hello kitty

Then in my apartment everything began to burn,
starting with the lampshades. Like bad haircuts
splitting apart to reveal the grey black brains, or
splitting overstuffed pieces of orange furniture.

The vacuum cleaner swallowed a rubber band and
gently smoked. The carpet oozed its own juices. The microwave
set itself to high, revolved for thirty five seconds, and then
blew itself apart from the inside.

I wandered the lost shuttle of rooms like an agape mouth, believing
everything is lost. The paint in liquid came off the walls
peeling synthetic raindrops which sounded like the pow pow pows
the mute grinning and grinding of factories and my teeth
chewed themselves into a localized anesthetic of frenzy.

O Mardi Gras Tuesday! the girls in bead skirts and shirts
have not noticed the gulping gasps coming from my window,
the black feathers of a smoketail like a diver’s wetsuit swimming out
from my chamber-tank. FM radios blare like the town air-raid sirens.

They are delivering babies at Athens Regional Hospital
to the sound of an electronic heart monitor, the first noises in life
I think, with the fire alarm like an ostentatious red flower next
to a tombstone with my name on it.