Alien abduction and unopened peanut butter crackers.

I'm not the only one who's been waiting to be abducted by aliens.
I've thought about them since the age of seven when 
I first saw a blurry image of a flying saucer 
on a daytime History Channel series-- I wish
I could tell you that I've developed a mature sense
of skepticism but instead I keep a disposable camera
in my back pocket and look at the pupils of the stars
through my brother's telescope still
in our sunroom-- see my self near Orion--
cradled curious in the hammock I make of the little
dipper. My backpack is ready 
(in case it were to happen to me today)--I store supplies
in the bottom below my laptop and Shakespeare text book
so they won't know that I've always been ready
I'm stocked with a blue faded notepad 
and two packages of peanut butter crackers.
I imagine aliens eat from toothpaste tubes that taste
vaguely of metal and okra. Maybe we can trade-- like
packed lunches on a bench in fifth grade.
I know aliens aren't green-- the reports confirm
my suspicions-- They're grey-- grey stone-skinned 
and speaking like radio static in my ears and I 
try to tell them to take me with them-- that I 
won't take Polaroids or attempt to 
fillet them open with scalpels-- that I just want something
more than those blurry photos from
shakey-handed men on roof tops looking for
a glint of saucer and for their own breath in the cool desert night. 
What made you crash in Rosewell and did you try to run?
Did they hold you down and did you wish you had
packed peanut butter crackers? I think of you-- 
I think of you like me-- like we both dream of
how the little dipper could hold us the same--
you can put a chip under my skin and I won't
try to take it out. You can track me and you can jar
just one of my kidneys-- I think we only need one 
and if not maybe you can use it to learn how
to speak to us so you don't sound like radio static--
I think we all sound like radio static sometimes.
I wanted to tell you I've held vigil for you by glow
stick and by telescope. I think that your family
somewhere between the Magellanic clouds on the cusp
of the Andromeda galaxy is holding the same service.
Were you looking for us or for corn fields or
for peanut butter crackers? 
I'll tell you what. We can make bracelets-- the
woven ones that humans make in fifth grade.
Sometimes we call them friendship bracelets--
we can make each other one and that we
we can never forget that everyone wants to sleep
in the swallow tongue of the little dipper
and that enough string can make everyone's voice
clear of radio static.
I'm here. I am here-- here in the front lawn
of a house on the little blue planet where
we write in notepads and take too many blurry pictures--
and you were here with me and one of the packs
of peanut butter crackers was for you.   
 

Lemon-lime soda and scars from jewelry I no longer wear.

The first piece of jewelry he gave me
was a bracelet of mosquito bites--
he wore one identical to match with 
beads in the shape of kidney beans, 
chick peas, and frozen blueberries--
and he told me that we didn't need
aloe-- that the longer we wore the bracelets
the more they would fade if we forgot
to itch them-- awaken each jewel he
had placed under our skin with the 
syringe mouth of the mosquitoes. Those creatures
have always followed me for my sweet blood--
the lemon-lime soda that flows through
the canals of veins I carved out with a bendy straw
from years that I used my blood only
to transport guilt and a creative
number of ways to apologize for existing--
stored red cells with the sum of "I'm sorrys" from
spilling glasses of cola on the porch.
I picked broken out of his heels afterward.
The ants would follow the brown syrup 
to the space beneath the folding chairs
and drink cola and talk about how 
mosquitoes prefer the taste of nectar to
that of cola and that cola was better in winter
served warm.
He gave me a necklace too and this time
it was just for me-- placed it around my neck
like an Olympic medal for outstanding
achievement in the fear of dying alone
crushed between book shelves or
bled dry from mosquitoes who came
to know me as a juice pouch-- punctured me
through my forearms and in rows on my sides
to try to get every drop out of me-- I've
always thought my blood tasted metallic and 
slightly like apple juice. 
I came to know the necklace as a noose
like we all do and the bites formed themselves
into a rough chord that I slung over my shoulder
so that I could walk with it-- and he asked 
me if I liked it and I always said I did
but each time the necklace only got heavier until
I could no longer walk away from mosquitoes 
and my skin became a mine field of buried
blueberries and orphaned kidney beans.
He told me that I walked too slow for him
and I repeated my practiced "I'm sorry"s 
that I had stored so long like hard candies 
in the corridors of my veins. He ate
them and told me they tasted like
root beer barrels and reminded him of summer.
He asked if I wanted rings to match
my bracelets and my necklace and I told
him I was going to fill my veins with
aspartame-- that I wasn't going to keep
counting the wounds from bendy straws 
that I wanted to have skin like a piece
of printer paper again and crush mosquitoes
between my index finger and my thumb--
and I would drink diet soda from 
juice boxes on the porch in bold
bare knees without bracelets or blueberries. 

