She derails cadavers with a penny on the slab.
Next, she tries quarters and Louie Louie
belches through several neck wounds.

The market is hot. Meat is on the rise.
She is rich with decay, but no one will
send her flowers. No one will transform
her corpse into a piggy bank.

"To hell with Wall Street," she says, "it's cool."
She digresses, "The crows get lazy, man,
nest in my pocket." And it really is
like blood in a freezer every time
she counts her change.

Relatives of the departed tear up
for the lie parade. More frowns press
her shoulders. When the lights are shot,
she is well aware and free of charge.
Lines queue to touch her. Traffic swells
through the window. Her lace wardrobes
are donated to the morgue against her will.

"The bastards have had me. That orgy was hell."
Frozen into grey positions of struggle
(rigor mortis, to her, is like a round of applause),
an old man sits woodenly, no lips on his skull,
only nature's brace props him, her fingers
comb what's left of his hair.

She wants to look good when she says this:
"Fear is never a complaint, grandpa.
It's just what happens when you wake up."


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