you are a bird painting another bird as it flies off the page
magnifying the moon, a white smear across the face of the sky
beaming directly upon the cream colored paper
as your brush draws inspiration from the violin around your neck
and ink from the half-full vial of poison on the floor
we all look the same in the dark, the walls curve upwards steadily
another bird pecks food from the checkered tile
another bird flies to the window where there is no glass
your palette rests on the table and rainwater drains
onto it in blobs of red, blue, and yellow
nights revolve in imaginary loops; bare feet, feathers, words
half for me, half not for me, but for the other version of you
keeping my hands to myself as you sit on the edge of your seat
still painting the birds to freedom, black on black in the distance
how do i tell you i love you when i say it every day?
i didn’t mention it at the time but the nest was gone from the bridge
and yet you continue creating wings and beaks
and everything is good when i’m with you,
everything is satiated inside me, and everything is a different time again
this world has one sky that will last a thousand years
two miles high and ten long outside
but infinite within us both as we traverse it.
this is the creation of the birds.

Letting new heads sprout from my chest,
Each cloaked in green—
Another way to give myself away;
Vicious dreams of a fever of wispy hair grasped
In my closed fist, attached to a pale head
Nearing death
Gathering alternate faces

Two doors behind me
Heaving behind the cobblestones
Ending the same as before

Put a vial of poison, half-full, and
Syringes, tick-tocking, into my basket
You believe me to be an illusion
Coming from somewhere else
How do I tell you
Orange walls are everywhere?
Leaving the psychologist’s
Office with my infinite masks and multiple personas
Guiding me onward
I question my memories
Staircases remind me of how I befriended radical thoughts
To show you
Something

Of course there are ominous bells
Fitted in the doorway
For someone to ring
Isolated in their thoughts
Crying in a hundred different mirrors
Expecting another one tomorrow

you cut your bangs and now you look just like my mom did when she was your age

and even glancing at you feels like leaping backward in time, like gaining

a year but losing space on the surface of my fingertips; blades of grass interwoven

through my hair as i sit up suddenly. you cut your bangs

and you look like my mom, which is ironic, and

there is no echo without a wall, so do i remember this moment?

the smoke alarm beeps occasionally because it’s running out of battery

but i don’t have a ladder to fix it, i don’t have a ladder

and the echo rings. impossible to describe the noise of

something i am still hearing.

functioning on no sleep, or lots of it, so are you; and your bangs

whisper to me about the caskets of golden days ringing false

and, oh god, you look like my mom.

I sit on the white bench under the willow tree near the funeral home.
I miss the haunted house, light blue like my childhood home used
to be, and I think, can I visit? and where shall I stay?
The picket fence was broken, you mended it; someday I will return
only to bend it again. Thinking of you all the while.
Thinking of you at Hy-Vee stealing someone else’s groceries
from their cart because I told you I liked to rebel,
and you listened, and we both understood
why we wanted to take the apples we wouldn’t eat.
Ants spilling from the ripe fruit as we bit into it,
like dawn, like perpendicular lifelines.
And all this is imaginary, like the blank playing card
you found on the ground in front of a different person’s house;
but I think about it like it’s true.
I’m at a funeral home, after all. And I swear,
I must have conjured you out of the dark. The stars splintered, the
moon split open; fingertips sinking
steadily into lunar grooves, lattices, plaits of long black hair.
I pulled you from the silver dust— breath to bone. And I love you,
but I miss you all the same, for we were made from the same stardust;
we passed each other before we slipped out of collective conscious into the human race.
And the sky ends six times before I get up from the bench. And I knock
six times on the front door before passing through it.
Wrapped in a black cloak. Accustomed to the taste
of ice as it is handed to me in small plastic cups,
brought to me as I lay in a hospital bed; everything pale, sallow,
the nurses gazing absently with pity on their faces. And I chew my ice.
And I will come back to the funeral home, to the haunted house, to you.
I will come back.

i saw a bluebird
and a cardinal
out the window
and i thought of
my mother’s many
miscarriages
i imagined her
weeping, kneeling
over her womb
laid out on a stretcher
above her
no longer feeling
a small heartbeat
bouncing around
the silence of
her tongue
i saw a bluebird
and a cardinal
out the window
and i thought of
the fact that i was
sitting here looking
at birds
as my mother’s
daughter flew
as if there
were a sun in the room
and i cried
as if she could
feel my tears inside
of her
like my tiny fingers
and feet
when i was in
her beautiful
stomach
i saw a bluebird
and a cardinal
out the window
and i thought of
the event
of being born
i do not remember
my birth
nor does
the doctor
whom i cannot claim
to have never met
hands scored
with disinfectant
touching my newborn
body
delicate
i grew up to
tell people i
was born in texas
and they tell me
all about texas
and i learn more
than i would had
i not been born
there, had
i not lived elsewhere
a box
of tissues on
the nightstand
i saw a bluebird
and a cardinal
out the window
and i thought of
how i was a
completely new
person to her
(my mother)
when i was born
and does
a parent ever
truly know the
stranger they created?
so i sat
and wondered
all the while
my mother
in a car
reassuring my every
turn, dodging roadkill
flies on the antlers
more carcasses
than yellow lines
on the road
i saw a bluebird
and a cardinal
out the window
and i thought of
my mother and i
and how are we?
and how many?

there is nothing to do in this small, small town
rain falls smoothly
a store closed when i wasn’t here
and a new pizza place opened
i’ve never eaten there
but i’m told it’s good
or awful, i don’t remember what they said
god, i need to get out of my head
it’s killing me
and i want to shoot myself inside the art gallery
i just want to die poetically
there’s no other way to go since
i’m not alive anymore

Many of our cells
are not long-lived,
or lasting or permanent
in any way

(although some are there
for a lifetime)

Consequently, sometimes
cells self-destruct
and die
in a controlled and orderly way
preventing the spread
of damaged (or unwanted, or abnormal) cells

(this is a normal part
of an organism’s growth
or development)

It is essential, in fact
(this programmed cell death)
to an organism’s health

And it is natural
but it is not a complete
or total death
(which is also
a natural process)

This is called
apoptosis.