Tabitha opens her body at the mouth
and a white snail craws up to the tip
of her tongue and moves around the curve.
That's a nice trick, Tabitha, and something
for me to watch from my sick bed.
You'll let me watch, but you won't listen
to the story of how your mother
ran me over and with her car screaming
for me to shut up about politics and pushing the horn
until the neighbors came onto the lawn
with flashlights and dogs to see what
the sound of crunching ribcage was about.