I found a cushion to curl up on.
The loveseat winced under
my weight. I turned its red velvet
burnt orange. There was a small fire.
A quivering blue core asked me if
I could name a few moons just to
pass the time. Before I could begin,
I heard Bea Arthur whisper from the
television in the other room,
I could vomit just looking at you.
Quiet. I wait patiently for the ice
that the weatherman blushes over.
and gussied up,
I strapped a rocket
to the small of my back
and pressed my face
against the cool wallpaper
of the bedroom.
I lit the wick
and sent today hurtling,
skirts singed at the hems.
Wednesday is submerged
in the glass of water
on my nightstand.
in mid-sleep, I hide things
between mattress and
boxsprings.
I toss these layers off.
while dreaming myself small,
the alarm nags me awake.
I find a Ball jar of balloons
next to my clock
with a note that says:
inflate.
I stare into the mouth of the abandoned train tunnel
and see only feathers. The old Rite Aid is now a haunted house.
The world I gave up looks at me with three dark eyes.
One of them is glass and I can’t tell which.
The ring that could have been mine flutters down to the starry
bottom of the pool. She looks nothing like me.
Her heart is a dinner table with starched napkins.
This lion I just met at dinner opened his glittering mouth
and asked me to place my head inside.
I am not afraid.
bee stings get louder,
rattle their way
into the car.
heat slows the speed
of their wings.
they hover
and wait.
this world is
soft-boiled.
what’s love?
what’s love?
what turns up
in the dark?
this harp inside of me
barely sings.
I am blessed
with an instrument
that cannot wail.
he goes to kiss me
and tastes nothing
but salt.
Solemnity of Mary
you open your mouth
and a moon bursts open.
How did the sky
know you were ready?
Tell me.
Saint Gabriel
I stand at the foot of her bed,
married to a spark.
A child is a bolt
of lightning.
I could disappear,
leave a gift
that will shatter all this
in nine short months.
I know she will
burn this bed
down to a charred frame
when she hears this news.
Her hair
fans the flames.
The Annunciation of Our Lord
I would have been happy
in a life
without miracles.
The flowers darken
to shades of blood.
He never asked
if I wanted to live
without being touched.
The sun falls
on a curve
of my breast.
I miss everything
I’ve ever missed.
Marian Apparition
I see Mary
in my cup of tea.
Golden roses
leap out of her eyes.
There are coal mines burning
beneath my feet. From across the field,
the mine shaft is a pool to drown in.
Love is a firecracker thrown on my lawn.
You wheeze with sinkhole lungs. You taste
like you’ve been chewing matches.
Unbutton your blouse and show me
what smolders underneath. Steam rises
from the grass. All I dream about are charred
bedframes, canaries with iron lungs. You
could engulf me. This is the moment
where it may or may not get out of control.
I am destroyed by the idea of fire
licking my bones clean like snow.
This is God’s honest truth,
which is also a pit full of
arsenic nestled inside
my peaches, cyanide
in the white stars of
my apples, those
poisonous little pits
of cherries shining
like wet stones in
my eyes.
I take the apples
that have grown soft
and with a pitcher’s
stance and fervor
whip them out
the window towards
the trampoline
who knew that
ballooned and bruised
hearts would bounce
into the neighbors’
yard and continue to
rot
your hands like thistles
prick the skin so lightly
leave stippled pink scratches
on the part of myself
that never sees the sun
that trembles under touch
my body is a nest full of
little open mouths
and I do not want
you to fill them
my head is full of diamonds
that cannot be fished with a net
they fall through the holes
clatter in a flurry
of sharp tumbles
he offers tweezers
to grip them like eyelashes
but I am afraid of scratches
and memory loss
so I leave them
in the darkness
and wonder
if there is no light,
are they even diamonds anymore
I would have stayed with you
if it weren’t for all those starfish
losing their limbs in your pockets,
trailing saltwater down your pant leg,
pooling at your feet.
I would have stayed with you
if it weren’t for the way your handwriting
slants down and off of the page.
your words lead to nowhere.
I would have stayed with you
if it weren’t for all those birds
crashing into your kitchen windows,
leaving their prints on the glass,
eerie outlines of wing and feather.
I would have stayed with you
if it weren’t for that hole
in the wall next to the bathtub,
dark enough to be afraid of.
I would have stayed with you
if it weren’t for all those butterflies
caught in the grill of your car,
wings like confetti
whirling through your engine.
I would have stayed with you
if it weren’t for the low drone
of your synthesizer, vibrating
the walls of the bathtub,
pulsing through my water.
