i'll prey for you

touching smooth slime skins
touching yellow red orange
we lived in great water
like salamanders
inflatable bodies 
fuse on the neck 
where all the air 
comes out
i brought the smaller animals 
to the rocks
rats bats chewing gum mammals
taught them to sit still
before we're ready 
for mass
only Catholics say mass 
i'll prey for you
i'll stay for you 
on the water peering
out at the world 
like a hippopotamus
how many syllables
in that word? 
i want my name to have
that girth
shake earth 
shake food chains 
like maracas or
rain sticks
all the edible animals 
that means all the animals 
how do you eat 
an elephant 
one mouse at a time
we float 
i love the hands 
of salamanders
they remind me of
my brother's baby fingers 
curled around my pinky
edible brother 
soft like pink chewing gum 
stick him to 
the bottom of the table
we forgot about
the water
the wading the shark
not sharks
the one big shark 
moving beneath it all
that one is god or maybe
just a priest
see the fin in the distance
say i won't prey 
i won't prey 
not me
sometimes send him 
another direction 
red orange yellow  
all in the pool together
i ask my brother if he remembers
when we ate him
he shakes 
his head