I know whose toes
Peek out below:
Beneath their nose,
Under lips,
Lower than their waist and hips;
Past their knees and their shins-
Toes they’ll use to count to ten.
Better yet,
With our twins,
They’ll count to twenty to begin,
Then move to forty without linger,
Counting on each other’s fingers.
Toes and fingers, fingers and toes,
Twenty wigglers they’ve come to know,
With twenty fingers to catch and throw.
For now we’ll rhyme toes off to market,
And play Pat-a-Cake
With Ophelia and Brigid.

Marble black bark grow bed sheets of parchment attached by
    strings. Spillage of pink arises from the abdomen. Fused clothing fibers substitute layers of bark.........

The vivid aroma of rot and feasting maggots harmonize...............
                                
A cadaver drilled by burrowing insects. Beetles, flies, pismires, and parallels. A carcass crammed with 200 seeds. Bulbous seeds in the nose. Deposited bulbs rooted in brain tissue. Thick specks of white nuzzle into flesh emerge. Squirm out of the cubicles.  Insects feasting simultaneously............

A figure emerges from the edge of perception. Routinely gorging the cadavers vital delicacies. Amid spouts of fainting spells.......................

Grabbing lumps of brain matter. Shoveling it towards his gaping hole. Ravenously consuming the bland ashen chunks. Gripping the cranium and sipping the diluted ***................

Sliding two slippery marbles into his gullet. Then suddenly publicizing his medals amid his fangs. Deteriorating into slush immediately........

Piercing the stationary ticker with talons. Shortly guzzling the dense scarlet metallic droplets. Promptly the sticky liquid cerise matter slithered into his craw. Hurling the white speckled rims simultaneously in glee.  Than consuming the exterior synthetic.........

    The corpse is convulsing..wheezing..........chest withering in pain. Man devours his own living corpse, neglecting to swallow his toes. A daily phenomenon……to devour yourself.  

What of the toes? Looted by a motivated businessman the next day. “Oh the painstaking horror of humanities hunger,” the motivated businessman then asserted into thin air.

I love the way you always
challenge me.
          The way you always
         keep me on my toes.
          The way         you always
get my heart beating
like a drum.
This time, it was a race, only the first one
     to cross the finish line
     was not the winner.
The way you asked me
       what I wanted if I wanted if I won and what would happen
                                                   if I lost.
I tried to hold out on you, love, but your dancing
   fingers and perfect rhythm get me every time.
And when I moaned softly, as our ballet met its coda,
               you yanked me so close that my chest was
   one with yours and you whispered in my ear,

                                                   “I. Win.”

I had taken two steps farther again hoping you would notice the distance, but this time I fell off a cliff screaming for you to ask me to stay . I was floating, wondering, “if I died when I hit the ground would the bruises of my past hurt more than being gone?” I couldn’t decide so I just let myself fall. I was looking up to every sharp edge of my life that I had created as my body twirled through the air. I’m not sure why I couldn’t form any thought but “I wish I would have worn shoes, I always hated that my second toe was longer than my first”. Next thing I could remember was you shaking me. I could not figure out when I had reached the ground. You kept saying “please stay”, it was as if your voice was on some sort of prerecord loop. I had needed to hear those words for so long that when you finally spoke them I didn’t understand. How could you not keep your eyes open long enough to see I had been slowly walking away for quite some time. Why did it take the distant thud of my body hitting the ground to catch your attention? You had to realize; you are my only home. I had hoped for so long that you would remember to repair the roof and paint the walls that shade of yellow we loved. But the only bedroom that wasn’t falling apart was the one where you laid your head as you dreamt, and I wept.