Nineteen years of broadcasts from the roof above our front door
that still has a wreath left over from Christmas but 
is really waiting for a Star of David.

I know it was impractical to dedicate 
my life to the airwaves. I never said
radio was popular or practical but
I knew very early on that I was
designed to be a radio show host.
I found I was chronically being asked
for updates on traffic even when I 
was sandbox-sized-- I knew
it had to be something
inconvenient because it was something
that parents complained about 
from kitchen tables and counter tops--  
I responded that the cicadas were loud outside my
window that night and that cicadas only come out
after thirteen years of living in the 
soils as nymphs so they didn't know
how to harmonize well with other 
creatures. They sing too loud
and I felt bad to tell them
that I was trying to sleep and not
think about stop lights and the way
car horns sound when they're angry
-- I invited the cicadas as guests 
on the perpetual broadcast I hosted 
criss-cross applesauce from the
carpeted floor of a bed room with
two bunk beds that were somehow the 
entire rain forest canopy.
The cicadas politely declined my invitation
and yet felt the need to call in
to request some old 80s tune
that no one knew. I played it anyway
and it reminded me of my father.
I don't get many callers even
when I sit in my favorite spot
perched on the crumbly shingles
of the roof above the front door in Kutztown.
I don't live there anymore and I only
call it home when I'm sleepy and thinking
about banana bread or rainy porches.
I sit there with a coffee mug and the
microphone and sometimes I don't even need
to plug it in for the radio waves
to ripple into the farthest reaches
of the cracked-asphalt roads--
underneath them is where the cicadas 
listen and chatter about the ironies
of human politics--
I can see each word I speak
pulse in the startled lip-hair
of the wheat. 
I'll admit I'm mostly a radio 
host for a continued program about my own
imperfections spelled out in the 
coffee-bean grains at the bottom 
of the mug I hold like another elbow--
I tell the cicadas about my knees and 
the way my hips widen at dusk
when I feel like I've only ever 
talked into an unplugged microphone.
If there were a caller I wouldn't pick up--
We all need to be alone sometimes 
to remember that ache that it is to be human.
The secret is that you have a radio show
too-- only you might not have a microphone
or a roof to sit on that reminds you
of all the homes you have collected--
give me your channel and I swear one of
these nights I'll just listen. I won't call
in-- I know you just want someone to
listen to you and your unplugged microphone 
but I might request and 80s song 
neither of us have heard before
just to remind ourselves that everyone
if beautifully together
and alone between airwaves. 

My guardian angel is a dragonfly
yours was a gypsy moth and I'm sorry. 

I met my guardian angel for the
first time when I was four 
and my mother and my father and I walked 
along the edge of the creek in Fleetwood
before I had brothers and before
I lost the marshmallows in my cheeks.
The moss was slippery but I never
fell even though I was wobbly-kneed 
and anxious like skipping stones.
My angel had wide hub-caps for eyes
and she hovered at a distance.
Her whisper was enough to hold sturdy
my thighs and pull blankets of creek
water over my mushroom feet--
told me I was the kind of dancer
without shoes and without music
The type of dancer who used the rain, 
over-sized t-shirts,
and unplugged electric guitars. 
That was back when animals still listened to
me when I told them I was their sibling.
I walked on all fours in the grass
to uncover acorns with the squirrels
in the melting March. I split watermelon
rinds with the foxes in August when
the sun made us all rancid and sweet.
They called me sister and my angel 
called me "Sarah," and she knew how
far away to watch from.
We don't all get dragonflies I know.
And she lets me fall sometimes but she's 
only five careful cellophane wing beats
away from picking me up and reminding 
me that I rip skirts on tree branches
and eat blue berries like a black bear. 
I can't talk to them anymore-- even
my guardian angel is only a glance.
The foxes speak in a language somewhere 
between German and French and I only
speak Spanish and almost-English--
the dragon flies speak the language 
of five-year-old hands and grass.

