A tavern roars inside your eggshell body.

Your stagnant feet are boats, marooned in ice.

Beneath your nose is acrid fruit, rotting.

Upon a lute, goblins strum your folly,

Screaming. They are shearing wool from white.

A tavern roars inside your eggshell body.

Back then, on backs of ox and ass, trotting,

We could not evade the stench of moonlight

Beneath our noses, acrid fruit, rotting.

Before your honeyed bite from Saraswati,

Vice-Serpent wagered his own equal bite.

A tavern roared inside your eggshell body.

From first river’s rush, our blood was clotting,

Taking form in shadows black as night—

Beneath our noses, acrid fruit, rotting.

We once stood on high crags—crumbling, rocky—

Flirting, both with flight and falls (the sights!)

A tavern roared inside your eggshell body—

Beneath our noses, acrid fruit, rotting.

a hard fall for us all

Derek Engen