
my father talks of retiring & the politicians
wear pink & call it a protest. 
i find pink everywhere i look. on the sidewalk
& in my mouth. even in the fresh sun death.
i find a scorpion in my shoe.
i ask my doctor, "where will i get hormones
if this all goes down." he nods 
a few moments & tells me, "i don't know."
sometimes i dream of a slightly larger house.
one without cracked windows 
& without mold that blooms frequently
across all the walls, making maps
of planets i will never reach. i try to find
pink to hold onto. the tongue of the turtle.
the back of my own throat. i work hard
to not turn into a pile of salt.
the rain comes & soaks the firewood. 
i turn on the television to see a commercial
for berry dr pepper. a fridge full of cans.
a man drinks & drinks. his tongue is pink too.
i think of everything pink has given for us. 
switching genders & then getting called 
a deadly little moon. what an insult that was
to the color to put it on & do nothing.
there are ghost trees wandering in the ash 
of a terrible wind. i paint a single wall
in my house pink. let it hum. press
my ear to it & hear its lovely & vibrant scream.
the politicians have never listened
to something like this. i call their office 
& get a voicemail. leave a message,
press my phone into the wall. the empire 
is full of trap doors & hidden staircases.
none of them are for me. i have a spoon
& smell of wet earth after a storm. 

making an ikea lamp alone

i always put furniture together backward. 
chair legs up as if in praise. a shoulder-less sofa. 
i get the lamp in its little cardboard coffin. my dark
apartment. i feed the shadows 
spoonfuls of honey. tell them to wait.
get on my knees. remember worship.
all the cathedrals i have turned into rocks.
the stained-glass scab spitting confetti light
onto sunday faces. day buries herself.
moon in the window. still, the pieces
of the lamp like bones on the hardwood floor.
if i am being honest, i do not really read
the directions. i prefer the trial & error
until i don't & i am weeping in the skeleton
of a future light. the lamp was a gift from my father. 
i feel like he was trying to say, "i know
you keep the curtains closed. i know you 
sleep in a pile on the floor." once i got obsessed
with floor beds. saved dozens in an online shopping cart
but never bought them. instead, settled on
a bedframe that took me a year to assemble.
it galloped around my apartment all night
leaving hoof prints for me to clean up.
it is midnight when i finish the lamp. 
we both pant from exhaustion. three bulbs 
glowing white. my triad shadow, a triptych
that follows me all the way to bed. 
i leave the light on all night. the ships don't
hit shore. the gods pull out their hair to make trees.
in a dream, arrives on the porch
with a screwdriver in his hand. he asks,
"did you want my help?" he is just like me.
always puts the ghosts together lungs first.
in the dream i let him in. he takes apart 
all my chairs & leaves the screws on the ground. 
i beg him to stop. he says, "i am helping you
because you never ask for help." i retort,
"neither do you." wake up to the lamp 
standing at the foot my bed. 
bright & terrifying. a fresh almost angel. 

portal

sometimes i uploaded my green teeth
using the library wifi. that summer
was the longest of my life. i used a pairing knife.
to dissect myself on camera. sometimes
it felt good. the skin & the muscle.
other times it felt like
being the butcher's cow diagram.
i pinned a blue bedsheet against the wall
& called it a studio. we filmed dinosaur movies
& flicks about love. once in the middle
of pulling my hair out one strand
at a time, i found a tick on my flesh.
he was drinking greedily. it is a little easier
when there is a portal between you 
& the sucker. i met in parking lots & behind
the fresh moon. once at a man's house 
where he had no chairs. we hovered
above the ground. the next day, he bought
all my videos. i ate from his hands. i was
a snake in deer's clothing. once someone left
a comment that read, "i love it when
it feels like she's waiting for me."
i do not know who is watching from
another solar system & if they have ever
used a spoon like this. i bought a table
using his good money. filled my mailbox with
birds. they just kept coming. the nights started
to get colder. gooseflesh. a knock on a hollow door.
the portal, always threatening to collapse 
& then there would be a room filled
with my flesh. a smokehouse. the round sun 
on his knees. i stuck my hand through 
a hole in the wall & reached.