Andy

the memory 

that begs 

words now

is my brother 

in the swimming 

pool many pools 

many summers 

we had some 

fascination with 

the circus so i 

was the leader 

or ringmaster, 

nameless and 

he was the star

fashioned a 

title for himself : 

Baby Jelly to 

ring of things 

soft and young 

and sweet i'll 

let the recall 

sit there, before 

it puckered with

power and time 

i can keep 

it in the water, 

choreo for jumps 

and dives we 

had to add 

the drama with 

imagination since

nothing close to 

impressive was 

materializing but 

we stuck it 

out and i 

insisted we 

practice repeatedly 

in case someone

wanted to watch

our sibling show

from the edge

maybe dangle ankles

and applaud for

our sweet dance

that we chose

to make 

together 

Second Covid

Tylenol PM down the hatch

And I’m alone in the house

Covid positive and masking for nobody

When I hear a crash like maybe someone entered 

When I was out on my one-block walk

And is hiding waiting 

I lock the door to my bedroom knowing

I’ll just have to open it 

When the cats emerge from under the bed and 

Decide they want to roam

I know the brain pays tricks

Even when its healthy

But is this the beginning of my cognition

Flying sideways

And slowing down 

Holes in memory

Brain is a blender with the top off

Swiss cheese sieve

I know about it from the first time around

When for months afterwards I couldn’t hold

Multiple concepts at once without them all 

Dropping into a deep gravity below my feet 

And memories fly past like there was never a spot

For them to stick in the first place 

I have always used quick thoughts 

To convince people to stay

And efficient excellence to prevent

Abandonment so now I face

The fears of tiny me

That have grown and shrunk and reared and been soothed

Over and over but we made it the first time

With the omegas and the fermenteds

I oiled up the brain and felt it heal

Mostly and nobody actually left

But since when has proof of the opposite

Convinced me to fully release a fear

Group Chat

Send pictures of the way we were all dirty

And raw and sweaty together

Videos too

That prove we were once very unabashed

Loose with our imagery

A type of sexy that isn’t clean 

Eye contact with the camera like 

I knew what it was seeing

Beckon the reminder that

I was witnessed 

And always embarrassed and

Always changed 

If I do it right 

Enough they won’t leave me yet

Paralyze me please 

If I can feed you 

Enough healing foods your well

Ness will be mine too

And I won’t have to leave you

fear of open conflict

I made the rift 

When I called and told her 

Everything she does that I hate

But the fabric was ripping 

Thread by thread for years before

When she would tug and I would loosen

Yank forward I’ll just run to catch up

And people will stare at us both 

Gawking at the complicitness 

My Grandmother's Hands

I thought my hands looked like my moms

And I thought the bugs were all gone

But my hands are very much

My own, or at least they trace down from generations

I never saw, whose hands I never held

And the ants are crawling back 

And the gnats circle the house plants

I laid flat on my back and called an ancestor

To visit. One from long enough ago that we would never

Have met and I waited for a presence

My chest felt heavy lungs compressed

And I pictured the archetypal mischievous

Boy ghost pressing down on me with his 

Bully face in mine using power that was once new

But is now rehearsed and I had to conjure up 

That recess patience - this is a coping strategy

For the pressures of being a boy asked to

Practice being grown

Dominance is confusing and pain is most places

Once I saw him before his early death

As the child we each sometimes are

He lightened the pressure and stepped back

And I sent up the wish for a crone

To guide me there must be at least one 

That knew about being gay and knew about magic

And belonging to everything else

She hasn’t visited yet but I imagine she’ll take her time.

First Religion

Women enough years older than me were always God

A God you can grow into and a God you can desire

One of the first was Julia, fifteen years old and stroking the hair of a French boy

Teaching me what naughty words mean

Reading are you there (Julia) it’s me Margaret

Out loud before bed and driving the speedboat 

Me, nine years old, a patron of the church of her face and confidence

Felt God (change, Julia, the connectedness of all beings to each other and the land)

For the first time at a mother-daughters-run summer camp in the Wisconsin woods

The job of us fresh worshippers was just to wake, pack a sack

Lunch (requirements: two sandwiches, two fruits, two hostess treats, bag of chips)

Eat breakfast (pancakes?)

Pile in the van and swing singing all the way to the sand beach with the swimming dock

Stay and play and sun and eat and let time happen (linger a little longer)

Pick ticks off each other

Fish for sunnies and take turns driving the golf cart down the curving path hoping

Mom was wrong about danger and risk

Spaghetti dinner before sardine into the bunk house and mosquito itch ourselves to hot sleep 

I watched her and then the two weeks ended

And I wore my fairy costume home and then out to dinner with my parents who seemed

Relieved to have me back and shocked by what the sun had done to my skin

I buzzed and twirled, crispy and awake alive to the grief of the ending

And the difference now that life wasn’t girls and women by the lake

I left her church and that holy land and fashioned a vision

Of myself after her - create myself in her likeness, like maybe I could be the god

That leads the next girls to the sacred ceremony of summertime

Kitchen of Grief

Whoever invented salads that are canned fish with mayonnaise and things preserved in acid

(Crunch pepper omega heal my swiss cheese brain)

Has my carbon dioxide and pleasure on their tongue

Fictional child says your breath smells

Did it happen was it a joke - ghost of student past

Canned fish had to be invented too, who preserved and met a need

And mayo my my my

Eggs emulsified careful

We googled the history of yogurt and marveled at 

Past invention and mistake mystery

Milk and bacteria

Collide for serendipity

And the creamy gut bloom

Accent to any one is born

Breakfast and cucumber dill

Writing recipes for my grandpa who hasn’t cooked since my grandma died

I didn’t realize what the pull was

Of course it is a yank that starts in the throat knot 

Then eludes me because death is the big yank ending

A block of cheese is only really a few quesadillas

We grieve the greens that we let go bad in the fridge

Even though we tried !

