All day, I’ve been trying to discern the nature 
of my relationship with silence

Whether it’s romance, rescue 
or abduction

Lovers, a plausible plot

Savior & saved, sure

But who’d want me as their hostage?

Certainly not death, who 
appeared before me years ago that night
as the bouncer at Gigi’s: cross-armed, big 
& glossy with sweat 
in his black leather, guarding the hell’s 
gate to the kind of thrill 
that I, at nineteen, was dying
to be part of

Death darted just one glance at my bird-boned body
& laughed as if his voice was made of leather

the way my beautiful ex laughed 
the evening he grew his wings back 
& flew off into the snowy dusk

Now the snow is touching 
all the trees in Michigan again
just like that evening

Across the suburbs of America, lights come on
like eyes opening for the first time

Think of his laughter—the silver of its wind chime

Then think of the glistening hole between my lungs, 
which I’ve learned—over the years—to trick myself 
into believing is hunger, opening the pantry when I know 
there’s nothing inside
but the exhaustion of meal moths

Outside, the sun is setting like an impossible wound

I fly into it with my eyes open
knowing there’s nothing this radiant
that won’t heal

There was the year I kept forgetting how old I was
And what to do with my mouth

I climb into the fridge a blue hole
The girl I kiss holds my hair in her fingers

She walks behind me I don’t watch her face
She holds my ribs in her sharp hands like music

His fist held my wrist like creation
I wanted to puke but did not

Some girls get so sweet when they’re drunk
I yell into the phone like my father

I looked like him when i was first born
Black hair slick with the gel of placenta

I used to think there was lots of grey area
I used to make a list of pros and cons

The bruises on my body look mean 
I take a picture of my tits in the mirror

I told this one ex about what had happened
He talked about girls who used to reject him

He said it’s like we have opposite problems
It’s not like that I still let him cry

This is about to be the hottest picture ever
Can sex please be a really good joke

We can laugh at our sorrow like candy
We can roll it tight into a bill we can breathe

They wanted you to believe it was the ‘50s
those ‘80s purveyors of Teen Beat, Tiger 
Beat, Bop, and other idol mags replete with 
pinups of cherubic porn stars in popped up 
collars posed against the ubiquitous woodsy 
backdrop every mustachioed photographer 
knew and loved, or in front of perfectly 
manicured lawns with the perquisite white picket 
fences and blurry blooms of promise. Action 
shots of standing up on rolling bicycles or 
straddling unscuffed surfboards, insipid 
interviews mentioning their favorite ice cream 
flavor was vanilla, always vanilla, or they were 
saving intercourse for where it belonged—
the glistening future of marriages, mortgages, 
and malcontented kids. These paragons of bygone 
virtue always grew up to be queers, drug addicts,
and other things McCarthy wouldn’t like,
but as a rapt child lying prostrate in my upper
bunk bed with my feet crossed behind me,
I savored each PR morsel as if it were manna
fallen from the suburban summer sky. I hungered 
to pull out my transistor radio and swoon to some Elvis 
or rockabilly hits, while imagining each celebrity 
in turn would swoop down from Mt. Olympus just to court 
me at next Saturday’s sock hop right after I sewed the poodle 
on my skirt, padded my bra, and promised my mother
I wouldn’t allow any heavy petting in the front seat
of his overpriced, fresh-off-the-lot Cadillac.

Those fuckers had me hook, line, and picture.

First thing’s first. I want your body. I imagine 
a door. You are in the room making jokes 
about how absurd you look in a plain t-shirt.

We haven’t seen each other in over a decade. 
I want the Danube to part and reveal our bones,

delicate curves of mollusks. I want the Black Forest 
over us, canopy of dark where we lose the voice 
our mothers gave to us. Every wound unfurled, wet

foxes out of our throats, tenderly at first then full run
toward the door. I move. You’re ever moving away

from me. You’re not one for chances. You
stay right where you are. The soldiers prayed, 
too, for this transport to happen. A man

lifts his body over the creek one last time 
to walk toward the desert mule that carried him

toward a lover that died two years prior.
His journey was spent with her & she was with him 
eating olives he picked for her. She laughed at his jokes,

his hands steered the mule continually west. 
His heart would give out later that year

before the onset of winter. He knew it before 
he knew it, remembered his brother falling off the roof

while making patches for their father. The impact 
broke his neck. He couldn’t see what his brother could

see. We tell ourselves stories to keep sane. I know 
God stalks me. I want the village of Gengenbach 
to gather for a banquet. I want the unearthed bodies

of our anger to ask forgiveness from everyone 
we’ve married, then set you, unhinged, under me.

Maybe it’s the caffeine,
but when you speak
to me, you look 
into my eyes 
and I notice.

You point out the sky,
say there’s a storm
brewing. At first, I think 
I am the storm—
but when I drive home,
the lightning strikes,
and all I want to do
is call you and say,
come find me.

I fall in love 
everyday, but
not like this.
Not like this.

I built your brother wings:
wax and feather they were,
white as cloud they were,
and he flew away from me.
Until, sun-scorched, he fell
taken by the sea.

For you, my son, I built a cage:
wire and driftwood it is,
white as bone it is,
and you will remain with me.
Until, time-withered, you fall
taken by an endless sleep.

Little boys are made to burn;
they blacken their parents’ hearts.
I am sorry you missed my paler youth.
Your brother took that from me,
as he took your flight from you.

With what little kindness was left in me,
I hung your cage at the edge of a sea cliff.
So, should you feel like flying one day,
you will fall into your brother’s arms.

borrowing a line from Walt Whitman

because there’s always one week where there is a nightmare.

because the boundaries of a city are the friendships we made

along the way.

because i don’t like my thighs. you do.

because the vending machine gave me an extra missile.

because someone kisses my cheek at night and i know they’ll be there

at dawn.

because dinosaurs had lovers too, before the asteroid settled in.

and what are you a doctor of, archeology or physics?

the trauma, or the blunt force?

because god gave me hands to squeeze, fingers to mouth.

because my twitter timeline holds a secret only i can find.

shhh- don’t tell.

because on maps, the distance has a way of seeming surmountable-

the topology of loss doesn’t want to be a line.

because i’m singing, all at once and right on key.

because the temple, the grandeur, the slicing of the tendon.

because the tree turned upside down,

the roots turned branches, all the leaves crammed under dirt,

suffocating.

i’m writing trees because i’m sick of trying to make corpses

lovely.

i guess i’ll just song of myself again: I wish I could translate

the hints about the dead young men and women.

because maybe this time i will find only the one corpse beside me

at dawn. his lips latched onto my cheek.  

dinosaurs, the both of us, waiting for the end of everything.

That taste of sour-red-sweet

            as

seeds stick                      to

                                    teeth:

sun hazes

over naked legs.

You eat more,

flush,

the ripe

burst

of summer.