Uncoiling, my body finds
a home inside your mouth.
Small fractures fuse
like a baby’s skull,
sliding past sting and scar.
Here, I am less of me,
more fang, strike, release,
tongue flicking
at the space that separates.
The long cavern of my belly
fills with the bones
of your breath.
To find that small skull,
unhinge my jaw
and bring you into being,
pink as the haze of dawn.
In slow, unfurling light,
my sloughed scales
resemble a human body.
Jenne Knight writes poetry and essays. Her work appears in The Common, The Rumpus, and Rust + Moth, among others. She teaches in Baltimore. http://www.jenneknight.com
© 2016, Jenne Knight
Halfway Down the Stairs 