from an oily mouth comes
a clean flood of tongue
a ship's floor full of standing daggers
and the eyes of a child
on the tonsil that turns into a snakehead
blossom sadly
then a road of deer-trampled snow
and a girl in reptilian coat
who says: these powerlines
are serpents leading you home
follow them to a hearth
or leave their squeeze before fire
for a desert highway
where you will lie down
your weathered skull crack
fragile tar
man's crust which is cracking
man's crust from under which
a vast skin is resurfacing