her hairdresser handles vipers

better offer a benediction
before Medusa creeps
on her rising tread of wooden echoes.

there is a growing thunder in her padded recess
that is driven by recumbent sighs-
it drives a wry crackle
in your ardent halt of swoon.

you can only offer a closing bid
and hope that it's accepted:

thirteen marrows eclipsed by noon
or
four and twenty sun-bleached bones.

there is mother-of-pearl in the girlie skull,
freezing moonbeams empty from her eyes.