pretending my fingers were feet
i skipped gingerly down
one two three jewels of your belt
as if they were cold stairs on saturday morning
and creaked each time i landed.
imperfect symmetry brilliance in your leather's clean rake
scratch across the black night

age five, stubby fingers stretched
taut and uncompromising from buckle
to buckle, bow to flank.
i could feel the ache in my fleshy web between
and remembered you were both killer
and killed.

you mock me with your three pointed regularity
you were not so pristine, thank goodness,
tearing hot rippling flesh, rare throbbing blood.
your own giant calf strained strapped strengthened
you slay me. i could not bear you up, devourer
or when you howled, piercing cry at the
jagged tail, poisonous and complacent.
the scorpion is up there will you, remember

you are not so pretty still, hunter.
never take offense to the fact that you now twinkle.