Suspended above the stem of some flesh,
You take the lamprey path
And walk under the first rib,
the second; Just a louse on the comb.
Pragmatic little beastie, serpent in the slurping mud—
Watch as you crunch isopods,
Call yourself a second coming.
It’s you, really, in the rot substrate and the test tube;
A half-gone fossil—chthonic depthy thing.
As the brine mixes
In the delta tangle,
Your breath catches
Against the hot bite of primordial entropy.
When we meet tooth to tooth,
Spit and gums;
You grimace like it doesn’t mean a thing,
And say take what you want, this isn’t
even me.
