Cold Eel

After the hubbub

And the crassness of the active battle

You slither out, basking in the tension

Left in the murk after a rip-roarer

Of a show. You settle

Your flimsy layers

And your granite guts

As the sediment returns

To its grounding point, goaded no more.

Algae, food.

Mollusc, food.

Hibiscus, food.

Finger, food, you

Build all your life with no

Concern from whence it came.

You break apart bone, ligament, ex-

Cruciating tendon, as if it were

A delight to your fussless stomach.

Nightlife comes to your dark-already door

Niggling away at the peace of your churning.

You slide out, and politely tell it

“The same as last night, I haven’t

The time or the inclination-

My heart was never in it.” Your

Faceless grin looks eerie

As much as polite, a monstrous balance

Of the housewife, the banker, the trader.

Nothing in your grin gives offence, nothing

Gives; yet beneath it all

Through the newly digested bone

You are impatiently waiting for the day

When nightlife will overstep its bounds

And you have just and probable cause

To swallow the moon.