Webster

And when I kissed your painted lips

the climax was ungodly.

Devotion dredged my cold canals.

The poison pitched me strongly

down to the floor, where writhing I

felt bone beneath the skin

and tousled hair. Caught unawares

I felt the pain begin.

My brain’s on fire. Body’s numb.

My veins stretch to be free

in ridges, sharp and angry still,

on a thin, unsettled leaf

of a poison Bible. Damage done,

I go I know not whither.

This kiss of death steals all my breath

and sends it to my killer.

Where murderers kill murderers;

where death is set in wax;

where hairs dig deep beneath the skin,

we pick conceits to set our sin.