Pommelled fruit

Back up against a tree,
golden foliage shelters the curves,
freckled islands, a desert
of smooth sand, gripped by palms
soaked in the sweet, salty sweat of a summer night
squeezed of the juice from a fallen fruit.

Sometimes I lie

sometimes I lie,
I bite myself–forking:
You’re saving souls from fire
and day to day desolation,

and for a moment, the fangs are enough
to not slit my scaly skin,
ignoring others’ bleeding,
like me! in self-pity,

tragedy keeps me humble–thirsty
to stare, into cringes and dying corpses
decaying on the desert, I swivel on
with no eyelids I cannot cry.

but the sun still shines
behind clouds and over sandy mounds–
burning yet basking! and the cross
is enough tragedy to get me through.