CLAMS!

for a moment there, slime gained sentience

bobbing up and down, stalking

eager faces on long necks

I've seen its application in soap operas

smiles initiating their dental outer layers

these are mere consumer products, hungering

e.g. in a hardware store: things the

rake finds appetizing

cloaking a jagged projection

with one's skin – can you see with it or merely smell?

is it a nose attached

to the back of the eyeball?

in all soap operas a character falls into a coma

contorted into a shape

with hips higher than knees

a rusty thimble coming loose

in the subject's coma, its head

up a fat locust, its head wrapped in a swarm –

part of the brain seems to be a murky blowtorch,

growling, lithium on some long wire

or other implement

the sides of the chemical do grip;

in the middle a spray always resides

a space-autopsy of our zeitgeist

slush on a book's floor

words engulfed in fertilizer

turning a page is like

gauze falling flat out of the sky

in soap operas, one learns about ways

to make your spores dazzle her;

drunk on linoleum sundaes

with chicken movements shaking one's restraints