For my thesis

 

When each word is an old friend

And the weight of you lies heavy in my hands

When each page is dark with edits

And stained with a catalogue of food

I ate while pouring over you

When your page numbers count heartbeats in time with my own

When I close my eyes and see lines of you printed across my eyelids

When I look down at you and say

Now you are complete.

Now you are whole

For Aunt Fanny

 My roommate Leah's parents have a cat

Named Aunt Fanny.

Actually her full names is Frances Abbigail Billingsworth

But that seems like a large name for such a small and anxious cat

And Aunt Fanny is anxious

Like scared of people, furniture, and the wind.

Like scared of things that move and things that are still.

Like resting heart rate of 200. 

Is that fast for a cat? Whatever cat's heart rates are, hers is faster.

Aunt Fanny is a rescue and they don't know exactly where she came from, 

Or the sights her tired eyes have seen,

But they know how to love her now

She has three soft beds

And eats gourmet organic cat foods

That need to be refrigerated

She has more toys then I had as a kid and

She never gets kicked out of the house for vomiting

(Not that I was ever kicked out of the house for vomiting)

She has humans who keep her warm

And keep the coyotes out

Even if those humans

Did name her

Aunt Fanny

For Beatrice

This morning I burnt my toast

And the world kept turning

If only I had thought to set a timer on my phone

Or pay more attention to the careful tics of the toaster

The toaster isn't loud but maybe if I had listened harder

This morning I made tea and everything went right

And the world kept turning

I boiled the water and I steeped the tea and it tasted of earl gray and a hint of honey

And it reminded me of my best friend in my freshman year of college

When we would sit on the fire escape and drink tea and pretend the city lights were stars

Tonight the moon came out and she smiled at me

She said I love the way you sway your hips when you dance

And I said I love you too

For Howie

 Counting Poem:

1. Sun sets at night amidst scarlet bright hues

2. Planets wink on, shining bright into view

3. Next come the stars, as they twinkle with light

4. Light years to the nearest star, as it shines bright

5. Each finger lit by the shape of the moon

6. Globular clusters light up like balloons

7. Stars in the hunter hung from velvet sky

8. Stars outline the bear who learned how to fly

9.  Planets (well eight now) stretch out from the sun 

10. Millions of stars but we're the only ones 

For me

 A list of things I didn't say during zoom thanksgiving:

1. This year I'm grateful for a global pandemic

2. This year I’m grateful for the fall of capitalism and increasing and before this unparalleled wealth gap

3. This year I’m grateful for the black people being murdered en mass by the police

4. This year I’m grateful for the history of indigenous genocide

5. Let's not forget this is a holiday founded on the genocide and erasure of native peoples

6. Please stop asking Adam and Hannah when they're having children

7. Fuck you for getting married and having children

8. Fuck you for thinking I should get married and have children

9. Grief and anger weigh on my chest like a heavy blanket

10. Like snow and cold rain it drips down the inside of my rib cage

11. My belly is frozen earth and I wish you could see this and still be proud of me

12. I stack accomplishments like a jenga tower, shaping them around the empty places I don't want to be, hoping for your approval

13. I don't need your approval, but yes I have a fucking job after graduation and yes I fucking like it

14. I do not dream of labor, I dream of liberation

15. I do not dream of "going back to normal"

16. I dream of creating new stories, I dream of growing tomatoes out of frozen earth to feed my family and friends, I dream of pressing snowflakes in between my eyelashes and showing them to everyone I loved

17. At least at my job we talk about native people

18, And we don’t talk about if we're having children

19. Please. Help me imagine a better world then this.

20. We will do better

For Samy

 Today I baked a pumpkin cheesecake 

With the round, orange fruit

Grown on the farm at my college 

(Or, in a complication, the college from which I just graduated)

(This poem is full of complications)

And I helped grow the pumpkin

I moved fertilizer and pulled weeds and I helped bring in the harvest

But so many other people helped grow the pumpkin

Planted it in soft dark earth

And weeded it

My friend Kate sings to the plants as she works and they always grow better

(From her I learned to sing to the fires I light

They burn better when I sing to them too)

And of course I didn't make the cream cheese

Or the butter

Or the gram crackers

The eggs were from my friend Rebekah 

Who knows the names of each of her sixty hens

So I mixed all the delicious things together in a bowl someone bought

And baked them in an oven that my dad's friend Tom installed in our house

And sang it the songs I learned from Kate as it baked

And in the end 

I had cheesecake.

