You are no Queen Cobra

and your beyond treason

to the cause, as you bite

down hard on my skin,

full of scales, makes you believe

you have won, beaten me

with tongue and the venom

that drops from gleaming

hypodermic needles

that infects me

and will kill me, but not before,

like the constrictor, heavy weight,

that I am,

I will squeeze with regrettable anger

in return

but take no satisfaction

in seeing us both become food for the bereaved.

Ian D. Hall 2018