My lamp light sternum and 
how i came to love watermelon rinds.  

i hope i die like the lamp light in the
corner of the living room. 

i have always admired a lamps
ability to listen. it listens
like watermelon rinds or
the thick belly of the sink.
it's the only one that
waits for me to come home from the
slumped couches of you high school boys
who still wear my skirts as a joke
or a wrestling trophy or a poker game. 
oh you boys who break the waist bands
of my underwear-- boys
who think girls are baseballs-- call my body
a girl or a home plate-- either
way you're thinking of it as a score
board-- finger-fumbling 
me into a rubix cube.
your best bet is peeling off the stickers.
call me "darling" call me "sexy"
call me "love". call me with
only your hands that turn
me into a lamp post to be
swung on-- dance in the rain with
me in yellow rain coats and red umbrellas
that hide my naked bones--
sing in the rain
sing in the rain
what a glorious feeling
singing in the street lamp light
living room lamp light-- light
in the ceiling of his side room
that made me feel like a watermelon
rind in a sink-- 

i had always been so unprepared to be naked
until i took off my dress in the lamp 
light. strip-teased myself and 
thought how much i was a honey dew--
a bite mark of sugar-- a green spine
wrinkle-rind watermelon
carved by the methodical chops 
of my father's dull kitchen knife.

i felt like a portrait. 
like a memory. 

they have always found some
fault with me.

is it the way the light
paints dull waves under each rib?
the bluff of my stomach around
my hips? my watermelon rind legs
left sprawled in the sink?
was there something missing 
without the pink fruit? 

did they only ever
eat us like porches or rubix cubes?--
pink and red and white seeds
what was i but a sink belly.

i will sleep on the watermelon rind
of the couch. totter on the crescent moon--
cut like a scar into the cheek bone
of night. 

i will tell it all by
lamp light and it won't ask any 
question. i'll eat the green rinds
in the sink that taste vaguely of 
soap and my father's hands.

i hope to die like lamp light.
quiet. listening. without
anything pink left about me. 

the white seeds won't grow
another one like me.

Cricket finger snaps and the dusty cereal bowl.

the room corners talk like cricket legs-- 
finger snaps-- thigh claps in the dark under
fan hiss and hum-- breathing something like
a boar and i am rum-ring eye lids in the dim of morning--
lift up my head like a fat clay mug and pour
out coffee grounds and nectar from yesterday.
have you noticed where the crickets are hiding?
in the bushes by the window-- itchy and leg-haired
they've slept somewhere between
my sheets-- the crickets are gossiping
from my spine now-- talking about thighs with a
crinkle of the bent-leg blues--some, prostrate
in prayer, ask for more cereal bowls and less
cloud today. they fight tight chest and 
finger nails on the window with the bushes that
slap their tiny leaves on the glass in vain--
they ask for cereal-- the sugary type
that remind us of coffee cake beaches and diners. 
the plastic jewelry Fruit Loops or board
game pieces of a bowl of lucky charms
-- roll enough dice to walk 
over the sand and not get any in your shoes
when you wake up to the talk of crickets--
learn to preach like crickets. they are
determined make prophesy of the mundane.
the crickets count something different every 
single day from dew drops to number of
cups of coffee the girl with no hair
drink from her end table--
they've made the kitchen sink into a homily
night robe pocket prayer books-- telling
the congregation to count them
"count until there's no more numbers"
"count until you have enough numbers to make
yourself feel like a person"
--oh! humans like me have lost enough hours of sleep
trying to figure out what the crickets are counting.
are they counting me?
are they counting on me?
have they figured out how many days i have
like to wake up to room corners 
that talk like crickets?
one told me a secret-- crushed under
the frantic palm of my hand-- 
he said that they never truly had wanted to 
count anything-- he said that 
they were sick of counting-- sick of the numbers
and the corners and the window-- that
they wanted to eat cereal in thick socks--
pour the coffee grounds out of the fat
clay mugs and wake up to room corners 
instead of talking the same word
again. again. again. until it meant something
to someone else.

Spaghetti steam and life on Jupiter.

