darkness extends its warm arms around
me and its fingernails trace the delicate
purple veins tattooed on my forearms

thin curlicues and tiny vessels of this very
thing-- this thing that reverberates and
reverberates and reverberates within

this tiny black knife makes its first vicious
forceful trace-- the curls becoming
faucets of this bluish purple liquid

a puddle which defiles the pristine floor
-- maybe this is a suitable cleaning
device-- a thin rod with this pointy

shiny silvery tip, collecting tiny mercury
***** from the puddle, as I rearranged
the puddle into the thing bluish purple

liquid curlicues just like that whence
they came