Yes, I know, 
you had a gypsy moth and she sewed both
of our lips shut. Picked you up
by the loops of your jeans
and tied you to the trees like a 
marionette-- She said we were her
babies and she never taught you how to 
speak like animals do but she told
you that the best place to live
from was in her silk and in the trees.
I know you watched enough maple trees die
to realize that angels are imperfect 
like skipping stones-- and love isn't
enough to stop your knees from bleeding.
You don't need to wrap your scabs in silk
to feel alive. 

Come with me and we'll love like
dragonflies and clean out our
cuts in the creek water. We don't need silk
and we don't need street lamps to
beat our heads against.
I only need you and hub-caps for eyes.
I love you like a dragonfly even if
we sometimes get strung up in the silk. 

We went to see a movie only to discover
it was about us.

We had not seen a movie
for so long that we had forgotten where
to sit to see the screen. 
The theater was dark and we
followed the lights on the
floor like meandering airplanes
on a runway waiting to escape
to motel vacations in towns
without ice cream parlours.
We found the front row
appealing because it
was the only one where we would
not have to split up or sit next
to strangers and we couldn't see
any of there eyes so we 
didn't trust them. They were too quiet
to be real and they were
the kind of people who ate
one chocolate covered raisin at
a time like rations-- like
war time-- like survivors of air 
raids who packaged themselves
in plastic as spiral mints or promises or fear.
We could feel their eyes
and we had come in late
so the previews had already started.
We were startled to see that we
had already seen the movies that
the previews were for-- one was
about that Christmas when I got a
tea set and cried in the attic
about all the things that don't
fit under trees like hip bones
and sunflowers.
The next was about the boy
I had pretended to have forgotten--
like a ghost lilting on
the shoulder of a pier and I didn't know
if it was a horror film or a romance
or if those are the same thing--
they usually are for me--
I don't sleep after but I miss
those jump scares-- those dark corridors.
The blood, the violins, and the bracelets
still on my dresser.  
Only when the movie started did we begin
to eat the popcorn. We discovered it was stale
and tasted vaguely like packing peanuts--
we made ourselves into care packages
to ship to our future mail boxes
outside of apartments we would rent in cities
and sometimes still feel like
tourists. Buy souvenirs on the way
home from work and sit them on the 
end table as if we had traveled. 
And yes the movie was about us.
After the previews we had only
anticipated the worst. We hoped at least
the other movie goers didn't notice
but the leaned forward in the rows
behind us. We wanted to leave
because they knew how we looked
at ourselves in bathroom mirrors
and how many times we had
eaten while crying and we felt
guilty. We wondered why it had to 
be us up there and why there
wasn't someone else to watch. 
We left before the credits
were over and ate the chocolate
covered raisins and skittles
by the hand full from the curb in 
the parking lot.
You said you wanted to see the movie
that was either a romance or a horror film
and I said it would come around
again. That we could get tickets.  

So, against our better judgement 
we made  bond fire in the living room.

I know it's July but
something felt too cold
and I got desperate. It was
the air conditioner I know--
that metallic breeze that made my throat feel
like stale scrambled eggs
and my knuckles crinkle again like
February-- and I hate February.
I want to be covered in the thing
residue of a Pennsylvania summer that
wraps your wrists in that clear
tape film-- that humidity--
that dizzy spiraling euphoric
heat-- the kind that makes
you want to kiss trees. I've
kissed trees in the heat and
walked on the double yellow
lines to the reality that radiates
from the wobble-lines 
on an asphalt horizon-- I want
to day dream-- heat dream
and so the storm was cruel to us.
We looked out the windows 
and felt cold-- unnaturally cold.
I made the first move and took
the empty pictures frames and broke
them for kindling-- struck the 
matches I was saving for
candles and for praying to 
pictures of Mary on my desk--
I said that we had to decide then 
and there if we were going to do it--
if we needed the heat that badly
and no one objected-- maybe they
were scared of me-- scared of what
the cold does to me-- makes me 
desperate as a copperhead-- as a corn snake
waiting for their blood to freeze solid
like a blue raspberry Popsicle--
And I wanted to makes it before
the thunder turned out
the lights and made us feel guilty
for stealing fire from the Gods in
the first place. We took
only the useless things. We saved
the books even though we all wanted
to see their pages raptured by fire--
we burned coupons and shoe laces
and laptops and the cord that connects
the television to the DVD player--
burned umbrellas and Styrofoam 
(even though we knew that it's
supposed to give you cancer-- we
were already sick from the cold 
waiting heavy in our pores).
Feeling free of something once the flames
took we smiled-- dizzy and hallucinative
that we had made our own sun finally
and that the thunder could
not shake us and the air conditioning could 
no longer confine us to blanket cocoons.
We traded stories about August
and ate only marshmallows for dinner.
When morning came no one missed
the empty picture frames.
We only missed the heat
that we could only still feel in
the cooling ash in the middle
of our scorched carpet. 
   

