Slanted and enchanted,

this room full of bass clefs

and cranach the elder prints

a moribund pitch for the

business of dead souls:

get your smithy here, half-off,

Up above at the surface,

extra vagrants milled around

the steam vents, smelling like fried oil

and feasting on the ethereal spiff of

well-intended confabulations about

what the future may hold in store

if they would simply slough off their skin

and become entirely different diffident people.

down below the bubbles in the pot simmered

and I searched for a cheap but direct way to show you I am almost partway healed.

The jams are in the process of being kicked out.