CARNIVORE

I.
Mornings I harrow, afternoons harvest
heirloom tomatoes. Nights I eat the seeds,
spit the flesh. Staked to square trellises
and clipped stem-tight, they never fail to thrive

for me. Plump Burbanks, pinkskinned Brandywines
people the vines like fairytale children
in a small town warlock's kitchen garden.
One hour too long in the sun and they burst.

The skinny lady in the floppy hat
and matching floral gloves stops by again.
"Looking good," she says, inserting her chin
between the pickets. "You are kind," I say.

II.
By day I watch him from the third floor study,
sweating in his perfect patch. The sun sinks
into his broad back with fangs I imagine
my own. While I chew bacon in the sandwich
my wife makes, she walks the fence to him,
returns soon—flushed and gratified. God!

She beds early, never sees him naked,
rabid, rolling in nettles by the shed,
shreds of neighborhood witches in his teeth.

(published in The Sow's Ear Poetry Review)

 * * * * *

COOP

Noisy ladies roost the machines
like firm breasted hens
clucking eggtales to a captive coop.

I bench press.

Plumped meats display in the mirrors,
promoted as free range.

I bench press.

Scented feathers nod together
in sweatless tête-à-têtes
over fitness methods, menus.

I bench press.

Enter the scarred fox, rump up,
musk stuck to her like barnyard blood;

tattooed by leghold teeth,
pelt matted with the muck of swum rivers,

she bench presses.
I rise and fall.

(published in the e-zine Eclectica)

 * * * * *

SNAKES

I.
Tiny python
insinuates himself, a hipless sequence,
between jambs,

prongs his angle of artifice
like a reptilian radius
from the middle of nothing
to closure's curve.

He slinks cool nights
seeking heat
from weak organs, wraps

wormlike in imitation
of embrace. Insufficient spine

enfeebles the squeeze,
betrays his need

to stay hot
this side of love's smother.

So he succumbs
to the myth of sucking udders,

bites his tail and rolls away,
his own little o.

II.
I coil, bask rock,
a thick cylinder

of venom. Come

try to deflect
my fang, make dead eyes

blink. Die by asp.