SLUG

Plump stuffed sack of guts

and sundry fluids,

eyeless mystic ever

questing for that perfect

homeostasis. 

(A drop is never enough;

a flood, a curse of riches.)

In the backporch gloom, I struggle

to sort you from your size:

apple twig the wind

brought, clump

of sodden grass cast

in a shoe cleat, careless

cigarette end.

Abstemiousness

could never serve you whose

hermaphroditic accoutrements

you pack along against

apocalypse or the odd dry spell.

Drink deep but not too deeply

at life’s wells, you teach us,

your flesh a humped

finger of muscle, fleeing

with exquisite leisure

the groundwater’s swell.

                -William Kupinse

                Copyright ©  2005 Green Letters