For Ashawna

Love Poem for a Fish 

More tree then fish

The Atlantic sturgeon are huge, slow growing, and old

Their scales remember the years in rings of growth

Their eyes remember truths about the bottom of the ocean

When I first drove cross country 

From the east coast to the West

The sky was terrifyingly huge

And I couldn't fathom how small and 

Not blue I was 

The Atlantic sturgeon is born in the freshwater Hudson river,

Swims out to sea as an adult

And then returns to the freshwater where it was born to mate

Where they go to sea, no one can follow 

But they return each year

A magnet inside of them unwavering 

Insisting:

This way towards home

This way towards home

For Erryn

 Pablo Neruda famously wrote about the ocean and love

The ocean and love in two languages

But I could never wrap my mind around Spanish

The way it twisted unfamiliarly around my tongue

The syllables spilling sideways over my lips

The grammar slipping from my mind

The sunshine in the winter

It slips away too quickly for me to chase. 

Touching the street, 

Touching the treetops,

Glinting off the hilltops 

And then gone into the dark.

When I was a child,

My dad told me a story about a little girl's shadow 

And how it grew across the earth until

Night time hugged half the globe like a blanket

I always fell asleep before the story ended

Cerrwida

 I love to hold M & Ms on my tongue

To see how long I can remember 

To savor the sweetness

Without taking a bite

Sometimes I open the fridge door

And forget what I meant to get

But I leave my face open to the cold

And think about the beets

I don't dance anymore but

I remember all the steps.

For Hawkins

 Lipstick

Stolen from the make up aisle across target

A banner across my lips 

Says, 

"Kiss me

I dare you." 

For Jen Jack

 My friend Reba said to me yesterday morning,

Puppetry is breathing life and animation into a puppet

To control a puppet is to tell a story of oppression

I don't know much about puppetry but I can make sense of this and you

And the way you listen to the cute queer boy at the deli

And the way you picked up the habit of picking up shiny things

And the way you hear music on the breeze and can 

Translate it to the beautiful guitar you've found. 

I think it (you) are a sort of magic

And I fear a breeze too strong will sweep you away

But I know you could sing down a hurricane and breathe life into stone

For Mariyama

The ocean is bigger than I understand but

I know you speak its language,

Wave by wave, it contains so many little living things

Taking the light and making it to air

Maybe you are contained by the ocean

Maybe I am shifting with the moon

Maybe you turn light into air with little thanks

Thank you for the air

Thank you for a moment of joy 

I wonder what the salty taste of the water would say if it could speak

Congratulations on marriage, even if it is a twisted and fucked up concept. You deserve so much love. 

For Darrow

 In my childhood bedroom lives a desk made by my great grandfather

A big, heavy creature smelling of wood colored dark

When I was a child I would sit under the desk where a chair was supposed to go

And trace the parallel lines of the grain

The life blood of the dark wood--cherry? chestnut? hickory?

Unlike my great grandfather I do not speak a language of saw blades and belt sanders

So I was left to guess at the flavor of this sheltered place

Some afternoons I would try to count the lines like rings but always

I would lose track

For Rivkie

Memories of the flesh

I buy myself silk robes because I like how soft they feel against my skin and then I refuse to apologize

I use words too big for people to understand because I like how they feel playing along my tongue

My body is a home for soft feelings and sugary delights

I bake bread and eat it fresh dipped in butter

I say that I prefer this to love but of course I miss her fingers on my skin

Some nights I still can't fall asleep because the world is too quiet without her heartbeat

And some nights I sleep warm from fresh bread and soft in silk robes and I think that everything might

be alright again some day

For Zoe F

Leaving and Returning

When I was sixteen, I hung up a tapestry on my wall

It would be more precise to say that when I was sixteen I tie-dyed a sheet, renamed it tapestry

And hung it up on my wall

It was rainbow 

And the patterns were a little messy and blended together

It hung and billowed when I made my bed below it

And I looked at it every night before bed

It remind me of stars. 

I left it behind but I remember its constellations. 

