sought desperate and double-sought. at last inside embracing entombment the skull-dome of earth my mother discovers the maiden intellect kidnapped by further tomorrows and slakes my thirst on the blood-brain beneath the hills of nemea. am i the sa vior the damsel or the beast? curdling a slimy finger down the vaginaless brain long veins delay my knuckles into nightingales between serrated orifice-incisors made of thought and all my hunting knives and bludgeons bring no unconsciousness to it. memories they say are as much like the present as a lion likes cat food. The sleeping woman is about to become cat food. cave shadows cloak what little of her is left to imagination: nearly dead, nearly beautiful. does that brain-like lion stalk impenetrable as hungry as intelligence as forceful as the crucibles of lust as remote as wastelands in the unforgiven breast? i could asphyxiate that hurdle given resolve i could lambast a mortal lion with my palms but not this facsimile of fortitude forcefields intact. through the nose of the wind and the mouth of the water i found my way to the eyesockets of the very dirt; a veil about my brain but saw it still. stillness surrounded. sought some sign upon the smooth sphere an opening into light or lifewaters or cold grey electricity but no thing could penetrate that sheath of thought -- though it may yearn for fornication some brains never breed but condense in darkness hermaphroditic, hunting through the silent greek city-states for beautiful bloodrivers. there is no lion no trodden angel weeping in a cave only impervious struggling eternal meandering and the jar of misdirection. thanks, hera but it looks like you've been foiled once again and this time by your husband's headcold who said only your brain can outthink your brain. she's a smart owl and she's right: every time i think i've reached my goal and allow a little fortune or fulfillment to escape my maze eleven novel tasks coagulate beyond my calendars of navigation. blood fills the veins of my brain engorging it and pressuring it into questionable *******. for if the sun breeds maggots in a dead lion then i've emerged from the earth's crevice victorious and spent. but there's more to the story as i crawl off down the metaphor wrapped beneath the brain's skinned hide its vestigial thoughts arrest me thinking i know, i know eleven more sunrises until death. thanks, brain.