I haven't held enough toads in this life time.

We were waiting for April's leg hair
to grow again-- she had worn tight
jeans all winter and knit hats
to hide that her scalp was no longer
just peach skin and cat tongue --
we were waiting for the air to feel
breathy and labored like
the birth of flowers in the front 
lawn who knew they would soon
be decapitated like all the female
martyrs-- to bleed warm milk
from their necks-- rain 
water splashing from their
nostrils like faucets--
we were waiting for rain 
to fall like soup ladles. 
And it like creamy chicken noodles--
came just for the purpose
of waking up the toads.
They were each buried like flowering tea and 
lost keys to the garage door
that long ago broke off it's hinges--
We brushed the hand-cut noodles off the 
porch to see the toads waiting for 
us there. My brother, my father, and
I stood to see them all wearing their newest 
stone-skin and wishing well eyes--
My father taught me my hands were
a microcosm-- a cave-- a cradle--
a cage for me to eat handfuls 
of soil with-- but at least
it tasted like chicken noodle soup
when it rained in April-- there
was no chicken-- only rain and
noodles and some sort
of broth that made the toads
tell us stories of how far they had 
burrowed in the earth since we'd seen them 
last. Held each one tight enough
so that their face peered from between
our index finger and out thumb--
I kissed each one but not for a prince--
just for the secrets they told me
about China and the remnants of the 
old chicken coup under the porch--
They told me that I would always be
their first and their last lover--
because toads turn to stone
in October--
Maybe if I held more toads 
and collected less stones I would
know more about chicken soup and China
and I would eat less soil
and be reminded of the things my
father taught me with
toads and my hands and
the microcosms they hold
between my index finger and 
my thumb. 

When I die leave me out on the corner 
like a slumped tweed sofa with wine stains
or the Christmas tree still looking
for her roots.

I have to admit that I love the soil.
I love worms. I love the August
that makes dirt into oatmeal into
grits-- into cream of wheat-- into
split pea soup after a storm. I'd love
to live there. Buried
to my neck like a sculpture--
like how they found the Sphinx--
broken nosed and peaceful like
a prize in a box of stale crackerjacks--
Yes-- I compared myself lifeless body
 to  a lioness-- 
Sadly, I have a bias.

I think the soil is for growing.
Maybe you can just plant my thumbs
I'd like that. Out by where
we tried to grow sunflowers
that died in a drought-- they would
grow spearmint trees and my children
would return with their children and 
point the thicket and say
"And that is your grandparent."

"How did they get so old?"
 
As far as I know my dead body will
not be doing much growing without my thumbs--
especially not sealed up in a casket
like a zip-lock bag-- save
the shoe box for the dead sunflowers--
everyone forgets the dead sunflowers. 
 
I'm purposing the family walks me
out to curb. If you already rented a hearse
Instruct the driver to take everyone for a spin
to get ice cream-- preferably 
Dairy Queen in honor of me.
Don't cry. Ice cream and crying 
get mixed far too often.
Tell them you're burrowing
the hearse from a friend and
buy a pineapple sundae for me.

Sit me out on the curb like something 
honorable. Like a tweed sofa
left over from a dorm room--
wine stained on the cushions that look like
a birth marks or rashes. Don't let
the garbage truck take me--

I want to be sat out 
with a sign that reads
"Free to a good home"
like accidental puppies
or Christmas trees.It will be easier 
for the angels to happen upon me
that way (assuming angels will
be looking for me).

I've heard sometimes they disguise themselves
as garbage men
or mail carriers-- they can pick
me up by the collar of my shirt--
take me to sit on another curb
outside of heaven.
When they arrive in January to
clean up the Christmas trees--
dust pans in hand for the needles--

When you all come back from ice cream
I'll be gone. No shovels.
No oatmeal dirt. No tombstone
with death scarred into its face.
Remember me and how I hated 
the mailbox. Send me letters if you think
of it and when a spear mint bush
grows in the front yard 
remember your parent grew from
their thumbs.

Remember that I was taken from
curb side with the Christmas tree--
Both of us left behind roots
that still grow spear mint. 
Sit on the tweed sofa
and eat the pineapple sundae--
melted from the car ride home. 

If me and you owned a crab apple orchard.

