Next Life

The skull whose name was smoke spoke
worm words. Its missing teeth hissed
from the gizzard of an owl.
How odd, I thought, to be a skull
& haunt a body from within!
The air smelled of rotting
leaves; it was October.
Icy feathers began to form
on the edges of grass blades—
the only kind of next life
that made sense to me, stoned as I was.
My gut gurgled polyphonically.
I considered fear as if from a great height.