how much history is enough history     before we can agree
to flee our daycares      to wash everything away and start over
leaving laptops to be lost in the wet along with housecats and Christ’s
own mother      even a lobster climbs away from its shell a few
times a life      but every time I open my eyes I find
I am still inside myself     each epiphany dull and familiar
oh now I am barefoot       oh now I am lighting the wrong end
of a cigarette     I just want to be shaken new like a flag whipping
away its dust     want to pull out each of my teeth
and replace them with jewels     I’m told what seems like joy
is often joy     that the soul lives in the throat plinking
like a copper bell       I’ve been so young for so many years
it’s all starting to jumble together     joy jeweling copper   
its plink      a throat    sometimes I feel beautiful and near dying
like a feather on an arrow shot through a neck     other times
I feel tasked only with my own soreness      like a scab on the roof
of a mouth      my father believed in gardens      delighting
at burying each thing in its potential for growth     some years
the soil was so hard the water seeped down slower than the green
seeped up     still he’d say if you’re not happy in your own yard
you won’t be happy anywhere      I’ve never had a yard but I’ve had apartments
where water pipes burst above my head      where I’ve scrubbed
a lover’s blood from the kitchen tile       such cleaning
takes so much time you expect there to be confetti at the end    
what we’ll need in the next life      toothpaste      party hats
and animal bones      every day people charge out of this world    
squealing       good-bye human behavior!      so long acres
of germless chrome!      it seems gaudy for them to be so cavalier
with their bliss      while I’m still here lurching into my labor
hanging by my hair from the roof of a chapel      churchlight thickening
around me     or wandering into the woods to pull apart eggshells     emptying
them in the dirt      then sewing them back together to dry in the sun

Flowers a dull pink and out of stories. 

The clown in the middle of town
dances but only when the streetlights

go blank. Children puff through

the window in a way that makes their faces
an inner god. I have all these chairs

I cannot use. Only the belonging

they beg for. Consider a dead oven
then consider freedom. A heavy kite

could touch Jupiter if Jupiter existed.

Any child could become a swan 
song. It doesn’t take long to weather.

For 7 days and 7 nights, I’ve been shooting free throws
           The doctor said I needed focus

There is no net because some guy tried hanging himself from it
           But the moonlight betrayed him

In the courtyard where we sit, a dandelion grows
           I see you’re uncomfortable. Ignore these

blood-brick walls, cemented ground, nurse station window
          There’s forgiveness here. And I need to apologize

You’re seeing me in these weed-green scrubs, bone-cloth robe
           I unscrewed the roof from our home
                       swallowed all the memories

Did I tell you the cops wrote “superficial cuts” in their report?
          They didn’t understand when I said

I needed something red. They didn’t understand when I said
           I needed to paint my chest vermillion

I’m scared to go home. Have I told you that?
           I’ve always been

I keep having a nightmare where my hands grow into copper antlers
           I keep having this nightmare where I hold
                       a dandelion in one hand, a robin in the other

I made you something during craft hour. A paint-by-numbers thing
          Two deer in a winter forest full of birch trees
                       Look, a tiny spot of orange. Hunter orange

Blaze orange. See the buck? His antlers are still velvet
          See how strong he’s standing?      No, wait
                       his right front leg is soft on the ground.       No

He’s not standing, he’s kneeling. Only,
          He’s not kneeling
                       He’s fallen. Notice

There’s only one deer now and he’s still
          His tongue juts from the corner of his mouth
                       His eyes are focused on me
Wait, his head is missing. The antlers are gone.  Everything
          Is gone. There’s a bright streak
                       of red screaming across the snow 

There are only shadows now and boot prints. There’s only snow
          I made you something during craft hour
                       A cheap paint-by-numbers rip-off of O’Keeffe

A forest of birch trees but the math of it all didn’t make sense
         So I painted the numbers blank, then left
                       I couldn’t focus so I went and shot free throws

I thought about the man who tried hanging himself
         How afraid he must have been about going home
                      That dandelion is his ghost. His head

A thousand yellow florets, burning. The sun
         Never felt so good. I’m glad you’re here.