what is left

it takes a body much longer
to decay than you might think.
it has been more than a year
& there are still fragments of muscle & flesh
on the deer in our yard.
in the summer, the grass grew tall
& swallowed the bones. i would sometimes
forget where he was. then, picking
through the brush, i would see the antlers. 
his ghost comes on the fog
to keep vigil. i go & join him. i ask him 
questions about what he is waiting for.
i love when people call death,
"transition." i started hearing it 
sometime last year. i thought of my own
bodies. the ones in the yard & the ones
on the lawn. the ones i use as scarecrows
to try to keep people from eating the corn.
the dear's skeleton lays as if he is sleeping.
knees curled into chest. his resting skull.
i fill my old skulls with water.
tell the birds to drink. i am trying to understand
what is left behind when we transition.
it is not just the blood. footprints.
all the paths the deer walked. headlights.
i want to shake the dirt. i want to 
be the zombie tonight. wake up
as a girl & run screaming. barefoot moon.
ugly ragged dawn. let's not get
too carried away. i guess what i mean is
who tends to what is left behind? 
is there another world where my old face
lives with the deer lives with the wrinkled apple lives
with the first of coins. the old ones 
no one can use any more. money of dead king.
i am alive in the transition of 
an empire. the fogs comes & with it, the deer. 

 

famine portrait 

i get the elbow face together
of all the last genders i have.
culled for them in the dusty corners
of the living room. we all smile
the way that power drills smile.
smell of scuffed shoes
in the hallway of the church. 
it is canned family day. brine 
of our chins. my youngest brother
is cream cheese on a knife. he cries
& so all of us cry only for me
i do that with my lungs.
two aspergillums, dispensing holy 
summer rain on a vision of
my paper towel self. the background
is grey. the photographer chews
ugly bruise gum. i don't know
what we're trying to have. 
just like i'm not sure what
i'm trying to be. i wonder if i might
still breathe if i am the size
of an eyelash. if, when people blink
they only have a fifty-fifty shot
of whether or not they see me.
years later my mother will 
look at the portrait in the sunroom
& ask if i want another. if now
i don't see myself in those pictures
anymore. she will be talking about gender
but i will hear it as more. more like,
"were any of us there?"
we don't go to church anymore. we don't
sit for portraits. 
there is something terrifying
about any staged photo. the way
the truth cannot escape. 
no where to hide your teeth. 
shovels we each harbored under our tongues.
i always tell her i don't need
another picture. that that one held 
a fragment of our lives. my brother
weeping in the light. my collar bones
like a pair of sea gull wings. 

drought

i microwave my halo to get it ready.
mom says, "suck on your tongue."
spit is a kind of holy river. the grass
turns all potato chip by the pool & everyone
is jumping despite there being
no water. i remember the weeks
after i grew wings. no one wanted
to talk about it. so, i flew over
the small suburbs & dropped love letters
on strangers heads. you can get 
so thirsty that you start speaking
a new language. that your put your ear
to the ground to listen for springs.
i only hear static. 
i have never been good at finding 
new wells. instead i take my teeth out
one at a time to use like hard candies.
to my surprise, some of my teeth had 
initials engraved on the bottom.
most mysteries are just red herrings.
call my parents' house to weep.
no one usually picks up. i leave
voicemail after voicemail. once i spoke
& pleaded, "come back." the rain cloud farm.
plucking one drop at a time. 
each so fucking sweet. 
once, my father took us to the aquarium
after he died. we are a family
of resurrections. none of the tanks
had water. the sharks wore halos just
like mine. we pressed our faces
to the glass. string rays like paper plates.
when it was over we all went to stare 
at the river. shoes & skeletons 
& even an old ship waited there. 
i wondered how hard it would be
to be a ghost. would i miss them?
all around us, water. water in our lungs
& water in our fishbowl eyes. 
before i knew it i was alone again. 
a disciple of a faucet. washing 
my face with air like i am now. i haven't seen
real fresh water in years. if i had some
i have to admit i would not share it.
i would cup my hands. swallow it
like a stolen crown jewel. 

