In darkling pond I contract mussel
in palms: one daphnia too caustic
twitch, spiny cauls clutch and paperweight
contents hard of muscle fat, deiform
in their own eclat.
Cocoons will curdle or dogear,
metamorphose into jelly after seismic
wave of mouth slivers transparent flesh only
to jerk loose five furious limbs.
[My God, how beast struggles].
(Melancholia's Tremulous Dreadlocks, 2006)