38 Spiders

morning is van gogh smoking menthol,
is a dirty uncle, beer-couch bastard;
dried blood flaming your inner thigh
like bluer versions of birds kissing
snakes in bronze.

your picture-naked sleep is leaking
on everything you hide like
four-finger cantaloupe eating---

every stutter-painting of this
lung-crunch summer city.

38 spiders are your witnesses when
your spitting fetus comes to read
its literature, when you are nail
scratching hands.

First published in Underground Window, July 2005