A serpent-like creature has taken residence

              in the dark recesses of a new shopping mall.

              Supposedly the offspring of the mall tycoon

              himself, the creature feeds, by preference,

              on nubile virgins.

 

                                                      —Tabloid story

 

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She hatched in the dank

Basements of our gullibility,

Warmed in the gasp of our

Telling, curling in the tongues

Of housewives and clerks.

 

We gave her a body half-serpent,

Half-voluptuary, and a taste

For maidens and movie stars

Who began to vanish mysteriously

Behind the curtains of boutique

Fitting rooms and water closets,

Never to be seen again, or only

To be found in the parking

Cellars, wandering dazed into

The headlights of shoppers’ cars.

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