KITTENS IN A BAG

When the stage falls down
when the machine stops
when the resume flambés
when the cake is gone
when the boots are dirt
when my face is finished
when the map is a smile, giggle, burp,
when the Presidents repose
when the hammocks are digested
when the prescriptions are false teeth
when the false teeth are white stone in the ocean
when the cocks are birds again
when the aprons are buses
when the buses are benches
when the benches melt like popsicles
into the warm asphalt
when the warm asphalt
melts onto your sleeping chest
when we are ash
when the stage falls down
when our pages are tombs
when our tombs are follicles
when our meditations are a song
when our prayers are…

then we will get out of bed, maybe
and I will babble to myself in the shower,
a voiceover

which came to me
as I lifted like a camera
and looked down on our yin-yang corpses
in this weeks-old inherited bed

the voiceover went,

la belle et la bête

et la belle et la bête et

la belle et la bête

et la belle et la bête et

la belle et la bête…