Ouroboros as Lifestyle Design

His mustache made him look like a snake,

she said, 

before fading to black.


The quails and ground squirrels 

skate across the asphalt, 

dodging hungry ghosts 

with bloated bellies and pinhole mouths,

track marks between toes. 


A girl swings 

in the same swing

her mother haunts.

Loose dogs harass

packs of stray cats. 


Sticky Tajin fingers reach for monkey bars;

Jamaican nurses, children

with faces sewn on backwards;

divorced dads lost in Instagram thots.


The boat goes nowhere,

cries a half-born butterfly,

squirming as the snake-man

consumes her cocoon.