Papyrus

Acorn-brown, the girl's new nipples draw the young men's rooster eyes where a woman is fitting a man to her mouth, breathing fire, holding for dear life. Green almonds in their shells: she knifes them open one at a time and hands him a slick teardrop, cool white tasting cool white. Nothing compares with such austerities, although the skull's honeycomb of bone will break their hearts, who need hearts like a bird's wishbone, to bend, unbend at every feathery beat—wishbone hearts, or something fleet and light as an ostrich's leg-bone, bearing him to where, panicked with grief, he can bury his head in sand. Papyrus light: a scarf with black parrots on it lifts in the breeze, and a real rare bird is about to fly—his head in the clouds, his life shrouded in daylight he keeps breaking.