Centipede

peel back the bark to find the rotten core
wood glistening with chitinous leg-segments
black slithery little backs

there's hope, in these children
of lightless wet places
here the other world burps forth
smelling like mushrooms

decay and new life but
she perceives this only distantly
somewhere
in those misted corridors of forest passing
800/km per hour beneath the cityship

through doubled-paned transparent aluminum
windows of her private bathing chamber
as I pull the robe down over her shoulders
to kiss her breasts and
smooth belly