The Back Door.

We'll leave the back door swung open when
we leave. Drop acorns from our
skirt pockets like buoys in the grass-- landed
between the fireflies floating on their backs
each blowing out the candles 
in their bellies. We bring backpacks
and blankets and a thick metal flashlight
to we pretend we finally stole the moon. 
We walk out up the street like it had a place to 
take us. Like we could end up
anywhere but under a street lamp in Paris
reading each other's poetry to the Seine
only to throw the verse word by word
into the water until all that was left
was our ears. My wives know poetry.
I would ask if any of us knew enough
French to find Picasso or a crème brûlée
ponds to rest our espresso spoons in--
unbuckle our pants and unhindge kissing mouths
of bra-wires in the cream-- we are
smooth dusk that doesn't take our pens.
Together ice each square of the sidewalk
like a gingerbread house-- wipe sugar from
our shoes as we go-- use coffee mugs to 
scoop away the eaten trying to eat
the alleys from out between buildings--
we built this street suspended in the cat's cradle
of phone wires we use to make love--
Not bra-wire love, not Picasso poet love,
We hold up love like picking back up poem words
thrown into the Seine-- spooning feed
each other crème brûlée-- 
cat calling from the sidewalk:
 fat and loud
and short and bird-boned and slut
and whore and prude 
and vixen and harlot and
sex-puppet and floozy and quiet 
and shy and anorexic and emotional
and dyke and faggot 
and everything Picasso found 
to describe a woman body-- 
heard all the way from the the back door
we left wide open.
Our house knows knows our poems--
it waits with
lazy lamp eyes-- awake to make sure we come home.
It knows our wrists and forearms. It knows 
the walls we sink into like shadows 
of women-bodies behind wallpaper.
When I was eleven I was a member 
of Sargent Pepper's Lonely Heart's club band. 
My father cut my hair and taught me
how to use hair gel.
I wore two different colored shoes. 
I wasn't cold in the winter.
I still cut my hair short like Picasso.
I use hair gel. But when boys call me
a dyke I laugh only because they think
it's an insult.
We are the happy sluts.
We are the people who stole the moon--
our back door isn't left open for
you to enter but so that you know
where you never belong--
They should have known I'd have wives.
I'm cold in the winter.
We have blankets. I'd rather
the back door left open. 

What I want to tell her about cereal 
and how we all want to die from a windowsill.

I want to tell her that living on 
windowsills is something she'll never
have to do again-- to say that the shingles
she sits on are only flakes of cinnamon
toast crunch-- to say that we were only 
dreaming when we woke up on the roof of
my house in Kutztown where times
moves in the breath of wind across corn
and street lamps waking up one by one.
It was night time and we both wanted
to die. Me and her and the leaves
in the gutters.
We wanted to fall with the potted willow tree.
Cry our pollen and break our cinnamon
limbs in half--
The cereal star sky was nothing more
than a sugar bowl over turned on
our heads-- shake the crystals 
from your hair and pretend snow
tastes like Splenda-- our split cereal skulls
that wouldn't let us sleep-- 
we were worried about falling
in love with windowsills at 3a.m.--
Again again-- I say again girl-body--
and cereal bones-- you measuring cup muse--
We were worried about dying on our
own terms-- worried about what 
cereal they would eat before our funerals-- 
Worried about the potted willow tree that fell
out the window before her--
I want to tell her that skin
burns like the water it's made of.
I want to tell her that she's thick
and smells wet root tops and spilled
potting soil. I want to tell her that
she won't have to cast out a fishing line
from anymore bedrooms-- plopped into the
sweet milk street lamps to lure
away a passing car
-- fishing for white eels--
delving into the corn-wave--
soybean field sea
for a phone call--
I want to tell her that people
would eat waffles with strawberries
before our funeral 
and talk about the willow tree 
in the driveway and wonder if he
loved us and if HE loved us and
if boys put girls on windowsills
to pose them like white eels or
if girl bodies put girl bodies on windowsills 
and if everyone has felt like
they wanted to die when they severed
themselves open on their backs--
dissection table for the moon light--
cereal spoons dipped into another
bowl of potted willow tree.
I want to tell her that we laid there together--
that loneliness is something you can
share with yourself and page of poetry.
I want to tell her every freckle
on her face was only cinnamon.
I want to tell her she might sit on more
windowsills but that she never has to land
in the driveway like the willow tree.
I want to tell her that wanting to die
is something cereal can always fix
and that we can lay open to the sky
and wake up next to each in the morning--
nail the fallen shingles back on the roof.
Pick up the pieces of the willow tree pot
from the driveway.

