gender graveyard 

i buried so many genders
in the backyard. i buried them like 
goldfish. wrapped in toilet paper.
marked them each with a little wooden tombstone,
their names written in sharpie.
here was my green gender & my teal gender.
my hawk gender & my hibiscus flower gender
& even the gender that smelled like clean linen. 
no one came with me. the death of a gender
is always such a private thing. 
there is so much cis people don't get
about trans people. they don't know 
that we live the same lives.
only, trans people grieve. cis people
pretend that no part of them has
ever died. that there is no such thing
as a graveyard. i still visit them sometimes.
i bring them tasty cakes & sometimes
a bouquet of dandelions. they are restless.
they beg to take a walk with me by the creek
& i always say yes. i am a push over.
once i looked at the costume jewelry gender
& considered bringing her back inside.
i said, "what if i really was a girl?" she fed me
a drug store box of chocolates. i felt golden.
only then did she say, "i am dead. you will
have to find another." genders are not
like fruit or even like skin. they are 
something else. maybe an archway &
on the worst nights, maybe a mask.
i have seen other people's genders die.
why do we almost always pretend we are
alright when we are not? i was driving
on a magma afternoon. the melted car tires.
i came home to you. you saw my halos.
took them off one by one. the graveyard 
loud as a secret television. i hope the cis people
let it happen by which i mean,
i hope everyone is trans. 

skin sleeping

i sleep with my wings on in case
the house catches fire & i have to leave
with the geese. adults always ask,
"if there's a fire, what would you bring
with you?" i answer, "my backpack"
& they slap a "wrong" buzzer & say,
"you are supposed to leave with nothing."
when i ran from the city, when the skeletons came,
i put all my life in my volvo & drove it into 
the hudson. underneath the water 
i learned to grow gills. i mermaided for years.
left voicemails at my ex's house.
we had broken up too soon & i missed her
more than i had the lungs for.
fish are great comedians. i laughs myself
full of dirty water. i met an eel who promised
he could take me to a place no one else
had ever gone. it was nothing special.
it was just a pile of rocks but it meant something
to him. i think a lot about the decision to
march on land. would it have been better
to remain aquatic. i think that one day
we will get to meet aliens. they will
think it's weird that we sleep. i used to sleep
completely nude as a kid. i called it "skin sleeping"
in my head, not to anyone else. then, once,
my grandmother woke me up. she said,
"what are you doing without clothes on?
what if there is a fire? than you would be 
indecent." i died a little. put on my jeans & t-shirt.
slept with my eyes open, hoping she would
not return to my room. she did not. 
i thought of fire though. flames licking
my bare heels. flesh turned into printer paper.
i made wings the very next morning.
my first ones were from the lids of lowfat yogurts.
i hid them. practiced flying in secret.
no one has ever caught me doing it but if 
they did i would treat them like the eel treated me.
i would show them the collar where the sunrise
makes the world orange cream velvet. 
i might beg them to stay with me. i might say,
"we can make this work. we can make this work."
the message on their voicemail. rusty car
crawling onto land from the primordial water. 

cockroach maker

it is the least popular angel's job
to make the cockroaches.
we opened the windows of the apartment.
let the spring teeth bite our faces.
the first cockroach we saw was in the bedroom.
it scurried like a dead dancer, lost 
in the holy daylight. the place
still smelled like fresh paint. the landlord special.
a layer to veil the lives of the other bodies
who had tried to call the place home. 
the angel was in the closet already, working
as fast as she could. her fingers aching
from pressing legs into bodies.
she built the colony all by herself.
i did not want to believe they were there
at first. i wanted to believe it was just
a stray roach from another room
in the building but then night came. 
our lives were still in boxes & from beneath
the fridge the bugs arrived to form rivers.
they feasted at the ankles of our few 
boxes of food. met their deaths in the freezer,
leaving little corpses in a line
right at the entrance. i looked for the angel.
did not find her for weeks. we learned
to put everything we cared about
into plastic bags. the bugs kept coming.
little disciples of a hollow god. 
i had thought the apartment would be
the start of something new & easier
after years of living inside a show. 
when i visited on a tour 
everything glowed. all the window blinds
were drawn & the sun spilled her face. 
when i found the angel she was weeping.
she said, "i'm sorry" instantly. i told her
not to worry. that at least once in 
all our lives, our job has been to haunt
someone else. i beg her to leave. to stop. 
cockroaches at her feet. i do not tell
my roommate. instead, i try to take care of her.
bring her teas & then bowls of cereal.
the cockroaches still marched around her
to make a kind of halo. i gave up.
bought all kinds of poison. cleaned the skeletons
up from the carpet & around the collars
of the apartment. one day she was just gone.
it felt confusing. who had sent her to me
& why did she stay. sometimes i still
mistake my own shadow for hers.
her fingers, working as fast as they could. 

texting with the trees

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

waiting for cicadas 

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

apiary

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

terrible shepherd

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

giant squid

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

loose moon

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

debate team

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