You are cold,

to my palm,

to my cheek,

cold to my tongue.

I am licking you all over -

the incisions, fine or deep and crude,

the straight angularities of

 your face, your helmet.

You are covered now in my DNA.

Does it disgust you?

Or is my spit enfolding you

in a tender genetic embrace?

Upon your black stone surface are

inscribed ancient signatures, traces of

those who have held your coldness

in a palm, or touched you to a living cheek.

Did it please you, this transformation

from natural thing into amulet,

Now held in my hand which

can never warm you?

Or is it a grievance you carry

silently into a future where

you will endure and

I will not?

It was a loud sound for the early morning.

A bomb?

No, just a car crash.

Engine hissing.

No smell of petrol.

Twisted metal.

The driver, long black hair.

Blood on the steering wheel.

Passenger younger, gold bangles lying still.

Shocked, not dead.

I hear the sirens in the distance.

I want to photograph the crash.

Not them, the Mercedes.

I know they are not dead.

The ambulance is almost here.

Then it will be too late.

I leave the square.

Return to my hotel bed,

Wait for my croissant to arrive.

I still think the crashed car was divine,

Instant, spontaneous abstracted sculpture.

The dog pulls itself along

the middle of the roughly 

graded road.

Front legs only;

hind quarters dragging.

Red dust rises, then coats 

the pineapples in their field.

The hunter is watching

this silent advance.

He will kill the dog soon.

There is no sign of the viper.