Candy corn offerings for the rats 
and other signs I was born a witch.

Turn out the lights like a bell
over a candle-- closed eyes--criss-cross-- 
cardboard box yourself into 
the witch's den--legs on attic carpet.
I'll telephone our dead grandmothers 
and ask them how they found their paths 
to our tea lights--
I was a creature of October anticipation
and believing in ghosts more
than wind-- a child summon from
a spiral of dry oak leaves--  
Look into the mirror and tell me
that you see yourself before you 
fade into the face of another spirit
in the dark of a bathroom-- who doesn't 
want to be scared of candles or
demons? Keep holy water by the bed.
Train your lips to speak the
OUR FATHER when you breath-- mouth full
of dry spider webs-- chewing on 
murky-- rain-haze dreams
-- No holy water could banish what 
we think about before we fall asleep
-- I count my ribs like
spider webs and think about stop lights
and air bags and the smell of hospital 
hallways. I wiped mushy leaves off
my forehead, born into the shivering
acorn heart of late September--
my family believed in Halloween--in 
the statues of rubber rats we worshiped--
offered up our candy corn 
penances for their feasting at midnight--
MIDNIGHT the witching hour when
rats thrash their pink tails--roll 
their white eyes in the collective
bone-breathing of a house dead and alive;
Collecting eye balls in the corners so that
we're always watched-- always at least
gossiped about by the jack-o-lanterns--
Swing slowly the silhouette of the man
who never hung himself in our stairwell--
Foot steps of my grandfather who ate
peanuts and threw the shells on the porch
to crunch like bones or maple leaves--
Raspy-whispering under the kitchen sink
-- spine-trickled down to the 
cracked basement floor--
My brother and I wrap ourselves
in black cloaks-- lay on attic floor--
my brother is scared.
We're vampires and we don;t know it yet.
He asks "Are there ghosts?" and
tells me "Don't leave me alone."
I laugh and tell him that our house
is a ghost but that I would always haunt him
if he wanted me to.
We made candy corn fangs with them 
still in our mouths--
fell asleep before our grandmothers 
could answer us. They each ate a handful
of candy corn before the rats came
to claim their offering.
Our tea lights burned all night--
and still swung the ghosts of 
our own changed faces we'd tried
to carve out of the bathroom mirror. 
"Don't leave me alone," I repeated.
"Don't leave me alone." 

Carving out your body from Birthday cards.

We all cut our hair and scattered
it like a decade's worth of birthday cards.
We had felt too guilty to throw them away--
flapping to escape like lost geese behind
the garage where the pumpkins broke
and cried their seeds-- bleeding on the damp
oak leaves and smell of roasting autumn 
in the rain-- how old are you now
how old are you now that no one
sends you birthday cards? They mistake
you for your father in your short hair
and ink-stained wrists-- 
You've written too many get-well cards
to yourself-- post marked two years
until maybe we can piece together
a creature from decades of birthdays
that have found their way sleeping
in the garage-- they lay in pumpkin guts--
There's people who only know us 
by our birthdays-- card signatures
cousins and glitter balloons-- twenty dollar
bills that say 
I should love you or 
someone says I should love you
I don't want to be a birthday card 
mixed in with my cut strands of hair.
I decided that there was
only one person who could own this body--
Only one hand to roast pumpkin seeds
--carve out a girl-body with me--
I want to be a pumpkin.
Let's keep everything. My innards.
The seeds for salt and nutmeg.
The stem to remind me that I had brown
hair and that I had birthdays
that were worthy of dancing
dinosaurs on cards from aunts
I've met maybe twice. They don't
know how queer I am and how short
my hair is but they know
they're supposed to love me
and isn't that enough for anyone?
I want you to think you should love me
because I have love you for
all the hair you have cut in these
last years and how many piles
of oak leaves you've imagined jumping
into to hide your own ink stains.
I'll send you a get well card today
so you don't have to. We can eat pumpkin
seeds on the porch. The pumpkin gore pie is
in the oven and we don't have
to eat it if you just want to decorate
it with candles and frosting--
we can make it a birthday card 
or just an omen-- we can be fourteen
and cutting our hair in front of 
a sink if you want? You could touch my
neck with oak fingers?
I want you to know you have been
a gift every time the calendar turned for
you like the carving of geese wings 
in the rain or broken pumpkin stems screaming
to be noticed from behind the garage--
I noticed you before your birthday
and I wrote you a card every time 
you wanted to smile. Roast pumpkin seeds
with me over burnt birthday cards 
while in cut hair
and pumpkins
we carve out our bodies. 