I was bare foot and torn knee-shorts
in August. That was when I was hairy knees and
razor burn anklets. 
I chewed the planets like gum balls
and my mouth could handle all nine
before they decided that Pluto was
just a gobstopper. My mother laughed
and taught me how to eat planets like
spaghetti-- steam fogged glasses and
the colander in the kitchen sink.
We picked the strand up with our hands--
bold--vapor hot hands. The steam
always turned my hair to spaghetti--
linguine curls and my mother's waves
of lasagna layers. She washed me in sauce
to dress in Parmesan from the green-jacket
jars always on the top shelf of the refrigerator.
We wore wagon wheels as diamond ring
in a promenade to the porch light where
we laid as pasta bowls 
in front of the stars. My father would
always and till this day call me
"angle hair"
If I could go anywhere tonight I would go to Jupiter--
become the vapors to cook the spaghetti
and steam the asparagus and zucchini. I'd collect
in water beads on the lids of pans
that both my brother and I wore
as space helmets. We made so many journeys from
the backyard up the ladder to our moon.
I'd use the lunar bodies as stepping stones
until I reached the steamy surfaces
of Jupiter's four Galilean moons--hopscotch-
holding noodles in my hands--jar of sauce-- 
a bent-neck fork--
In space people don't need bowls.
You know Jupiter is that largest planet
and somehow I still think it's lonely 
with all that pasta and steam? She cooks and cooks
and cooks for a family that could never
be big enough to fill her girth, hides
shyly in the camera flash of Hubble who
stares deeply into her red spot-- The birthmark
kiss of creation given to her by the stars--
what are planets but moons and moons just
holly berries waiting for it to frost
so they can inhabit my cheek bones--
It's cold up here and she cooks for
me and she cooks well. I ask her about summer
and about steam and about bare feet.
She tells me that she IS summer and steam
and bare feet but that none of those things
had ever mattered without a bowl or
a colander or a sink.
I tell her that I'm not barefoot anymore
and she melts me into noodles to toss
in another batch of sauce-- lays me
in a bed of basil and asks me to be her wife.
I say I was meant to fog up glasses 
and get caught in the colander of my mother. 
She understands and fills the tupperware
like usual-- stacks it in the fridge
as leftovers for the visitors 
who are likely not coming 
this summer or the next. 
She'll eat the pasta alone
tonight and I'll pluck her
from the night sky
like a gumball. 

Spacecraft diners with lemon tea,
macaroon stools, and the fake bouquet of 
lilies.

I called the diner for reservations
for three years from now.
It's my favorite diner-- oblong
and absurd-- obscenely reminiscent 
of everyone's collective desire
to look down at earth from the moon--
it took us all to space over bites
of egg and bagel and chrome.
My father and I spent time on Mars
there and he taught me that galactic 
travel was like fruit loop 
rings around Neptune.

The waitress at the desk was confused 
about the reservations. She said
that no one made reservations
for diners-- that there were two
seats ready for me now at the front
of the place-- those red macaroon 
stools-- bubbly like a fountain Cola and--

I hung up before she could talk
about the Belgian Waffles and strawberries --
I said three years-three years I 
need three years to plan out
where I'll be going and who
I'll be sitting with and whether 
or not I will stack up the creamers
like a castle or a freight train 
-- I could be headed to Jupiter by
then you know?-- But I don't know how
far I will be-- I could be 1% milk
poured between the Gemini stars
into a bowl of asteriods
strewn like hot oats--  

I could be looking to settle in the Red Apple
City. It's the closest earth comes
to the brightness of a star-- it challenges 
the pin holes of Capricorn and Cancer and 
dances likes Orions hips.
I was born pretending to live 
in New York-- I could find myself 
the tin-lunch box dine on the corner 
of 9th and 10th Avenue
where the lemon tea melted my
hands into your pockets-- and to
me I love everyone I ever met
like warm mugs and yellow Splenda
packets-- we need to save the sugar
cubes to make a castle to live in anyway--
Love is easy with only lemon tea
and winter and pockets 
and macaroons to sit on.

The lilies on the counter
are fake. They're always fake
in spaceships and diners-- flowers
don't last in space travel and they
can't breathe Jupiter or pancake
or macaroon. Flowers don't drink
tea even if encouraged to even 
when they can see how far away
earth is from the moon.