ai shark woman

it's the car crash syndrome.
a fear of looking away & a fear of looking.
i don't know what
i'm watching for but i spend thirty minutes
scrolling through a tiktok page
that is all ai generated. it is of a researcher woman
with a great white shark. the shark looks
terrified as if he is trapped inside a dream.
those deep blackberry eyes. 
his jagged teeth. her misshapen nose. 
her freckles stolen from a deep wound.
they both look like they're calling for help. 
the comments are scattered. some people
who say, "this is clearly ai" & others
that say, "i am worried for this woman"
& "do we know her name?"
her face shifts slightly from video to video.
skin putty. the bone beneath the bedsheet. 
sometimes she is ugly. other times,
gorgeous. in some videos she is ocean swimming 
& scraping barnacles from the bodies of whales. 
i make myself turn it off. worry that 
i have watched for too long & some of it
has rubbed off on me. in our internet now
everything is contagious. if you watch
one shark ai video for too long &
soon it is all you will see. i am swimming.
i have a butter knife & i am cleaning 
the not-real whales with her. we are far
from any piece of land. gutless waves.
her eyes eat each other. the sharks. 
all the sharks. they do not circle. they do not
ask to devour us. instead, they wait
& watch. i see them everywhere now.
in the mirror. in the bathtub. on the sidewalk.
the video i dislike most from the account
is of a beached megalodon, an ancient giant shark.
the researchers stand inside his colossal mouth. 
sky tinted like a bruise. they snap pictures. he waits. 

search history

here are the worms. here are
their children. here is my father
buying a gun. here is your name
plugged into a god machine.
everyone else with that name
standing in a room 
that smells like iron. i clear
my search history often. 
i don't know what i think i'm doing.
goodbye past. goodbye present.
it feels like telling the birds to 
have a feast from my bread crumb trail.
there is a witch in the woods.
i am the witch in the woods. 
my fbi agent takes notes. goes for a walk.
considers what it would be like
to lay beside me on a really really
big bed. not in a sexual way
but in the same way people lay
beside their dogs. he drinks coffee
too late. i drink coffee too late.
i stare into a camera that i shouldn't know
is a camera. i am being watched. 
i am being hidden. i am searching
for crock pot recipes. a bear wanders
down from the mountain.
he has not been able to sleep. 
we stay up in the yard watching
bad old youtube videos. he thinks
that humans should try hibernating.
birds fall from the sky. the bear
is angry & turns against me. i swipe
the laptop from him. i can't live
without my little shark cage.
the water is full of coupons. i grab one.
buy on get one coffin free. 
ordered. they come in the mail
& they are the size of thumbs. 
finger coffins. i did not read 
the measurements. to be safe,
i order three more in case
the bear returns & deforests 
one of my hands. you never know
exactly what you're going to lose.

meadow 

in the field where we used to 
talk to deer, they are growing houses.
tiny as corn kernels. each with a little
hopeful family inside. the father
does not sleep. the mother stands
on the roof & shakes her fist 
at the sun. each year they take
another field nearby & turn it into
suburbia. streets with names like
"meadow" & "honey locust." we live
on a snake's neck turn where
the fields are thrumming with
winter geese. i go & pluck just one house
to take home. i know in the coming days
it will swell & i will no longer 
be able to carry it. i don't know
why i do this but i have to see what 
the tiny people want. i hear them talk
about a new car. i hear them talk about
central air & shoe laces. the children
climb out & around my house.
they eat turkish delight & bananas. they
finger paint on the ceiling. their lines
look like bird footprints. 
i have to keep sucking them up
with the vacuum & pushing them back
inside the house. they say,
"will you adopt us?" i shake my head.
i do not know how to help these
children. the house grows.
to the size of a watermelon 
& then an old tire. i ask my partner
to help me roll it back out
to where they are cutting the earth
like a sheet cake. happy birthday
to someone. we manage to return the house.
the walls are angry. we hear them keening like
freshly lit wood. the children wave
out the windows. the mother, now 
asleep on the roof. the father 
walking back & forth in the living room.
he puts up a sign for a security company
& another that reads, "no trespassing." 

the creek after the storm

i know what it is like
to be rushed with voices.
the old blood & the older blood.
we take leaves & send them
like ambulances into the water.
there are fish with more home
than yesterday. their memories
of the pounding deluge.
their knowledge that soon again
it will be gone. the drought 
last year that left them gasping
in the mud. why must the world
take us one such orbits?
when i am closest to the dunk tank
i consider what it would be like
to lay on my back & follow 
this bursting river? would we finally
find the creatures with our
backward faces? would the shadows
have hair? i know less
& less about escape these days.
i am more familiar with the process
of wading in. kiss the bark
on the trees. thank them for
their arms that burn in the guts
of the wood stove. i ask if the creek
prefers to be full like this or
to be parched? the water babbles
& laughs. as if it is even a question.
as if there is anyone who doesn't want
to wake up to find a head of hair
when you didn't have one. 
i do not go into the water because
i know if i did i would never come out.
would become a crayfish or,
maybe if the world was extra generous,
just a smoothing stone 
for the water to play with
on her fat beautiful tongue. 

