In the novel where the young wife pops
the vulgar plugs off her husband's back,
skin is habit, grooming is sweet, and a bad
marriage is not a sin, but a practice as old
as any of the simians'. The scars he claimed
I left behind on his shoulders and neck were
like eyes you'd expect on reptiles,
sealed and waterless, against the rapture
of moments, hours, seconds that can only
be seen through time, elapsed; eyes that
could wait for the scent beneath the flesh;
the cord of the volcano, and the involuntary birth.
