Cut to Black

the film switches to
men on their backs,
they’re our real heroes,
surfing on the chemical 
pink underbelly 
of a fertile sky 
they’re our whiskey dreamers
the soft dancers, the coronet 
of half-naked bodies blown down
by a puff of incense and a
hit of stale tobacco

it is a scene that 
begs for rearranging
a forest caught in a 
wild storm and a narrator 
who sounds the words 
	obscene 
	honky tonk
	madness
in no particular order
but the voice stops 
when a serpent 
begins to sing
we gape at them 
with our mouths 
our eyes are lit like 
cannons 

a young girl with a 
razorblade and a balloon
descends from a cloud 
and against a backdrop 
of orange painted stars
releases the uncertain 
shadow of a woman 
who drapes 
like a dry canopy 
over the pillars 
of the forest
coils of  
aluminum 
imagination

we eat and drink and
run our fingers through
our hair like blind hooks 
swimming through the 
teeth of a noonday shark

we wait for it to happen
we wait for it in absence
with voices like 
thorny apples, we
sing the misplaced 
chorus of the song

the serpent is in my bones
the serpent is in my bones
it would be best if 
everyone refused to know