PEEL ME A FRUIT BAT

You can’t call it help
if it always ends in a barney

smell of hot fat
lenses frosted by sea spray

met us a
woman with serpentine plaits
stone beautiful
until the

thread snapped

better buy a lot of ballots
or cast a god
one-eyed
into the forest
where a tree groans

and dark town’s last crate of light
drives back to base
with not a tosser saved

and every skull so faint
you have to stare

faster faster

go the lost and clocked
feeling
what scars feel
long after departure.