I am the mountain when my head is thrown back,
enormous and eroded, a fine fuzzy scenery
captured with paint thick as blood.

When I wait it is in an huge room
of fire, feet planted in coals
like barely-breathing trees.
There is an indiscriminate shimmer--
my limbs are gritty, not the whole.
Stomach a limited mirror, and skin
as smooth and reflective as a tongue.

Then you stand before my inanimate body
like a question. I would never have done it
had I known you, seen your face rippled
upon the jelly of my body, soft eyes
soft face of lines and shouts.
Every earthquake is when you stretch your
giant hand toward me. It kills many, but they die
terrified, gulping screams then water.
A silly floating parade down my spine.

You teach me to move backwards, spindly
as a two-dimensional snake. Imagined, flat,
muscles hard like unripened fruit.
and cover them like a fast-forward forest
and everything is dark. You,
not the enemy of mortality-- of caresses;
come of lesser assassins.