UNION

Our skin is just starting to come apart. I feel it
like an annoying burr, how it catches on my bones, while all the howling circumference is around me, waiting to come in.

No wonder we are on edge, when the teetering
data banks are just waiting to infuse us
with a sense of something greater; whale sounds, ocean's pulsings, and suddenly
I am held fast to the catacombed bones of the earth,
and a silver-haired, white-skinned hag kisses me
with cold lips and tells me impossible things.

And then I am alone on rain-dark open grass plains, the first garble of man sounding around me,
cousin of skin who would eat me without pause.
How I could grow hair like him,
let it flood me, coarse and luxurious…