smears herself with snakeskin,
wears the perfume of its scales –
near hungry mouths she’s invisible
as if she were another venomous tail.
Behind a tree somebody hid
but no one is exactly sure
if this is hiding or imitating
the yew, unmoving, lichen-furred.
And when you lie beneath his skin
what are you thinking, if you think at all?
Is it that you’re half of him –
at one and indivisible?
or covering your breasts and thighs –
his body being the warmest hide?