 

Sun-boiled Macintosh girl.

I've left my skin out under the trees--
scavenged by the bees who know that
they all will die in October. They 
trick-or-treat for the rot-flesh--
open wounds where I wanted to 
grow myself into a pie--
caramel glaze down my forehead--
wet-leaf and twig-knuckled bed to rest  
these limbs that peel like clementine 
skin. There was always too many of
us to be eaten. Too many stems--
too many skinny legs trying to be
pretzels-- trying to be the sticks
of caramel apples-- drip-dropping in 
the grass-- too many bright red 
cheeks on greeny Macintosh faces-- 
My mother was a Mutzu and I was a Macintosh
and we snapped and Winesap-ed
until we felt golden and delicious.
We wore sweaters and took them off 
in the sun. We were still the kind of
cold that only October knows for
boiling bodies-- melting-- shifting sauce-- 
into the frost morning. Where did all the apples
go? There were too many for pies and never
enough for all the caramel in the silver pot--
dumped into the yard so that the bees
could at least die fat and tired
and slow. Last supper of the hornet--
And the bees knit sweats
and danced over apples with me and I aspired
to be something other than a pie--
Pink lady thigh and Jonnagold-hipped is where
autumn nudged me-- pulled the corn
husks up to my ankles-- my socks--
leaf crumple knees-- told me that
it's HARVEST-HARVEST for our bodies-- our
skin-- sun broil-- char-- freckle fired--
because there's always too many apples
and too much of my Macintosh boiled skin.
Did I remember to say goodbye to all the
bees-- mouths full of sugar and waiting
for sleep-- angry in the sun 
over our bodies that will never 
become pies-- cross-hatched blanketed 
cinnamon crusted shoulders--
rest with me and don't forget the 
Macintosh girl-body that melted
into the leaves-- never November
was there an apple left. Did you dance
like a bee or gala-braeburned and seeded 
into the frost lick soil.
We can sleep here under the ghost hum
of the bees-- make peace and cool
until we can open our eyes as seeds. 
Macintosh mother-- Jonnagold hips 
I sweet sing-- I cinnamon shoulder
I grow in October-- I sting-- 

The field of skunk cabbage between us
and being heroes.