When I asked if we could grow 
an apple tree my father said that 
crab apples don't taste very good--
He said I'd get sick if I tried them--
So I smashed crab apples like
daddy long leggers or 
coffee beans or blue berries under
my black canvas shoes in the driveway
of my aunt's house.
It was September but only 
in the wind chimes.

I don't think anyone ever really tried 
to appreciate crab apples though--
Not like I would.

You'd tell me that apple trees take years
while I'd get on all four and dip
each seed into the ground like
stitches in a quilt held together
with dental floss-- each push
of earth and soil and warmth like
oatmeal with dried apple on your toes
-- like pink gums in the bathroom mirror
after midnight was a regret
when even your teeth want to sleep-- 

For my orchard I would buy enough acres to hold the 
moon if it decided to land-- Crab apples
need room to scurry and discover
and feel and taste the earth
where their delicious red and gold
brothers rotted and turned 
to cider in the soil-- need 
room to breathe and gasp and
taste summer with their stems.
They need to learn what
caramel is from the whispers
of aging bees.

I would tell you when
harvest is coming. I will tell you
when we will start making cider to dip our
ginger snaps and apple pie as
warm as soil
to melt vanilla ice cream on. 

You will play along even though
you don't believe in crab apples
because you believe in me
and you believe in the moon.

You'll ask me how many crab apples
it takes to fill a pie crust
and how many crab apples 
it would take to fill the moon
if it decided to land in our orchard.

We'll pass the afternoons
making of games of hide and seek
between the thin trunks
of the trees that somehow
grew as tall as lamp posts
since late June when I planted them.

You'll tell me how the crab
apples likes me. How they miss
me at night when I sleep away
from them.
We'll take out sleeping bags 
to keep them company when the nights
start to make the soil shiver
and the wind chimes sound more
like bones that teeth.
We'll read them bed time stories
and tell them about the moon.
And you'll still only 
believe in me and quilts and
the persistence of Autumn.

Crab apple harvest happens
over night. In the full of the moon.
In the company of sleeping bags--
bodies entangled like roots.
Emerged in the frost melted froth 
of morning--

You would pick one apple
on the ground next to us.
It would be somehow the size of the moon
and sitting in your hand.
You'd ask what had
become of the timid stars we had known.
I would say that they becamse an orchard.
 
You would tell me that you
still didn't believe in crab apples
but that tonight we could make
cider to dip our ginger snaps into
and apple pie to melt vanilla ice cream
if I still wanted to teach
a non believer how to make
moons out of crab apples.

Who ever sang to you was lying
We weren't meant to love like music.

I don't think I've ever loved anyone
like a love song or a c-chord
wedged in the middle of a progression
like an unfulfilled obligation

-- believe me darlings
my sweet peas, my Brussels sprouts,
my mandolins--
I've tried to write songs
for all of you.

I harmonize Splenda packets on strawberries--
voice cracks like a c-chord
on the side of a mixing bowl--
I've lied with other people's
words, darlin, mandolin-- 
I'll snap my fingers like a D-string
and a thumb.

we aren't really  like that, sweet pea.
my midnight mashed-potato lover
we don't measure into  yellow packets
on any Tuesday-- 
I won't package you shut like separate sides 
of bunk beds we learn to sleep on. 
Take your blankets and I'll take 
mine.

I've tried to teach my throat 
to be a trumpet-- but I quit trumpet
in the fifth grade and 
now I can only play "taps" 

these lips can't bite into a chorus--
and my verses are the worn
away heels of our favorite socks--
the ones we don't throw out even
though we know we should.

chorus, chorus, 
"love me like forever"
"love me like a chorus"

I don't want to repeat this thing
tomorrow-- we can make
tomorrow tomorrow and today
today and next Tuesday 
a trumpet if we can remember

chorus, chorus, kick-line-base drums to the next
time I say goodbye like there was a plane
waiting for you at the end of my driveway
instead of a bus stop--

don't leave me with
my own wrists-- 
they scare me and hang me--
like string bass necks

If you stay
I won't lie to you with a love song
I won't write you a poem today like I could
put us in a Splenda packet or sleeping
bag or a c-chord

Don't hear me wrong
My darling, my sweet pea
my mandolin, my naked strawberries 
I don't mean that you don't make
me sing like the trumpets I can't play--
I just mean that it's not really
a song. 

