O slimy tongue!
O patient tourist!
Your slow retreat has
left a lustrous spoor.

How admirable,  
your bold simplicity—
no radiance to distract,
no carapace to fortify.

How you coil and flex,
a solitary finger
sliding across our
forgotten places.

How we yearn to
pet your soft tissue,
to feel its cool shiver,
the recoil of desiccation.

How honest the world
must be from below as
you devour the decayed,
savor that sour brutality.