butterflies

we have to talk about butterflies.
i feel like when i was a jump rope 
everyone was always talking
about butterflies. their life cycles
& their wings & nectar feasts.
now, i'm an adult
& all we talk about is how 
fucking hungry we are. 
i get it. i really do. you start to forget
what you're supposed to do 
with your teeth. 
we have butterflies though & sometimes
if the season is right they fill the window
& ask all the questions you want people
to ask but they don't like,
"if you could start over again
what kind of animal would you become?"
i give them answers in the form
of poems. i fold them into butterflies
& then my butterflies join their 
butterflies. once i saw a butterfly
crawl out of a lover's mouth while
they were sleeping. i caught it & considered
letting it die inside a mason jar.
then, i could keep the wings. i wept,
feeling sick that i even thought of this.
i let the creature go & begged her
to forgive me. in first grade we raised
butterflies. monarchs. then, as a class,
we went out to the schoolyard 
& watched our teacher let them go.
some of them lingered. i opened my mouth
& one flew inside. he has lived here
ever since. i feel him sometimes
moving from lung to lung.
we have to keep talking about butterflies.
i will be honest, i do not think
they will save us. i do not know
what will save us. still, when i feel
the thumb of that creature. my blood,
a hydrangea bush. i am reminded that 
we all come from endings. tongues broken.
migrations of color from one bone
to another. a butterfly asks me,
"do you want to sleep longer than
the day will allow?" 
i confess to her, "lately, i do."

anatomy of my grandmother's car

the smell of cigarettes. a burn on
the door. the two places where
she used to grip the steering wheel,
both of them smudged black.
i road with her only once 
in that car. we were going to 
a movie neither of us ended up liking.
i had stayed with her one weekend.
we did not know each other. me,
a round & tumbling creature, her
like a wrought iron gate. she was thin
& wore a deep red lipstick. we never
knew what to say to each other. 
they had to take her car from her.
she had started to forget the day
& then our names & then what year
we were all stuck inside of.
when she stopped driving, i got her car.
she was not gone but still, her ghost
would sit shotgun. 
i drove as much as i could. into 
the sun & back. parking lot
after parking lot. i would always discover
new bones. the cigarette lighter
in the dashboard. a notebook in
the bottom of the glove box. 
a bonnet folded in the pocket 
on the back of the seat. then, the guts.
i crashed the car only a block
from the dorms. the smoke &
the smell of oil. tubes & grit.
i sat on the curb looking at the car.
my grandmother, standing there
with me, cigarette in her mouth. 
her smoke mixing with that of the car. 
totaled. the parts now scattered
like lost freckles. she died a year
or so later. the world was cold.
the ghost car was idling outside. 
we both got in. i told her about my favorite
little town i used to ride to. we went
together & it was the best moments
we ever shared. 
her & the car, already gone. 

strip mall ode / elegy 

i don't want to get where i'm going.
i want to buy something useless
or fix my car in the sky.
i want to eat with my hands
in the folding chair world.
cross my fingers in my pockets.
tell a glorious lie
about where i'm from. 
dry clean my lungs & wait 
for them in my idling zombie car.
turn the moon inside out
& shake it for change. 
the glass eye shop windows 
& all their open secrets.
once, here was a place we came
to worship a hole in the earth. once,
here was a buffet where
no one left hungry.
teeth in a little mason jar.
a sea gull flock lost & without
an ocean in sight. these are
the places that i go 
to be fifteen again. where 
i make a boyfriend from 
the ditches & the farewell weeds.
a dandelion is always winking.
a secret not received.
i love to pull over. i love to
be where i don't belong
which is easy because
i don't really belong anywhere.
broken tongue 
of an old ice cream place.
a dog shitting 
on the one little patch
of grass. there are flies 
already. halos for fallen birds
& trash. i stay just
a little longer. the highway
outside is a piece of licorice.
the stoplights, cough drops.
i have driven this road
in my sleep.