no user-serviceable parts

theory by theory, the funeral advances
and our garbage sweats in discrete leak-proof plastic bladders

this funeral is fit for a god:
the god of balsa wood, the god of hospital food and bleary airport mucous,
the god of tepid March drizzle diluting the malt-liquor piss-puddles,
a flimsy god sweltering with nicotine-plaque and mailbox perfume samples

these tooth-sucking pre-dawn minutes hit drop by drop
like a strangled, painful urination - drop by drop -
and a world without sleep is seen through a narrow shutter;
people paint themselves black and stand in ticket lines
staring at themselves in denture-cream and kindergarten-greased plexiglass

were you born with too much blood?
I was born in a bag of water
I was born into oysters and epileptic machines
do you still work best when broken? best when broke and swollen?
have we striven this far to fall, destroyed?

re-swallowing a few drops of vomit on the southbound express bus
if I can just keep my head steady until the freeway exit
the traffic lights behind me will converge on a new zodiac






because, god damn it, we’re not just made of meat anymore -