In defense of stale Cheerios and 1/3 measuring cups
i fit into if i curl up like a cinnamon roll. 

On Tuesday nights my worries fit
into 3/4 of a cup and that's lucky
because my body takes up 
1/3 when i coil-- a pecan viper--
a cinnamon bun boa-- who has always
been scared of the cold-- you've taught me since

i learned to eat that these bodies 
were meant to be whole-- 
that when God plucked a rib 
from Adam to make Eve that
she wasn't ever meant to 
fully reside in any of the 
spaces she baked herself into-- she'd
still be 1/24 a sliver of someone
else's bone-powered measured
off to make cinnamon rolls--
that's what we do-- we measure 
and bake with our ribs--

take the knife
across my brow to level off the stray 
flour on my forehead-- 
in the sign of the cross--

we're baking
muffins you say-- as if it were obvious--

you don't notice
i measure every movement from
my feet walking morning
to the crinkle of my neck bone
against the pillow-- trying to burrow
deep enough to sleep-- to the 
stale Cheerios next to the coffee machine
that i don't eat for breakfast--

i like my cereal stale
because it tastes like yesterday
and forgetting.
it reminds me of the foam packing peanuts 
they used to ship me to my mother.
i arrived in pieces to be assembled
like a ikea bed frame

She told me she's sorry
she's still looking for one bolt
of the 24--

i was born into the 1/3 of a cup 
where i wake up and sometimes
you make me feel like 3/4--
like a tuesday-- like danger and
like overflowing-- we all measure
more sugar than we need into 
muffin batter if we're making them for
someone else--

and i think i've been scared of us 
because you've never noticed
how i take up 1/3 of a measuring cup
and i feel like sometimes i might
have 24 ribs when you wipe
the bone power from my sleeves--

you say that people we're meant for
measuring cups

it's hard because
i was born into one. 

That's why
i'm the baker and you're the chef--
there needs to be some order or
someone always forgets the
baking powder-- and then no 
one will rise but i know
love wasn't meant for measuring cups--

i just want to know
how much space we fill 

but i shouldn't
and i won't
and i can't

i'll scoop the stale Cheerios.
you'll watch and 
forget that i measure
everything but us. 

Summer wanted me naked--
and I showered in a thunder storm
just to tempt her.

Summer was the lover who used
my ribs like rungs on a ladder--
broke each step on her way
up to my lips-- where she poured
into me like rain gutters-- dead 
leaves ripped loose by a storm
stuck like scabs to my thighs --
like toad hand prints 
and sleepovers
and midnight.

Summer wants me waiting
but I have long been estranged
I only talk to her from the porch 
when the air is too thick for
me to walk away anymore-- when
the slit-grass scent of her neck
comes in whispers through the 
air conditioning-- and I am
cold and I want the humidity
to paint my forehead like an 
impressionist-- I have promised
to never be a muse again but
Oh! when she tells me to poise
and pulls my hair like green corn--

Summer wants me naked and hair
down to my knees-- tells me
to be her goddess again-- tells
me that she needs me
and that she knows that only
I can understand when she speaks
in cicada or wind chimes-- tells me that
winter made clothing for people
who have decided to settle on loving
themselves first-- she says that
I was never the one to wear
so many scarves-- she knows 
I look at myself naked in the mirror
before a shower-- she knows
that I'm not scared of my hips
anymore (or at least that I pretend 
not to fear them)--

Summer wants me downpour door-closed 
when she decides to hail-- held in 
the space between the double yellow
lines on the corn roads where 
I liked how to peel off ticks from
behind my knees--
Where I learned I could be naked
only in my own skin--
I learned I was watermelon rind 
and I never kneed her for
anything but the lust of fireflies

Summer sent me sea shells in the mail
and I made necklaces to bade off
the coming jaws of autumn.
I've never been ready to move
on from the kind of love 
summer teaches you to make
wearing nothing but your hips
in the bathroom mirror.

It was my mother who always told 
me not to take a shower in a lightning 
storm-- told me I was the kind of
girl who was bound to be a lightning rod.

