Like when we were kids and smeared
rubber cement on the soft pads of our fingers
and blew on them until they were tacky.

Press pointer to thumb and pull apart:
whoever could stretch the sticky threads
longest without breaking them won.

The gum always looked like teeth and rabies spit
to me when we played. As if my hand
were the mouth and the glue thick disease.

Or when Bugs gave Elmer Fudd the hotfoot
and his boots sank down, soles spreading
and bubbling like pancake batter;

he tried to chase that wabbit but the melted threads
yawning between the ground and the boot
snapped him back like a rubber band.

Like that. The threads are what
I mean. Like a mouth,
yawning wide open.

Like Elmer’s soles holding on to the earth.
Like Elmer trying to run, that mouth
just eating him up.