You told me that you didn't 
see fairies like I saw fairies.
You told me that you shut your eyes and didn't
see anything but black and I told you
that you don't have to close your
eyes to see what you wanted to. 
Do you remember how we played our
own protagonists? Saved ourselves
because there are no savoirs designed
for 6th grade fat girl-bodies and chain-smoking
eleven-year-olds trying to measure
death out of their t-shirts. Do you remember
that we were those children shaken loose from
the orange and red maple leaves
collected in the armpits of the stream--
waded barefoot or wet-socked in the
cold water to the other side of the 
creek where the trees blocked out the balding 
heads of convenience stores and dentists offices.
We crossed the field of skunk cabbage--
Ate leaves like spring rolls or tortillas--
made onion grass voodoo--
And somewhere between the skunk cabbage
and the old limestone temple across the way we 
left our wet socks and our play dough bodies--
shedding childhood like a snake skin--
unpeeled from our freckles like a fruit roll-up.
We didn't have to be anything but patience 
in the thick thighs of fallen birches and 
and sometimes we could be slayers of dark spirits crawling
out of our own wet socks-- out of knee bones
and carved out of the limestone temple walls
where farmers used to burn stone to fertilize
skunk cabbage fields. You told me you didn't see
fairies but that you did see dark spirits--
and I said that we didn't need the creek to see
those-- that we needed the creek to fight those--
fight with twig rapiers, pollen pixie spores,
and hurled dragon's blood we collected in globs from the
gaping syrup sores of the trees--
And you were never just the neighbor boy who I walked
through a creek with-- you were never just early-sundown
night meandered home by each island of street lamp--
you were never just wet June spent making constellations 
out of bug bites-- 
You were the rebuilt bridge of rot-tree limbs
after the hurricane and the flood that
turned off all the lights-- We could be thunder feet
by that creek and you and I and everyone
was something different across a field of 
skunk cabbage-- and I still see fairies and 
I know that you don't need to talk to them like
me. Maybe we had too many dark spirits
waiting for us in our own knees
but I think if I was ever a hero it
might have been waste deep in the creek
across from a field of skunk cabbage-- fat--
thirteen and leaving my child-body skin
on the mashed bones of maple trees
and in the gravestones between each
boisterous head of skunk cabbage. 
        

Filled strawberry hard candies 
and Everyone's grandmother. 

Everyone's grandmother had a jar of candy used
to be an ashtray. Everyone grandmother flattened 
out the wrappers of filled strawberry hard candies
on their lap before they put them in the waste
basket. Everyone's grandmother had a crucifix.
A angel statue. A scrub brush for vegetables
shaped like a bear. A scale with fake grapes.
Everyone's grandmother had teddy bears that
weren't meant to be played with.
My grandmother had a divine order of cats
all named after musicians and it was Mozart 
who ripped my long black skirt and Amadeus
who died so old that he looked like he
was made from piper cleaners and pastrami. 
Wolfgang cut open wrists and went back to the shelter.
Bach tumbled in sun spots and eat only
half a can of wet food. 
Everyone's grandmother
and only my grandmother baked sweet potatoes in
medallions and paged through "Cat Fancy"
like a gossip magazine. 
I do not know if it is my grandmother
or everyone's grandmother who has
an obsession with their grandchild's bodies--
maybe it is because they know they
left pieces of themselves in their 
own daughters-- everyone's grandmother bought
them gingerbread cookies for every holiday.
I ate the eyes out of bunnies at Easter
and licked the white-sugar-doily borders 
of bells for Winter. It might have been
everyone's grandmother or my own grandmother
who glared at me when I licked the crumbs 
of cookies off my lap. 
Well, you're getting 
fat, you're getting fat
you're getting fat
she said 
with stacks of raisin-eyed cookies and jars 
of bleeding strawberry candy 
meant for everyone's grandmother's
coffee tables. 
Everyone's grandmother had a guest
room and bed with cover too thick
to sleep under.
Everyone's grandmother left
your clothing smelling like 
cigarettes and purple candle wax.
Everyone's grandmother saw their
grandchild as beasts-- waist band 
challenging tyrants with lap
of crumbs and back seats of juice
box stains-- eating from buffets with
their pork-roll fingers--
Everyone's grandmother stacked
cookies on their grandchildren's
heads-- told them to walk to the
duck pond and back on the red stoned
walkways. Everyone's grandmother
weighed them on the scale next to the fake
grapes-- everyone grandmother was a 
pipe-cleaner cat and warm porch
with baked sweet potatoes. Everyone's
grandmother hung a crucifix from the chandelier
in their apartment and taught 
their cats to dance to overtures
before the blankets swelled like
children bellies and sweet potatoes.
My grandmother loved me, I assume.
Everyone's grandmother loves them
like filled strawberry candies in ashtrays, 
fat sugar-cookie crumbs, and the 
teddy bears not meant to be played with
tucked under the blankets in the
guest room.

