5 Poems

Ridgewood Parks

This morning, Kentucky spat out
vultures. Here,

the children tear out
their own wisdom teeth. Leanne tongues
soft gums, cracks picket fence teeth,
explains the tooth fairy: a girl like me

who molded coffins from damp dirt,
buried her teeth in the gray grass
by our trailer, refused to give up
what was hers.

The vultures bald our yard,
crush beetles beneath dusty yellow claws,
their beaks hinged shut, wings tarred
together.

They dig for food, find almonds,
popsicle sticks, dirty jump ropes that knot
like nooses. The children pull teeth between
the trailers, hide the bite marks on their arms,
burrow quarters in their gums.

Leanne sun tans on our roof,
and Ma smiles through buttered
teeth, her tongue leather, her breathe
nicotine. I rinse tar from

crinkled feet, pull bent feathers
from quiet birds. Ma crushes cigarettes
on our front door and we pause,
adjust broken jaws.

The Wolves Play Dead

I remember the Poconos as a phantom limb, stories about thin boys who look at other boys the way boys should not, boys who didnt like to watch, who ached when Jeffrey and Daniel cracked the turtle shells against the rocks at the beach, boys who leak, who cradle the pieces left behind, the bottoms slick with turtle blood, boys who try to separate the water from the chlorine, who fall in love with names more often than people, boys who have silver scars on their eyebrows, who cradle their heritage, their ancestry, boys who are bruised by the men they never become, dust kicking up in their faces.

Gretel

Igloo homes for gingerbread girls, they sleep with the kitchen door closed and the oven kept on, ignition clicking like cicadas, the sweaty taste of gasoline or petrol leeching into dreams, their stomachs are Kinder Eggs, their mouths are sweet wood, and almonds were always meant to be cut in half, apples were always meant to be shared but that goes into God and we dont mention him here; he is banned like baking soda in cookie bread homes, like gumdrops on blind tongues, like the disease of religion, the religion of fasting, Gretel fasting to make Hansel whole: witches dont wait for rain but they never seek drought.

Gri(eve)

The story ends like this: hands burnt the color of rotten strawberries, a diner in Jackson Heights, an unwanted child who drank sap from a dying tree.

I stared like a broken horse, eyes watery and pink. The sun through the window, a bright wound. You said reasonable things. The money was in an envelope. I wanted you to lick it shut, to cut your tongue on the edge, see if you could feel pain too.

Hands burnt the color of mid-July peaches from the tree in my grandmother’s yard. My uncle tore it down a couple years ago. No one mourned, really. You were careful not to use upsetting words. Said your sister would take me, that the place was in Brooklyn, that no one would know.

I stared like a broken horse into the hollow of a gun, eyes watery and pink. You rubbed my palms with your warm hands. I didn’t cry when you peeled back raw skin.

Vinegar

The men here do not sleep, live in denial, live on boats because soon the ice will shell the lake, slabs like concrete, thin enough to break only from chains of smoke, the men have glass arms and broken windows, so don’t skate on the ice, don’t spill rubbing alcohol, don’t drink expensive champagne, don’t drink cheap champagne, don’t learn Polish or Russian, especially not Russian, learn what they speak in Antarctica, quiet movements like snow, melting, melding, as soon as it touches home.