Ophidiophobia

Cal Louise Phoenix Ophidiophobia

When it started, we were hummingbirds. We played tragic by comparing strange dreams and other head sounds. We laughed at broken guitar strings and stubbed coins.

In the rain, we canned ourselves in glass and blew smoke through the cracks. In the heat, we peeled away our foliage and sweat in watercolors until all of the furniture was new.

We drew plans until they became mistakes, but kept making love to the maps—even after they had shrived and fallen from the face of the refrigerator.

Now, he weighs me into sofa foam and plucks me with his tongue to keep the words from blooming. His calloused tips —and teeth too—cut my backside into decorative scales: red to blue to yellow—all slick, all swollen.

Once my limbs—my keys and earrings are lost in the tumble, I slither gone to sleep in the dark beneath the soft house of his liver. While he quiets in the hum of an amber cloud, I wish for another warm summer.