Salty Hollows

 

Dust dampened wakefulness

 

They are limp, abraded, frayed

The limbs

Afloat or adrift

Awash in groundwater shivers.

 

Slurp

Peat gulped through my nape

Syrupy numbness sipped in through

Digested wood.

 

Beneath a sediment of cells

Juice trickles down artery walls.

Because I tasted consciousness

 

I must recoil.

Deep muscle kneads ribs soft

The muck of word soils meaning.

 

And skin crust warms

Caramelises, smoulders ‘till it’s bitter

The core’s ablaze, a sinkhole feeds.

 

A thumb cracks!

Echoes from within

Where wetness can’t be seen

But heard while stiffening in the wax.

 

In the den of your own womb

Awake

You’re counting yolks

Leak down toward each moon.

 

Perhaps a virgin skin will rise

 

A tender burden soaking down

As insect hunger squirms inside the chest.

The soil, it serenades

Through mouths

And bowels of its worms.

 

You owe the ground your bones.