The wax woman is half voluptuous, other half viscera.

Her only breast shimmers, unsure whether to decay.

At least the rippling canvas is comforting.

And the film projector, and the stadium seating

where I can eat pistachio muffins in peace each morning.

Sometimes there are tulips laid in the halls like lasagna

in memory of mental patients.

An irritant, so young.

Painting pottery farm boys with fishing poles wearing overalls.

Placing them gently into the kiln.

Shiny and sealed against decay, like a scoop of chocolates.

Even the math kids appreciate the greenery,

lily pads arrowing skyward out of the mud.

The young intellectuals remove unborn sharks from the cavity

and sever the liver like a cold chicken leg.

Into a teaspoon, scraps of a last meal.  A tuna?  A seal skin?

This is the sickness of seeing something a second time,

tasting the pickled crop.

The bullfrogs glide underwater charting territory using nose bubbles.

They harbor an ancient tolerance for smells

and I am only static.  A shiver.

I take it to the public square and it is a bolt of cloth.