If I surprised you with my rolling head,
my teeth sharpened to wordless spikes,
I do apologize.
I didn’t mean to frighten you
out of that seat
and into a day wrapped in aluminum foil,
crinkling with your every move.
I just wanted you to see
that my skin is coarse
and strangely fluid,
molding to your touch,
never losing shape.
Warm sea water.
My head is not an ornamental vase,
empty except for dust,
it is a flowering pot,
moist and rooting down.
You are dealing with
a creature that growls
and spits when cornered,
hair a gang of copperheads
sniffing to snuff you out.

[Valentina Cano is a student of classical singing who spends whatever free time she has either writing or reading. Her works have appeared in Exercise Bowler, Blinking Cursor, Theory Train, Magnolia’s Press, Cartier Street Press, Berg Gasse 19, Precious Metals and will appear in the upcoming editions  A Handful of Dust, The Scarlet Sound, The Adroit Journal, Perceptions Literary Magazine, Welcome to Wherever, The Corner Club Press, Death Rattle, Danse Macabre, Subliminal Interiors, Generations Literary Journal, Super Poetry Highway, Stream Press, Stone Telling and Perhaps I’m Wrong About the World. You can find her here.]