I called back. 
I told the waitress that it's okay
that they don't take reservations. 
I told her I just wanted
to let the diner know that in three
years or so if they still were still
serving Belgian Waffles that I might be
there for two seats on the spiny
macaroon stools. I told her that 
me and another person as warm as mug
might order lemon tea and that I know
the lilies are fake. Fake lilies
don't dispear while you're not
looking like quiet stars-- that means 
the lilies will still be there in three years
no matter if we end up 
looking out at the stop light
on the street corner between 9th and
10th avenue on the surface of an Apple or
the spoonfuls of asteroids that
jostling like taxis in the cereal bowl. 

The welcome mat on my pelvis and 
the scar that is the front door. 

My tongue is a red door.
Thick entrance of a church
-- heavy slammed-- stained glass
glasses into the congregation--
shut to shutter in the pews-- 
and waiting there's a choir 
in those baptism robes
with the chord belts
they tied in knots
and knots and "do-nots"
numbered to ten in stone--
Moses said we only have ten rules
and Jesus gave us two
and we spent an existence
finding new ways to break down red doors
and drip God-blood into chalices--
You know there's something
beautiful about that and 
I like my tongue to be red
my lips top be red
my fingers to be red
and I like my church doors red--

The choir laughs and tells us that
every door means welcome
if you paint it red-- red-red
blood-red wine-red- Lutheran-red
red like every opening in my face--
punch my nose like a door knob red--
wipe your shoes on my hips--
the front step of my pelvis reads
"welcome home" because
I have learned that home is a 
place other people make with 
my body-- a place to leave
car keys dangle from my ears--

I know I am supposed to be
an hourglass who forgets
everything about time-- I learned
to count grains of coffee cake crumbs the size
of sand-- eat only 
potato chips of lettuce
from the crouched 
corner of a cage full of hay--
but I'm red-- DAMN IT-- and 
I'm blood-red, scab-red
fat hot-house tomato red
and boiled crab-red--

I'm not a stamp collection of scars.
This isn't a museum.
It's not a "pay-what-you-can"--
it's a tongue that's a red door.
I could paint a night sky
with all this red front door
in me-- I'm not just a 
place to wipe your sandals--
call me refuge-- call me
forgiven-- call me
confessional without 
a wall or a priest-- call me declaration
of loving everything but my
own hips--

I'm just asking 
that you leave
the scars where they are
and close the front door
gently. 
It's heavy.

The side of the bowl and other places
I learned to crack an egg.

Smashed under the seat cushion--quiet
sneaky as an umbilical chord
tight around my wrists-- the friendship
bracelet woven by my father
the 'X' stitching-- through my
fingers-- the white veil-- virgin
bride of the egg-- who here
hasn't asked their mother if there are
baby chickens inside egg yolks
in side apple pies
in side cupcakes
inside the birds nest
of a slice of wheat toast
slippery from butter and birth--
where else have we cracked like
ladies? Are we the closed egg
shell-- gentle-- refrigerated--
the lonely grocery bag on top
of the potato rolls-- 
we say-- 

NO there are no chickens
in cupcakes cakes and birthdays
and apple pie and frittata--
the asparagus 
quiche I wear like a sun hat--

We aren't just for babies
but they taught us about the sides
of the bowl when we were little
and too little to know anything about
blood. 
Just little enough to know
that baking was something
mother could do without the back
of a box-- something we knew
about-- listened for how
many eggs to crack on the edge
of the metal bowl-- swollen like
flour and bread loaves--

How many of us have thought we were dying or
sunny side up in the passenger seat?
How many of us have remembered that
our eyes are the openings to
ovens?

Save only the yolks
and crack-- snap-- rapture 
on the paper towel-- he
told me that's how you do it
so it's quiet
he told me that there's nothing
you can do but break
and you're going to break somehow
so why not go 
quietly in the muffle of a paper
towel instead of on the side of
a bowl-- loud and clumsy 
like small hands and
birthdays.

We all knew baking was as inevitable 
as paper towels and napkins 
and the whites of eggs--

scramble me with ketchup and blood
whisk my veil to a lather
to wash me in air-- I was fancy
enough for frittatas 
and homey enough for ketchup--
bold enough to crack
on the counter top and
pull the feathers out of
my cupcakes.  

