I swallow a piece of rough crust bread
it sticks in the straits of my chest
blocked maybe by the whale 
in my belly’s deep seas.
The bellowing beast’s song 
sends gazelles running
to the hills of my knees.
A bear charges down
my shins’ snowy slopes
down to the crocodiles of my feet
plodding through the grass.

The bread wears down to a stone
and passes to churning waves.
The whale was there before I was born.
Bats perch on the wires of my nerves.
Watch and you may see them
fly out from this cave
in the front of my face.