Bloat

Puff

Sex and turf. The secret motors throb.
Sacs and bladders plump and throats engorge
to lure with song, appall with inflatus.
The wolfish and the catty horripilate.
The coxcomb swells, the blossom’s pouting lips
enrouge and moisten for the honeybee.

So, blowfish, tetrodotoxic, float
deluded in dim, elemental blue.
Your folklore outfits fiendish bogeymen
with clever hooks and brilliant, flashing reels,
all soluble in venom (holy, pure,
devoid of ego sum) in the denouement.

But where are your comfort stories now, swellfish,
when your first awful, airful glimpse of self
is in a watery mirror falling fast
and your last thought is God, was I that fat ?
Self-puffery in monosyllabubbles !
Long knives await us all. (You too, Fugu.)

6.26.99