This skin ain’t blushed

but it’s bleeding up a trail of

soft fur,

baby-faced, covered in pleather.

I got nothing but cheap

Chai soap scum, 

flimsy candles too soft not to melt in the heat as I carry them home

the cabaret sweatin’ red all over my back.

 

Desert dirt and worms inch closer

as I lay here, root vegetables grow up out of me,

creamsicle-orange pythons circle knees,

the walnuts I have in my pockets crack open,

spill tiny hard disco pieces onto carpet.

 

The nighttime shine is gone, so there’s no more rituals, 

no bathin’ or howlin’ and none of our dark lovin’.

 

I stroke the feathers, ruffle till I reach lilac skin 

and cataracts form from nail-bitten pleasures, 

turns out the bride has a fever, she let the blush soak too too deep. 

 

This chair’s an old Victorian thing,

I put my nail through one of the splinters and it smells of chicory, 

lays in my burdock home.

 

You monopolize the fur trade, 

buy us an old cadillac, so you can take me down to the dark puddles of men,

you wonder if you exist outside of your pockmarked body and 

the rusted shame that’s poking out through your cup of sherry and demons.

 

With my shovel I never can tell between meadow or bone,

I hide all the tendrils from people who over-consume you and

I become the one who can swallow you whole.