this is modern art

There’s a dead man
in a bed, pale white fingers
on a red cotton duvet…

The radio’s playing old country music,
the strum of a guitar,
the constant emptying of the whiskey bottle.
A soundtrack to nirvana.

Outside, the sun’s shining.

Inside, desperate aunties
search for five hundred word meanings for life.

Count to one hundred
then look for the light
(spiritual hide-and-seek).

We’re playing detective,
an autopsy for wink-murder corpses
lined up in the hallway.

I see the sea and the sea sees me.
A sea of horses. Seahorses?
Morning has broken, like the new day...

...like every other new day that dawns and rises and wanes and sleeps and is accompanied by a chorus of adolescent half-moans as we hear of unfutures that may or may not await our tired bodies.

(we've got some serious growing up to do)