Star burst blood vessels and the distance
between the porch and the moon.

Naked-legged I sit on the concrete
porch-- squat and sturdy like a toad--
like a foot rest full of melting
unread-- "funny" sections-- yellow
like my teeth in the morning.
I drink coffee like blood transfusion--
like eye lids-- like the night
when I always end up naked-legged--
underwear brighter when you turn
off the porch lamps. Sometimes
I wonder why we didn't teach our eyes
about the night-- the soup I sink 
in on the porch that is both shiny 
and liquid like a raining star--
the sleet is only a fragment--
we never lose the stars during the
day we just haven't trained our eyes to
see them. I'm teaching my self with
the porch light off-- blink like a 
toad only to feel your teeth
rake against my skin-- the mosquitoes
laugh at me sitting with no
pants and a knit cap drooping from my
head-- they laugh and guzzle 
my coffee like blood transfusion--
laugh and talk about how silly it
is for humans to try to see at night
when they've never even drank blood
or touched the moon. I say LOOK and I reach
up-- I touch the moon with an index finger--
and tell them I know things are ALWAYS
short and far and closer than ever before.
And a star falls. And my legs burst into
nebula or island or blood-freckle--
lay out on the porch-- pomegranate-seed
squash in the domains of my thighs--
I'm breaking like the edges of the moon
on the porch-- like the blue berry heels
like the stars that find a way to rain.
I'm sitting on unread "funny" sections 
and laughing with the mosquitoes at jokes
I don't understand-- but for some reason
laughing makes them funny.
I'm laughing at the moon
who never gets any jokes because
she's just too far away to hear
the ending-- turn the porch light on
so that there's something for
the mosquitoes to bang their heads again other
than my legs.
We're so close tonight.
So near.
So far. 

Selkie:
a mythical creature 
that resembles a seal in the water 
but assumes human form on land

The selkie in night slippers who took a bite out of the moon.

They say our husbands
hide our seal skin but I don't need
a husband to have a closet to keep it in--
folded neatly like pajama pants 
or a night robe with a hood
to pull over my eyes-- my nose
washed in the stale soap of the bog
-- worn thin by unwanted kisses
and chlorine-- the open necktie--
unknown-- untied-- tied wrong
like a bow or a braid--
my father wore this skin and peeled
it off like the graceless ribbon of a potato
Everyone learned I was a selkie when they dropped
me in the baptismal fountain and had to fish
me out with a crab net--
said it was a shame that the priest 
had become too old
to hold babies-- I was
the type of baby that couldn't be held--
slippery-- garden hose necked--
so by the time the nun got me from the bottom
of the fountain it
was too late and the church had
already all seen me as a seal--
my parents were embarrassed and we
left after communion.
My grandfather knew and left
me to soak in a plastic pool on the
porch-- fed me Ritz crackers 
while I lay on my belly--
naked like baptism-- like salad
dressing-- like stale soap--
he was fascinated and kept a daily
general of the seal child-- told
me to never let them take
the skin away from me-- I was
rain forest baby-- born of 
the down pours that feed into the
salt wounds of the sea where
I will eventually return.
I've been trying to get back there
since I was baptized--
Sometimes I'm scared the next time
I go to the ocean that I won't be able
to become human again--
the chlorine-- the Swedish fish--
the board walk with it's planks of
thick-cut French fries-- cheese sauce-- 
blood-- ketchup or hot sauce on my snout--
and I'll come ashore only
to find that I'm still
shiny and thick-tailed-- whiskers
prickly like my led hairs--
do you smell the chlorine on my skin?
the soap?
the worries?
I keep all this in the pockets
of my night robe-- 
I think my roommate knows
about my seal skin-- I think
she notices me put on my
floral night robe instead of
the seal skin each time after a shower
when I feel the water calling me home.
I can hear the rivers start to whisper
across mainstreet and in my on whiskers--
I walk out humid into the night--

Confront the moon.
Tell her she pulls me.
Tell her I know that the
time will come when I return
to the ocean for good
but that for tonight I will
be able to take off the skin
again-- pluck the whiskers from
my face-- stumble-- fumble for
the feeling of two legs again by 
the beacon light on the porch
in my slippers.
Before I leave I'll take a bite from
the moon because it tastes
like the ocean-- Swedish fish
melted in chlorine-- French fries
held together by blood 
or ketchup or cheese.