We came for donuts and somehow ate with God. 

You and me, we have always
come to church for donuts.
And when we count the bells
we think of bear claws
and breaking open the light
sugar--chalk dust-- write
in the red jelly that might
have once been a fruit.
Weren't you scared it was blood.
So I asked my mother why
the bread and the wine didn't
actually look like body and 
blood and she told me that
to some people it did--
and I was scared of it.
Did you break the Boston cream
like bread? Did you find that
the inside was hollow like
Easter and were you looking
for lemon filling?
The chrism was crusty like glaze
and I never felt so full
and so guilty and so fried.
It's nice to walk away from 
an altar and know that even 
after it all we can still
serve oily dough together-- sit and
circles and pretend like
we didn't see anything. We
have all been Peter-- and by
the time the cock crows we have
already ready denied that
we eat donuts after crucifixions.
On occasion I have sat at the far table
where God sits and does Suduko
puzzles while we all make small talk--
he doesn't ask if I listened to
the Gospel according to Luke
or if I remembered to
kneel at the right time or
if I forgot to say the last 
line of the creed-- he asks
why I eat plain donuts.
God eats chocolate-iced donuts with 
rainbow sprinkles just
like my little brother. He
says that they remind him
that not everything has to be
so serious.
I tell him that they taste
like a home I've made up 
in my head. They taste like
the hands of my mother
across the room-- they taste
like safety-- like caves
and like empty tombs. You
are never disappointed in
a plain donut and they always
taste vaguely like
the donut that was seated besides
them in their little cardboard pews.
He asked me again if I liked
plain donuts or just the idea of
them. I denied him
three times before I told him
the truth that I preferred
donuts with the holes already 
cut into them and donuts
without powder to get on my
nice black dress and donuts
without glaze that always left me
feeling like confession and
donuts without cream and fruit
that remind me so much of
our bodies. He told me he understood.
He said he was glad that
someone ate the plain donuts--
he said his son liked coconut cream
donuts and his spirit was always 
in the mood for powdered--
I laughed and said that they
must of been who got
the white powder on my dress.

We drank from honey suckles like tea cups
and walked home with ticks tucked behind
our knees. 

So I asked you what 
we could eat if we all returned 
to the forest today. 
If there would be enough
for everyone to run away
like us with backpacks
of potato rolls and the
coiled bags of goldfish crackers.
Was it true that we could
drink creek water or would
it taste too warm and sea-foamy
like the water from the bathroom sink.
It was the sulking first week
of July
and everything was syrupy-- even
the the tops of our knees
were like sticky buns.
We took our first rest stop to wipe
our legs on the lawn of
the little church perched
on the backroad like
a gatekeeper. The building
had high cheek bones and a mouth
like an old woman. 
We were scared of it--
no one went to church on Sundays there.
The structure  was a street lamp 
in the dark oasis of corn
and wheat that swayed in a trance
of the wind.
I made duck calls from the flattest blades
of grass like our neighbor did.
You laughed and said that we couldn't eat
ducks and I told you that I knew that.
I spent the after noon collecting
the tiny red berries only
to find that neither of us knew
if they were poisonous. 
"I don't want to eat grass," you said
"It tastes too much like hair."
And we knew not to pick the corn
or the wheat because it wasn't
meant for forest people.
It was then we remembered that over
on the over side of the creek was the 
honeysuckle bushes that had the 
butterflies that acted like bullies.
They blinked their wings in your face
trying to keep the nectar to themselves.
We invited them to sit with us
in the tall grass and pretend
that it was sunset and not so dizzy
outside. The butterflies
always drank too much and fell asleep
on our sticky-bun knees.
You asked if we could live on
honeysuckle tea and I said
that that was a question for
another afternoon when it wasn't so 
hot and we weren't still running
away. Even though we walked in 
the opposite direction from home
we still always ended up there.
It was lucky because we had
split that last potato roll and 
dipped it in the nectar. You 
said I could have the whole thing
but I wanted to share it.
Our beds with the blankets
and the scraggy sheets felt like 
plastic wrap that night and we missed
the coolness of the grass.
You asked if it was possible to run away
and I told you the truth 
from my top bunk. I said I knew
it wasn't. That was when we found
the ticks behind our knees. You cried but I was 
used to it by now. The ticks
were to remind us that we get lost
when we only drink nectar and 
walk with sticky bun knees.
You told me you didn't want to leave
again and so the next
time I peeled off the ticks alone
and brought you a honeysuckle
to remind you of the church
that we were both so scared of. 

