Oblique
a snake slips by.
Some other life disturbs
my mind, jangles my brain, lives in
my veins.

I creep
beneath a root,
become obscure and small,
wait in the earthy dark, don't move
at all.

Secrets
are spilled at night.
Dark holds fear in the bone.
Love licks beneath thin fur, blood quick,
eyes bright.

Hunger
lives in this dark.
Who'll be when I'm found out,
emptied, sucked from my skin, unmade,
no thing?

What gropes
under the bough?
Taste fur, taste breath, taste paw,
do not come nearer, come nearer,
come now.