For Joe

 The land remembers

Look under the city street

Down under the cracked pavement sprouting the most resilient weeds

Down under the water pumping life through the city

Look down into the darkness, home to rats, raccoons, and

Other things that do not have names, just secrets

Down, down to the rushing, roaring trains

The screaming brakes and squealing rails

Their mighty engines are the gods of the city

My first love once told me the dirt remembers

Each foot that ever tread on it

And I wonder if it remembers car tires and bike wheels too

Roots that grow through it and shovels and machines that rend it

Beneath the city there is earth and the earth remembers.

For Astrid

 I would braid you a thousand daisy chains

Into a dress of petals and sunlight

I would place a thousand more in your hair

So that they would be starlight in its soft night

Can I show you the stars for the first time?

We will name each constellation and consider their nature

Can you teach me the true names of each animal and plant?

Starting with Bailey, of course

And when we build the universe new again, 

Just for our eyes

And wrap our hands in the pieces of the universe

That are silent, and we tell them our stories

The fairies stole my colors

 A treasure hunt

1. The pavilion

The fairies stole the rainbow bright

They have left hints for you because

They know you'll find it before night

Head towards where we last ate pawpaws

2. The Forest Garden

On other days you'd wish to climb

You'd climb up high and touch the leaves

But we must find the rainbow in time

So go and find the old oak tree

3. The oak tree

We're nearly there, more then half way

You could smell it, if you were a dog

For this next clue, I will now say:

Go to where we played camouflage

4. Where we played camouflage

The way from here is not so clear

But some of you may know it fine

The rainbow's close, so have no fear

From here we go at last to pines

5. Pines 

I knew you would find the rainbow

I hope you thought this trip was fun

Now lets head back so you can go

Home before the setting sun

For Emma G

 

7:00am I wake up

7:10am I go back to sleep

8:30am I go for a run 

4:00pm I finish my class

4:15 pm The final rays of the sun disappear below the horizon

7:00 pm I hear the rain start

7:01 pm I open the window to hear the rain and feel the warm air on my skin

7:05 pm The rain reminds me of the last time I cried

7:08 pm The rain reminds me of a song my first love played into my spine

7:11 pm I can't be inside for an instant longer

7:11:05 pm I grab my phone

7:12 pm I step onto my roof and the rain hits my upturned face for the first time that day and the air feels clean and soft and maybe like remembering

7:13 pm I push play on my "young and in love" playlist and "I feel like I'm drowning" comes on

7:14 pm I dance under the falling raindrops

7:15 pm My chest opens and shines bright enough to light up the rainy night

For Liz

 When I was eight, my family and I 

Drove West to Yellow Stone State Park and saw

Old faithful springing forth from the earth

Something where there had been nothing.

I think you're like that

With you pizza made from scratch

I think your like that 

With your immaculately planned house parties

And the way your voice fills a dance hall

Who was it who said energy can't be created or destroyed, only changed in form?

Well, he was a liar. 

For Gabe

Winter in Boston

The geese are leaving me again

Every year when leaves give in to gravity 

They tell the same rambunctious tale

I know the geese will come back

And I can't be bothered by their complaints

The sun troubles me more

When it leaves each afternoon

I wonder each night why it loves me a little less

Why it makes its excuses sooner

I like how Orion returns each year

And how he stays with me through the cold, long night.

For Ekvi

 Each morning I wake up 

The first thing I do is pull on the sunrise

I wrap the warm golden light around me

And try to secure it around myself with hair ties and bobby pins

I try to paint my lips with gratitude 

And line my eyes with compassion

But I make sure to put my rage on my desk where I can see it clearly

Some days the gratitude goes on crooked

And there's nothing I can do to make the compassion look less femme

And I face my day half-dressed and half-put together

Some days the sunlight fades before noon

Every morning I wake up and I think about which socks I should wear

Will it be cold?

Will my feet be comfortable?

Will I be able to tread on the ground?

