my clenched, barnacle-encrusted teeth / are bared into the humidity of the sheets where my fever broke / another barrier hiding my hair-width lips pressed white together / that your salt-worn, sun-leather fingertips pry at / hoping to expose spit-slick glistening / and flayed, flexuous pink flesh / and the pearl buried within it
unuttered layers are peeled apart by your callous tongue casting about / that defies the no my slender neck thrashes / the struggle before the shore breaks wave / before the clamshell is wedged to halves / before my lie is exposed / sand