red and yellow signatures
pass slowly across the glass
like infrared ghosts.
Their murmurs reverberate
and their taps boom and echo.
I wind myself into a ball
and burrow into a mossy log
and shed my soot-colored diamonds.
As my skin sloughs and peels off,
venom dribbles down my tongue.
White fluorescent light
shines in my narrow eyes,
so I bury my head
in a mound of sand
and twitch my sylphlike tail.
A pair of phlegm-colored eyes
widen and provoke me closer,
but as I slither near,
they blink, and the creature
shudders away.
I want to be out there—
with the harbingers of heat—
sink my fangs into their glow,
and drain their sulfurous yellow
until they're blushing blue.
But I suppose my crystal box will do.
Here's my meal now,
a tiny wisp of white fluff.
I contort my jaw
and flash my fangs
and snap,
then find my own tail bitten.