Summer wanted me electric-- wanted me
rapture wanted me static and radio
garble-- and dead tree branches
across the stream that flowed
like lust and blood
and I stood naked in shower steam--
told her I was my own summer--
and sand washed down the drain.

Summer wanted me naked
and I dared her to touch
me through the mist of
the bathroom mirror-- 
shake me with thunder
but I know my hips now
and I know the cicadas 
go quiet for me. 

The dissection of my torso with a pairing knife
as if I were a seeded watermelon

I'd prefer to be cut slow and gentle
with a pairing knife-- the type of knife 
they only use for sickly-ripe fruit.
I wear bruised brown lips--
all syrup from the impact of kisses--
I'm okay with being taken apart
if you give me the respect
of a strawberry-- the wisdom of a plantain 
or the patient stubble of a white peach 
who was also my grandmother--
the a peach- pit encased in blood
and knee bone--
 
I will warn you that other boys
say that I don't come apart easy--
they gossip that my skin can be like a watermelon--
a seeded watermelon-- oblong and 
wriggling in the cage of the shopping cart--
Bruises on watermelons don't count.

You may have to use pliers--
I've been cinched up tight like
turkey necks and voodoo-- 
sewn shut wire-jaws of the flounder
at the market-- agape and still 
tasting salt water in prayer--

Snap the white lace bra I don't wear anymore--
make the incision 
at the base of my sternum-- 
like Christmas
or birthdays or
other days made for boys
to break bows with pliers--
the pomegranate beads
under my skin will paint the bra violets
the kind of blood only underneath a bruise--
I know you imagined we all bleed
like apples--

Oh! Boys are scared of dissecting me--
they're still scared of growing watermelons
in their stomachs and still stinging from
the last time they mistook an apple
for a rib cage-- for love-- for lips
for bruises-- for Eve-- oh Eve!
Eve who I dissected at the base of the
sternum like a pomegranate just to
see if she looked like me on
the inside-- Eve with the black
seeds and the broken pairing knives
in between her ribs left
over from boys who gave up--
they were always to dull to cut us--
to figure us out--

I was the watermelon and she was the pomegranate--
and we spelled temptation with fractured
bones and brown bruised lips--
she was willing to pretend I was a peach 
if I could forget she was the apple
with the purple blood. 

Cut me with the pairing knife
take your time-- there's lots of seeds. 

 





 

I have the affliction of waiting like a mailbox and 
only eating halves of everything bagels.

Sit with me on the stoney-chinned
front porch steps while I try to cross my legs
like the other girls-- like how they told us 
you're supposed to sit when you wear
a skirt. I sit like my own mother
in the grass in sweat pants with 
flour stains on the thighs 
from pancakes and pecan swirls
that peel apart in ringlets to the edge of 
this galaxy we unravel the gauze of
when we're ten year olds.
Learn how scabs and scars are like stickie notes
to write reminders on--
I've never been able to shake the feeling of waiting and 
waiting to be younger. Younger and standing in underpants
on the front porch in the rain. Older and waiting
to be sixteen and driving big cars and
marrying boys who know how to tie their own 
ties-- and telling myself I don't want
to kiss girls because girls don't kiss
girls
girls kiss boys who know how to tie
their own ties who like girls who sit
with crossed legs and pleated skirts. 
But girls don't have knees like mine
and I'm a person who holds everything
in their knees-- and in the 
wrinkles on their knees like
tree skin or cream cheese. 
I've got this mailbox head hung from
too many check books and magazines and not
enough letters from grandmother
who don't hold pens anymore-- too many newspapers 
rolled like pecan swirls 
thick and sugary with headlines
about next year and how next year
the world is going to end for
a third time. I've been sitting
on this front porch waiting for a particular 
letter and waiting to send another--
I've used my thumb print as a postage stamp
they know it's me-- 
I'm waiting for you to write to me--
the person twenty-years-tall who has
just as little answers as half themselves--
I'm sending a love letter to the person
who will find my knees endearing
and kiss my cheeks like bagels--
dust the sesame seeds off the counter
and count my poppy seeds like stars.
This love letter is for someone who
doesn't tie their own tie and I know
how wreckless that is but I've never been
able to eat a whole bagel so I'll
unfurl myself in two and leave
the other half waiting for
you on this stoney- nose porch while I wait for
the mail truck with answers
licked away in envelopes--
I hope you got my letter and recognized
the thumb print is the same as the patterns on
my knees. 
I saved you the fluffy 
top-half of the bagel.
And you said you loved how
my knees are wrinkled like 
tree skin and cream
cheese. 

