Wonderland

A smile costs nothing, so they say,

so I grin til she gets self-conscious;

                                       like a hot coal

dropping her gaze to a forest floor

mottled with moss and birdshit,

     none of that

sugar and spice malarkey

where even the flowers smell like flesh,

                              strung by their pretty red heads

like pigs on a butcher’s hook.

One hundred watts of dentistry

shatter the pinetree dark, stripes sliding

                                like oil off a duck's back--

slim as ribbons,

tangled varicose veins—

          please stand and behold

the great vanishing act,

this incredible cat

                              in your candy-sucking dozens

wheezing on smoky narcotics,

my odd and neurotic

            spectator is a thousand wriggling legs

too high to do anything else but question

every fucking detail—

                              who are you?—

blaming the fumes

from those dull and knock-kneed bastards

            painting the roses red

for her menopausal majesty.

We’re all mad here. I growl when I’m happy,

wag my tail when I’m pleased;

                                   therefore I’m mad

but still—

I have stopped attending tea parties

          in tasteless hats,

but grinning at everything,

everyone
           and nothing at all

I will get by on a Hollywood smile

and card games,

                     cosmetic dentistry

and those crazy catnip nights

                                   in Wonderland.