Pizza crust curbs and falling
in love with a reptile.

Let's walk one-way to the end of no street-
Take me-- cold canvas shoes
and reptile feet--
where we warm like coffee mug hands--
where we fold like yellow sucralose packets-- 
where we can duel in check-mates on stale
pizza crust curbs.
Did you think I was a statue or did you
know I was a snake?
We're kissing over chess before the light
turns green and my veins course yellow-car--
We ramble arthritic finger bones--
the loose teeth stones-- of the alleys
where shop windows gawk wide-eyed and 
we watch ourselves ordering lemon tea
and talking about silver tea kettles
and talking about purple cabbage and talking
about where we'll be next Tuesday and
where we would drive a car if we had one
and where or if the street would ever decide to end.
I tell you what I would make of a back seat and a yellow-light.
I tell you where I would keep my wet socks
after the walk--
We watched them dry on the warm coffee mugs
and the radiator keeps talking to itself 
about the ends of streets.
I fell in love with the way you walk 
everywhere like the unraveling of a ball of
yarn-- I fell in love with coffee mug
hands and I tell everyone I love them too
soon because I'm cold blooded and lemon tea flooded
Oh! I live in coffee mug and by crawling
inside your left mitten where I count that
I have three toes and a snake neck. I wish
I wasn't born toad-skinned and four-fingered
and there's pizza crust curb people who will
never see me for anything but oval eyes 
and goose bump gilded shoulders-- I walk on four
legs and I walk on the loose teeth of alley ways.
We play chess and you always win-- I'm waiting for
wet socks and I'm impatient-- and I'm driving
a car to the end of no street to park and look
at evergreens that somehow grew in the city
where we wait for a train to pick us
up like toads or coffee mugs. The street lights
are always yellow. I'm trying to warn you about
loving reptiles-- I'm trying to warn you
about catching colds and toads and girl-bodies
with goose bump shoulders-- I'll give back your
left mitten someday when I'm warm.
And we can drink from either side of the same 
coffee mug. It'll be foggy and 
the street still won't end but
we'll park there by the yellow light--
talk about silver cabbage.
Talk about lemon tea kettles.
Talk about love like unfurled yarn.

Pretzel sticks, lemonade and 
How to ask people if they believe in God.

I learned to dip pretzels in lemonade
during snack time at Sunday school.
We broke God into three pieces
and set a part of him in a hollow
of each space in the pretzel braid.
Pretzel windows to our father, our son
and the dove who coughs on us like feathers
and sets our tongues on fire--
We wiped off salt collected on paper plates
and wooden tables.
We sat in chairs too small for our
knees and sometimes I looked
out the window through the whole class
to make faces at street lamp angels 
and God sitting cross-legged from a branch--
It might work for some people but I'm 
not the kind of person who anyone could 
teach God to. I don't think he's 
really the kind of thing you teach. 
I know God could be just something that I want to 
see in the way tree branches cross
a window frame in strands of scraggle yarn
but I can hear him knitting when I go to fall
asleep and he brushes the back of my
neck with his thumb-- drops a stitch and picks it
back up to remind me that we've all made things
we need to unravel--
Did you know He knits when he's nervous?--
He leaves his unfinished projects in the
in the bushes--
by my window.
A square of a quilt.
The torso of a scarf.
A wool hat for her to wear
when autumn lost all her hair--
And She cried again-- dangle-legged from a wooden bench
next to me. I tried to remind her
that we all lose our hair sometime or
another and that God can knit hats
and mornings and people like us to 
sit next to. He doesn't stop knitting
even if he leaves a lot unfinished outside
my window-- I've had people tell me
I invented a God so that I could
say everything was beautiful even
when it's not-- so that I could think 
everything can be unraveled and re-knit--
It's not just that though-- God
dips pretzel sticks in lemonade like me
and he taps on windows when Sunday school 
teachers talk too much about blood
and not enough about pretzels or doves
or wooden braids--
God is the salt flecks and the paper plate.
He's the boy next to me who doesn't eat
pretzels and watches the clock instead 
of the window.
Carves his name into the long wooden table--
maybe he was sad or bored
or he was mad at God for letting autumn
lose her hair and cry dangle-legged--
I pretend that God lights 
all the street lamps all at once when
I walk home from the library too late
to carry a moon so full 
on my shoulders-- dove breathed feet
as a I go-- 
You've all been a girl of bent snack-time
shoulders and don't tell me you haven't
see all the street lamps light up at once
like lemonade and angels. If you haven't dipped 
pretzels in street lamps-- you should try it.
Sit with her on the bench when she cries
and tell her that she still looks beautiful
even though the hat is scratchy.
Share pretzel sticks with her and tell her
about street lamps and angels and 
all the times you listened to 
God drop a stitch to stroke the bends
in your shoulder where you tried to hold
up the moon.