I love like a baker.
My dear, 
eat the first muffin
before it cools.
The first one is always for
you.

The semi-sweet chocolate melted
on my knuckles remind me that I love like a baker.
And I'm sorry.
I love you like a baker.
I'm tied up in apron stirs and 
I use wooden spoons to write love letters.

My dear, I save the pens for cook book edits
and poetry--

I've never needed a formula for what we make--
We always have more
strawberries than the 
recipe calls for--

but who in this world can survive 
on only a cup of strawberries--
 
Sometimes the only way I know how
to kiss you is in macaroons
and the sweet circus tents of mint meringues.
There's butter on my sweater sleeves
and my wrists always smell like stirring. 
Stirring egg whites to a foam--
stirring midnight folded into you like the dry mix
of flour, baking power, and salt--
stirring without a the wooden spoon--

Mashed in fingers-- my love
is doughy like muffin mix
and pours thin some mornings like
cupcakes-- rests easy in the 
familiar spoonful of chocolate chip cookies--
presses lightly in your mouth
like raspberry thumbprints--
And who doesn't want chocolate chip cookies?

I know it's not easy to love a baker
and sometimes I bake too many gingerbread men
to fit in the oven-- Eat dough
like my obsession with apology--
I save the burnt-rim cookies for myself
because my love is only allowed to be 
golden like pancake faces and creme brulee--
I don't want you to know that even bakers
burn the edges sometimes-- 

But you say that everyone is golden 
and everyone is burnt sometimes.

You say you love a baker so you're
used to the butter stains on our sleeves
and recipe cards on the night stand.
You're used to preheating ovens and the timers
always set on my cell phone--
you don't flinch at alarms because
you know it only means that muffins are ready--
you let me hold the tooth picks
and keep bowls of lemon zest in the sock drawer.

I know you're not always hungry for banana bread
I know sometimes the lemon bars
taste faintly of melancholy
I know sometimes I can be a whisk
and sometimes I see skin too much 
like parchment paper--

hold on to me like oven mitts

Call me "Other" 
and I'll seal myself inside the 
cardboard refrigerator box
like a sarcophagus. 

You watched me peel off my
earrings by the side of the stream--
laid them to rest on the knuckles of the rocks--
in my knee high socks that
reach the moon--
I had worn the inside out overcoats of the dogbane
beetles-- undid my lips like snap
peas--
hung them on the trees for you 
to see I was never a girl
with cactus flower knees--
I'm makin a plea for my guilt
I've only ever been like a rock--
who tried to wear lipstick that always
turned blue in the sun like my blood
--got sick off absinthe and apologies
for trying to be something other than
your hourglass--do you think I'll pass 
for a Pharaoh or will they call me
princess
call me alien-- call me A.I.
I'm not a lie-- just the spoon that holds
the sunset--
the wet canvas shoes in the shallows 
of the stream where you still fish for 
my earrings and my virginity--  
fill my mouth with sand and tell me how
many minutes I can hold my
breath underwater--
like a knuckle-- like manikin face--
could you wrap me in enough lace
to make me a woman-- tie the apron
strings and tell me to make pot roast
but I'll always be a breakfast sprite--
Flip pancakes in the crock pot
make love to me on the toast medallions
from the birds-in-a-nest-- still singing 
like morning doves in the pan--
you remember I don't cook with oil.
I don't cook meat because it reminds
me too much of my own thighs--
did you hear me sigh when you
called me "lady, little miss,
the girl with pussy willows growing 
from her legs"
Put me in the box and remember I was always
a Pharaoh. Don't call me princess
I have enough honey collected
in the bottom of my tea cups for both of 
us-- I'm not a lie-- I'm the space
between your fingers where you're holding a pen--
write my name is "Sarah," and 
I didn't need to be a queen to rule Egypt--
kiss the dogbane beetles I wedged in my knuckles.
And the coffin is only a refrigerator box--
but remember my socks reach the moon. 

My gender is a sunset spoon-- hold
me steady-- I tip like an hourglass