Taxidermy

Wear it like a wax grin. Dead lips

drink sloe gin, slowly. The longest sip.

Longing jukes at the junction of muscle

and bone, the upside-down home

of animal gratification. Shuck it

like a sheer tax. A simple veneer veils

the face of it all like endless arrival.

A limpid lace of frayed wrangles. Loss

is loss is loss. Swap the soul for juice.

Sense it like syntax, this less we are

on the wall of it all. We are the awl

of it all. Limping to infinity.