"Midnight Snacks" and Hail Mary 

1.
Tell your mother you need a "Midnight Snack"
even though both of you know you
aren't hungry--
2.
Hungry: feeling or displaying the need for food--
we were hungry for the crisp edges of night 
scraped from a burnt cookie sheet and
laid to rest on a plate
like shingles toppling from the 
roof in the winter-- I can still hear
my father's footsteps up there
and I know we're all sleeping.
3.
Night is hungry.
4.
Pillows remind you of the flat
faces of pancakes-- cheeks
of your baby brother. He was
unexpected and blueberry.
Brothers make bad Christmas presents
and they don't like sleep.
5.
Did you say your prayers?
6.
Did you think of the saint statues
in the cube on the shelf--
how they always watched you from
just far enough a distance to be
goddesses-- do you believe
in goddesses?
Do you believe in book shelves?
7.
Hungry: having a strong desire or craving--
like how we wanted to feel night 
as easy as skim milk--
Milano cookies and
counter crumbles-- my mother
taught me to soak cookies in skim milk
as a way of waiting
for night to close our eyes-- she withheld 
herself from all of us-- distant
like our shelf goddesses in 
bloody and cookie crumb feet--
8.
I cut myself out like a blondie
square and gnawed on the edges
slow to remain at the counter--
it was the only thing separating us
between the company of saints 
and the cold skim milk behind my eyes--
9.
Our father who art in heaven--
No! I want to say a hail Mary because
Saint Mary stays up with me from the bookshelf
with the snakes burn under her toes.
10.
They cut off Saint Catherine's
head and it only bled milk.
I wonder how they slept that night.
I wonder if they ever drank milk
again.
11.
My father throws shingles past the window 
of my bed room.
12.
My father takes apart the roof
so that the house can flow easily
into the sky
13.
My father prayers to Saint Michael--
the who who burned the Devil
from the edges of a cookie sheet
14.
I never understood Saint Michael
15.
I think Saint Michael lost
because we still can't sleep and we 
still have the devil and Saint Catherine's
neck still bled milk-- it's easy
enough to fight the Devil if you're 
an angle but what about a saint statue
on a book shelf?
16. 
We break the last mint Milano cookie
like Eucharist-- this is my body--
do this in memory of sleep-- 
dip me in milk and drink and forget
about Saint Catherine--
17.
There is no roof
18.
Hungry: causing hunger
19.
A hunger for counter and your mother
and not wanting to say good bye
20.
My father opened the roof
so we didn't have to go into
the night each alone.
21.
My brother was always the first asleep
and sometimes I still forget I have two
22.
Saint Mary is tired of burning 
snakes for me. Saint Catherine was just executed 
again and my mother is asleep in the 
rocking chair.
23.
I can still hear my father's foot steps
on the roof and we don't have a roof.
24.
The Devil is scared of Saint Mary
25.
Hail Mary full of Grace 
Hail Mary who severed the space
between my eyes and the cold
skim milk beneath them--
Hail Mary who scrapes evil from
cookie sheets and puts back on Saint
Catherine's head and reminds my
father that our fathers aren't always
in heaven
Hail Mary who stay up all night--
cutting us out like blondies and 
putting the shingles back on the roof.