Your pearly whites gleam in the midday sun,
But soon your eyes will close and you will sleep;
There will be no dreams behind your eyelids,
Only the cool steel of the artist’s knife.
A coffee-stained sheet of yellow paper
In a forgotten filing cabinet
Tells us that you are enjoying life out
In Queen Elizabeth National Park,
But in reality, your toothless corpse
Rots, festers in another midday sun.
You are Schrodinger’s hippopotamus;
Both alive and dead – but really just dead.
Meanwhile, in a small Wan Chai apartment
There is an intricate, ‘beautiful’ vase;
With a broken glaze and a broken smile,
Your pearly whites gleam in the midday sun.
Your pearly whites gleam