New Things

I have already been perfect once, this morning:
my horse's nose, my gibbon's corrugated brow,
the splendid chain-mail of my reptilian neck.

In front of the mirror, I angled my jaw,
ran a paddled thumb from ear to maw,
snap-bagged a midge in my batting lashes.

As my face glitched back to its familiar crook,
I cried a la Plato after the car crash. It did not
sound clever: sirens and babies and spy planes and stuff.

I boiled the kettle with significantly less water
than the minimum recommended. The air got hotter.
It hissed like a python. The steam went and opened my pores.