I am the king salamander! every spot
a drop of honeyed gold. I am
the fossorial emperor dreaming
deep draughts of dreams
in the leaf litter, the leaf throne, the wet leaf mold.
I reign
in electric glory all through autumn.
your boots are coming
awful close. I tell you I am the king salamander—

I nest in the corners of rooms both real and unreal;
I make faces at the glass,
to glimpse a smile. say my
own name into the
cracks of the floorboards, to hear it spoken.

I thrust upward into the rafters,
bridging space and time, always out of sight,
lock my ankles around cobwebs,
fill my lungs with
bats, shadows, pipe smoke

I shimmy down flying buttresses and
braided strings of onions,
curling like a snake around the
unseen strands stretched
wall to wall. I listen to the stories that
arc like stones being thrown, nets being cast,
bouncing off the ceiling, the windows,
tearing strips from my cheek,
trailing spent gunpowder all the way down.

and me: running my fingers
through the gashes,
licking my blood off like an animal,
to taste the words, their sharp salted honey,
the tang of beginnings,
endings, voices, people.