Some days I wake up and it's too much work to put on pants

To make myself a breakfast of joy and protein

To bite off my bitterness and sand my sharp edges into a smile

But every day I wake up

Because I deserve the sunrise

For George

Empty dance halls

Breathe in mountains, breathe out the sky

The river never looked so blue

Remember the rain, remember the sun

The way it danced in time for you

Hear the click of heels on wood

Smell the scent of sweet fresh pine

Sunshine slants through windows sideways

Swinging her way down the line

Remember the trees, the way the leaves

Shook with autumn joy and light

The light faded but music rose 

Into the air, remember the nights

The deer remember each quick step

The shaken aspen stills its leaves

The winds wish they could allemande

The music waits in shadowed eves

The clouds knew how to play along

The blades of grass, they knew the tune

The birds were great with harmonies

I hope we'll dance again and soon

For Anna

 I learned to ride a bike when I was five and invincible

I could not scrape my knees

For all I knew if I launched my bike off a cliff I would fly off into the middle distance

The summer I learned to ride a bike, my dad tried to teach me physics

Or maybe he was just messing with his five-year-old child because he had nothing else to do that particular Saturday morning. 

(Hindsight's murkier with time)

He told me that the outside of the wheel had to move much further each time the wheel spun than the inside of the wheel

How come the outside wasn’t moving faster than the inside?

How did they stay together? 

Five-year-olds who think they can fly aren’t always experts

But I still wonder

What is the miracle that keeps up together?

For AZ

45 N Cascabel Rd

I think home is accordion music

Wafting (if such a verb can be applied)

Through stray open windows here, around this

Door, barely cracked open. Home is the scent

Of fresh made sourdough and the sound of

Your keyboard tick-tick-ticking along in

Time with your heartbeat. Home is for us queers:

Not four walls and a roof but a picture 

That your best friend painted of you as a 

Wizard before she dropped out of art school. 

Home is welcoming to your table all 

The tired, poor, and huddled masses.

You may not have much but what you have you

Share because that's how its been ever since

Your many-greats grandmother built her own

 One-room shack and fed each of the thin-faced 

Children who showed up on her humble stoop.

Home is walking inside, taking off your 

Hat and boots and gloves and feeling warm, for

The first time all day. 

For Keyra

 Moving and Sex

Those are probably my two best skills if I had to rank them

I have become expert at peeling posters off the wall

Tetris-ing boxes into my car

My great-grandma's collapsable table

That only fits in one of the back seat doors

This is a puzzle to which I have memorized the curves

Sex is more like a cypher

Sliding and changing

But I can find a clitoris blindfolded 

Which you know because you've seen me do it twice

As long as we're ranking things

You are the first great love of my life

I have shared food, porn, a home, a few lovers, and so much lipstick with you. 

I can hear the sound of your laugh when I close my eyes

Our relationship is the tides and the ebb and flow can occasionally drive one or both of us into the sands

But like the water to the beach, we will never be apart

You have been a part of each home I have made

A pice of your art, a card from you, a picture of you always on thumb-tacked to the wall

You have known every heart-break and good lay I've wrecked from here to California

You know the lines of me like a poem you've had memorized since you were twelve

You will always be my first great love. 

For Griffin

Tree song

Roots grow down 

Branches reach up

We're not going anywhere

Slowly sway into each other

The trees in the forest won't fall

So we learn their names

The trees in the forest won't leave 

So we trace each crevasse

In the ash bark

We memoize the dimples in the maple

The curls of the birch

The chipping cherry

And as we learn we spread our branches

Out to catch the sunlight

We're not going anywhere. 

For Danielle

Like the waves on the shore

I'm scared of the blue water

The ocean, unfrozen

I say I like the cold because

It helps me feel more real

Or just more, I'm unsure

What the difference is anymore

I'm scared of the salt in my eyes

Making tears, unclear

If I remember the last time 

I cried, won't lie

I'm not over you yet, you bet

I remember the taste of your lips, fingertips

I miss your kiss

The moon pulls me back

Back to your tides, confide

In me each of your secrets, your regrets

The corners of your soul that 

Even you avoid,  I remember

The words you sing, they ring

Through clear salty air, the care

You take when you shape

You songs all night long

For Amelia

Heart in a Tin Can 

Imagine a chrome future

Metal creatures walking the crusted earth

Imagine sunlight gleaming off the above

Mix-matched arms 

I thought I might teach a robot to love

And we would walk together across the cracked earth and then 

I realized the my own chest was the metal one

My own joints creaked and moaned

I can feel myself beginning to rust.