I’m always lurching towards the next
big thing, with eyes like doorknobs
and a mouth like a neat pink ribbon.
I dream that I’m fainting, falling
to the hardwood floor. The ocean spills
out of my mouth and my limbs go numb.
I reach out to the orange coils on the stove,
retreat. Repeat. Water raises up to the surface
of my skin and I let it out with a pin.
I am a well. I keep tiny smokestacks
in a gold coinpurse. I light them
when I think I’m almost there.
our future is nothing but apple crates
full of rose petals. these silken tongues
teach us how to kiss. & then crumble
on our sharp teeth. remember: you take the bleach
to your hair, not to your mouth. eat nothing but
Christ-as-flattened-moon. drink nothing but
water from those lakes on the moon.
we are snow pushed to the side,
wrinkled blueberries clinging to
our tiny vine.
we’re still looking. we tear out
the hems of favorite dresses.
unravel the carpet. maybe
that floorboard shakes loose.
look between the rings of
my tree. they are worthy
of belief.
all the beauty I owned sparked
at the curled ends of my hair.
I cut it off, grew greys like
lightning.
I see you running. Your legs
tear through the air, leave silk
tattered in their wake.
I knew you’d run. As we rolled over
in bed, I saw the signature curve
of your outlaw mouth.
A bandana could never keep it dark.
Your teeth shine through fabric,
generate their own suns.
They will hang you, but it will not
kill you. I imagine your homecoming.
I run my fingers over the permanent
twist in your neck. I cannot believe
this resurrection.
maybe I’m just like that girl
with the rings under her eyes.
the one you said you’d never kiss
again. she threw the pillows
and all the sheets out the window.
everything fell into a bed of
the darkest tulips.
she told me that you called down
and asked her to come back up,
undress, and lie there as if
all that sound
never happened.
you pressed your lips
to the back of her neck.
I shudder just thinking about it.
your voice looks into me
with three dark eyes.
one of them is glass
and I can’t tell which.
this lion I know opened his
glittering mouth and asked me
to place my head inside. his spit
soaked my hair and I was not afraid.
I split from that morning
I woke up in your bed naked.
a streak of light brighter than
red cherries in a white cup.
I heard that the angels are jealous.
joy is to you what heartache is to me.
have you confused my relics
with someone who doesn’t know
the weight of these bones?
the holes full of stars in my teeth?
when the wind stopped blowing,
I stood up, brushed the pollen
away from the curve of my hip.
have I told you that I dream
you are a shepherd? I am a sheep
and you skin me.
I leave behind
piles of earthy clouds.
I can’t say that I didn’t
see this coming. I don’t know
how to hold you or anything else.
when a volcano comes to town,
there’s enough ash to cover the sun.
I keep sleeping because
there is no light to wake me.
Saint George, restore me
to my senses.
All I have is the lonely arc
of what’s left:
a tin of shoe shine,
a bundle of slender matches,
my paper-airplane skin.
I reach up and under
your curtain. I can see
right into the middle-school
gym across the street.
It is full of balloons.
I pray to you as if
God is spun sugar.
My voice is bruised
after being battered
by all those birds.
Can you hear me?
bee stings get louder,
rattle their way into our cars.
it is hot enough in here
to crack eggs on our thighs.
this world is soft-boiled.
one little puncture,
and its whole heart spills out.
if it’s early evening,
it’s time for a good cry.
what’s love?
what’s love?
what turns up in the dark?
this harp inside of me
won’t stop wailing.
he goes to kiss me
and tastes nothing but salt.
"Nor do I seek to understand that I may believe, but I believe that I may understand.
For this, too, I believe, that, unless I first believe, I shall not understand." -St. Anselm
_______________________
her cheeks are white apples,
browning in the fevered sun.
if it swells, you’ll have to come back,
she said, needle in hand.
this is what it takes to get the shards out.
open wild, she says.
your tumbling roof
is dangerous.
I know we all must fall asleep.
I know there are paths
through the woods
that I do not know.
she leans out of my attic window.
my heart is a sinkhole. I fall in.
I think my love for you began
when all our books were destroyed.
The words were gone, so I read
your face instead. I asked you to tell me
about the ocean. Your eyes whispered
of kelp that dances in the deep.
Your brow of the ship that always seems
to lie beneath. Your nose spoke of fins
that brush your thighs so lightly, while
your mouth was a reef in and of itself.
He says that the curl in my hair says come here,
so I lean into him like fistful of thunder.
My teeth whiten. My body says show him
those blueberries hidden in the hems,
the peaches beneath that blouse.
And so I do. This season made of
bedsprings tells me to, and so I do.
before I was born,
several other children
had seen the light of day
but all died in their infancy.
mother’s heart leapt
into a cruel famine.
I tumbled off of a horse,
broke bones I didn’t know
existed.
The white splinters turned
to paper, folded themselves
into cranes
and flew.
The old Rite Aid is now
a haunted house. It instructs
us to feel the silver weight
of fear.
I moved home. I stare into
the gleaming mouth of the
abandoned train tunnel and
see only feathers.
The life that could have been
mine flashes before me over
my morning coffee. She is giving
up an ocean for him.
She holds my slender kitten
in her lap, looks nothing like me.
I gave up the white dress
that skims the floor.
As she walks towards him,
dandelions tremble in her wake,
marvel at the weight
of their own heads.
Are these ghosts?
I crack mine out of
my knuckles while
underwater.
The sound is like nothing
I have ever heard.
did you shake the ground
when you fled,
trailing those lush stolen robes
behind you?
the smell of the church
was still thick on your skin,
the holy trinity rattling
shaken, shaken
by Arian’s sweaty
palms.
cradle the bodies as if they were
your first born. pink & yearning.
pretend they are flushed roses,
dogwoods in bloom, dark tulips
blooming under the window.
does anyone really know how
to carry the dead? to throw the first
heap of dirt over their hands & cheeks
eyes so softly closed? is there a
better way to lower a body into
the earth? we are trembling.
face to ice, rib cracked
blood pours from your mouth
as smooth as the silk I dream about.
the hem of your sky-skirt
frozen to the surface, red hands spread
and shaking against the cold.
start with this snow white
bite of apple, then a taste of
date, watered wine--
the salt that rides in with the tide,
turns our river to ocean.
1
there are bedrooms full of us.
peeling metallic wallpaper,
the music saying all is well
when we clearly know it is not.
maybe we should move to
the side of town God lives on.
2
your body breaks into song
when I leave it alone.
who knew you had perfect pitch?
who knew your voice was a circle
of traps in this wilderness?
tear at my ankles,
keep me here.
Quis ut Deus?
who is like God?
your name is its own
rhetorical question
are you one of us?
one of our adversaries?
a son of light or
a son of darkness?
heaven bleeds like a wound
made of light, a cut
straight to the core.
reach the end of time,
never look back.
fight with those golden fists,
throbbing heart beneath
silver breastplate.
this world is its own
fiery furnace.
look down from your mountain.
lean out over the edge. enlighten us.
your wings are swift.
your breath drives out sin
like a golden bullet
straight to the devil’s heart.
