On limbs of slanted light
painted with my mind’s skin color,
I step upon black braids,
oil-drenched, worming
from last month’s orphaned mouth.

Winged with burning—
I ferry them
               from my filmed eyes, wheezing.

Scalp blood in my footprints—
my buckskin pouch filling
               with photographed sand.

No language but its rind
               crackling in the past tense.