Burps of the Botanical

Careening up the dark wood playground

Little me finds corners cups the browned

Fleeting fit of body in tiny tunnel

Not for long will I be this small, this fun I’ll

Get older and learn to drive 

And when it’s time to arrive 

Back home I’ll weep as I curve the offramp

By the doctors office where the shame cramp

Sting was abruptly diagnosed 

My young ripped angry to a coast

Unvisited replaced by self loathing 

No room for grey, maybe, for and/both in

New reality sensuality is dirt

Empire of mom’s grief curt 

When she cried ‘I think it’s my fault

For not teaching you a mechanism of halt’

Later I know the science of a cold plunge

And the queer eyebrowless grip grunge

Of adulthood in rainy city winter

Gifted earl grey yogurt bread, enter

Burps of the botanical, herbaceous

Before staring at tanktopped curvaceous 

Mirrored hopes for spring outfits

Dance and avoid sads, write for outlets

Time for dinner, making tuna melts

Goodbye for now, past and future felts

dancing on my own

coming in at the peak 

of a dance move with 

none of the build up

context was already set 

and the hips built 

momentum guided by 

arms I know it 

happened because of 

what I see now but 

I didn’t see it 

minutes ago I wasn’t 

there disembodied 

head bopped by 

a trunk with legs with 

feet that know what 

some sort of god 

had in mind for 

rhythm and beats

we each remember 

drums are what we 

have always pounded 

and pop music reached 

heights and it’s the child

in me that giggles

and only falters

when adults enter

Spell

Maybe jobs elude my girl 

Because she really is supposed

To eat fruit and touch exchange 

Maybe there’s money slowly sloping down the waterslide

Waiting to sploosh gently below 

The air line

And float back up to her

Bubbles spinning towards light

And then wet dripping from bright cheeks

Money will make eye contact and smile

Arrive so that the cat’s cuddles

And the growing food

And the writing and drawing and sleeping and 

Healing dad and celebrating sister 

And feeding mom

And finding me get to be all the time

Casting a spell

Do you hear me money god do you feel me

Are you there it’s me 

I conjure thousands I conjure work that works

For my girl 

Blonde at the Party

Age of Aquarius friction and function rightoooo

I feel like falling in love or being the one 

She can imagine having 

A kid with or just spring time sex

That feels like imagining everything

My body might ever do

Slip behind and under and also 

Any combination of perpendicular 

And cradled like slices or new moon king tide

Waterbod shimmer and glow

Very very soft and slimy clean

I bet we go ahead and have weekends 

With chapters like an itinerary 

Each one riches of life themed 

And a menu of everything 

A little scary and a little hot

I am all angle and all circle

Let me take two thousand years and let 

Me be brief 

melon with fingers

Dead bugs taped to the wall

The weight of the squeaky cat's head on my knee

You can be honest with animals because they don’t speak

The same language so you can say the stuff you wouldn’t

He gutted me like seeds from a melon

With fingers and so urgent 

That I bled

Suddenly I remember the squash in the oven

It’s brown almost charr but not burnt

Not ruined. In fact it’s such a good texture

Very soft almost silky kind of buttery and with crisp corners

Caramel for the sugar of the dirt grown fruit

It makes my meal excellent

I remember my music teacher from middle school

Who taught us the tin whistle and gave us each our own

With soggy name labels wrapped below 

The mouth piece

And we kept them in a container all together

Fumbled in begrudging hands when class started

I know the feeling of the plastic in my mouth

Smooth and perfect for chewing and gripping

Then clanked back in spit logged and dripping

When class was over

Sitting together in the bin joining wet

And likely never cleaned

secret 3

Watching a movie 

with suicide wondering 

If you’ve ever tried

I blink hard at you

Over my mask so that you

Know that I want you

You’ve only acted

Cranky one time in six months

Calm ocean all else 

Many puberties

When I turn forty-four I will 

Get both breasts removed

To prevent cancer

And I will be flat chested

And I will have no nipples

Chapter three in which the 

Body changes for the seventy-third time

And puberty comes again

But backwards and forwards quickly

And with new pain

I will wear the shirts I dream about

I will silhouette into my favorite 

Appearance and I will 

Sweat less at night

But I will grieve the fullness

And texture and angles 

And the way people look

And touch and I will remember

When I first grew them

When the power got married to 

Fear and no boundaries

And people so many adults 

said kind sexy jealous

Rude loving things to me

That I didn’t understand

Goodnight body

May pleasant dreams 

Of easy puberty swing us

Through sun dotted tree canopies

And release us into a free dive

That lands weightless at the feet of forty-four

Kiss her toes and promise her 

Full meals and joyful outfits

CEL is on, too

Everything is the way the brakes are 

In my 98 4runner that is 2wd.

Working but almost slipping

Every time we catch and stay 

I grit every tooth against the possible 

Slide and I beat my heart

For the impending drama