Landscape at Night with Bed and Fire

Hair caught on my tongue, I sing into
your ear, my lips so quiet, so close,

they are signing with my breath the language
under kneecaps, under ribs, under fingernails.

The room shudders, a bedful of red snakes;
the room stills, a bedful of drowned plates.

Low murmurs from our palms, as if we
had throats in our wrists, and you drift towards

the ceiling, splayed, smoky, while the curtains
flutter and blacken, break into iridescent

loose sparks, spill out our window onto the dead
in lines out on the lawn, waiting to enter.