–

Like fishing a hair out with dirty fingers

that rub the sclera red. Micro veins

branch out from tear ducts all the same,

a map of a popular city,

somewhere like London. 

It’s raining more often.

Leggings, wet-soaked,

spread tighter to the leg

like neon eviction notices

tacked to swollen doors.

Like something you’ve never seen.

Like animals, hunting, but the hind-shimmy

and clawed-pounce are more like snow skips,

near-silent brushes of white powder

flung from the foot.

Despite the incoming mashed potatoes,

the gravy, the buttered biscuits, 

bodies keep fit, so fit,

the retainer goes back in, makes a home

of a young mouth grown old.

Like cavities come spring,

there’s incubation. Like all these, but actually

a gesture of performance, coats drawn like curtains

puffed with down and bloated like snowmen,

hiding cards played close to the chest.