The ominous nature of Robins Egg Shells 
and glass chess sets.

Does anyone remember if
we broke like
robins eggs or like the blue
and yellow plates that match
the kitchen walls?
Only my brother and I
remember each dish falling one
by one in a parade of buffalo
chicken fingers and smudges of ketchup--
The congealed blood of after school
dinner at the counter
when my father played the role
of chef.
We were the ones who missed
the blue and yellow dishes. 
And I put together our jigsaw puzzle
of almost-holidays like the 
Forth of July or movie night from
the pieces I pick
out of my heels each night before
bed when I sleep in a house
that isn't a house that
doesn't have a kitchen 
or robins eggs. 
But dishes were meant to be broken
and so were robins eggs
so we shouldn't worry about 
how things that can break
always find their way to the 
floor almost as gentle
and as inevitable as my
mother letting down her hair
from the clip she has always
uses to pull those red-brown wavy strands
away from her face
when she makes burnt pancakes
with robins eggs in the morning.
And I only like burnt pancakes 
from Bisquick and wearing over coats
of strawberry jam. They always
taste somewhat like
the sky. That's why we use robins 
eggs-- sky cloudy with flour and 
cloudy with times I have
made pancakes and wiped
grease from my wrists and 
from the cast-iron pan.
The pan that makes
all of us uneasy because
the handle always smells like turkey sausage
links and the timidness of 
an anorexic cooking zucchini.
We all know why we don't like
glass chess sets and yes
they remind me of robins eggs too--
but there has always been
something fragile between us
when we sat on the floor and 
somehow always found ourselves
in a check-mate, you're my younger
brother-- you're not supposed 
to devour my bishops like dinner plates.
When we break the chess set-- make
sure that we can break it like a 
robin's egg-- I don't want to put
it back together. We all knew
you know how to move pawns and
that you always castle your way 
in for the kill. Let's at least
agree to give the robins
eggs so that we can have pancakes
when we're done. I don't remember
what the blue and yellow
dinner plates looked like
but I knew that we didn't mean
to break them. 

Was it the mulberries or the peach pits
that made us so sick?

I know it was you who taught me
how to eat mulberries and they
made us dizzy enough to lean
on wooden fences and pretend
that we could build new stars
from bottle rockets-- I never
liked the taste of breakfast 
when it simmers like a fried egg--
I can feel so much oil under my skin
from what I remember of being sick
off of mulberries. Mulberries
taste like watermelons when
it's July and you're not supposed to eat
them anymore and I told
you I loved you to try to mean it.
I made pancakes with mulberries
and bracelets with mulberries
and strung them around my room until 
they rotted and made everything
sick like wilting August-- but
we kept eating them and eating
them until we forgot that God made
honeysuckles and spearmint leaves
and yogurt. There was only mulberries.
When I first met you I kissed you 
with a peach pit that you threw back
into the garden. Years later 
we will return to find that a tree
has grown only it isn't a peach 
and there will be piles of mulberries 
like maple leaves. We can gather them
up to make a sort of jam to send
each other on Christmas and 
other holidays when I think
about breakfast and beach houses
and VHS tapes stacked underneath 
bunk beds like a books store.
Pick one for me and tell me
that we're brand new like DVDs
or pancake breakfasts.
You know when I kiss people
sometimes it still tastes like
syrup and the rip mulberries
we used to lean on like stars.