I don't tell you this to scare you
or brag about knowing what the moon
tastes like. It's not a warning or a cause
for alarm. My return to the ocean
is not something to fear because it
is as inevitable as humidity and unpredictable
as French fries. I tell you so 
you know where I went
when you wake up in August to 
an empty bed after the full-belly
of the moon. 

Breakfast with ghosts and 
the length of the upstairs hallway.

My belief in ghosts is as strong
as my belief in mornings
and my belief in the fog that mocks 
me like angel's plumage shed underneath
the spaghetti-pot lid.
For ghosts the fog is as close
as they get to kissing--
I was born with long corridors
that stretch like waistbands 
and tube socks-- darken
at the edges-- cattle shoots
to another time where you
and I both considered ourselves 
alive-- the first ghosts I knew
lay in sleep held in the black eyes
of stuffed teddy bears-- lurched
forward on a self-- fell for me
to catch and cradle over my brother's crib
when he was still just a 
stack of jealous pancakes--
ghosts
in a cast iron pan.
My front porch was a ghost-- cracked spine
and finger nails dug into the cancerous earth.
I knew the ghosts by name from the factory
building. The building
had bus-driver eyes and it waited
outside the old house on Franklin
Street. I learned that some ghosts
only have one arm and that ghosts like
midnights more than mornings.
My grandfather was a ghost
before he died-- a silhouette
holding a cane like a microphone or
a bouquet of flowers. My father
has always been like him
and I think he doesn't believe
in ghosts because he might just
be one-- entangled in rusted
electric guitar strings in the corner
of the attic.
My mother believes in angles
which are certainly a type of ghost
and she believes in milk blood
and saints and pancakes.
My brother is scared of the end
of corridors.
We both recite the Our Father
under our breath when we
go upstairs alone-- we have
seen so many ghosts-- so many femurs 
in the floor boards-- so many
elbow door knobs-- our house
is the assimilated skeleton
of other people's ghosts and our own--
the parts of us that are already faded
and sucked up under the lid
of the spaghetti pot.
Some people think I eat breakfast alone.
I've set aside this time for
my own ghosts and the ghosts who
wander in through the open
front door-- they like pancakes and they
like to have company in the morning when
they remember that one of us is dead.
We share coffee and stories
about all the journeys we've
taken down long corridors
only to find the closet at the
end of the hall upstairs. 

An open apology to spiders and other insects I've squashed
like marbles.

We all have spent the morning in the
uncomfortable reptilian torso of 
a Tyrannosaurus Rex-- felt his own futile 
hands of pebble and stood tall just to have
the neighbor girl look at us like the
evergreen tree that was always there
in the back yard-- the fossilized femur--
bares pine cones of bone
The neighbor girl laughs and says that you're an absurd dog.
We all have squashed insects or 
people like insects or people
like crustaceans-- clumsily--
dazed and buzzing like the hive's hung 
on our head like thorn-crowns or Romani
metal waist bands pulled loose from
the corn-cob hair of the sun. 
I deeply regret all the spiders I've killed--
all the ants under flip flops--
thousand-leggers turned to smudges--
their blood like my blood--
blue
black
mosquito-maroon red--
lipstick scabs
reptilian and crustaceans-- inky
on wallpaper-- my brother was born
a centipede and so was I. Only
one of us grew into a dinosaur
to step on everything
that scares me--
and I'm sorry that my only reaction
to fear is to stomp on things--
maybe if I were to sit down to have
tea with the spider cadavers 
in my bathroom sink 
maybe they wouldn't all turn
into balls of folded legs--
crumpled beings-- sacrificed
sparks under the over arching 
power of fear.
Drink tea with my moths
and leave my flour jars and
sugar bowls 
until the morning-- I'm
scared of that dust you carry down from
the stars.
I've only ever stepped on marbles--
broken marbles-- the little 
earths of the spider eyes--
nothing broken
but the pine cones of bone.
I'm sorry spiders-- I'm sorry marbles--
I'm sorry to my brother
the centipede.
and to the myself
for becoming so reptilian.