Night of the Living! err. Afternoon of the ...

This is still ruff.


Important Questions
.
How do I know I’m not a zombie?
.
I walk slow, sometimes I stagger.
My cats are disappearing.
.
The screen door is ripped, shreds of it
lie strewn among larch leaves on the porch.
.
I can’t say when that happened.
.
My parents don’t answer my letters.
My boss looks right through me in the elevator.
The other secretaries have stopped taking
jelly beans from the cut crystal glass on my desk.
.
If I open the file drawer, it shines like a ghastly moon.
Sometimes when I sit down the seat
of my plastic chair is still warm,
as if someone just left.

I leave gifts outside my boyfriend’s bedroom
door; he doesn’t stop to unwrap them.
Perhaps the gray earth on the ribbons
make him uneasy.
.
I appear to be missing more than just a toe.
.
And the stench-- like a fish
tank when all the oscars have gone belly up,
and the pale flesh on their stomachs sways
like my breasts loose in this ripped blouse.
.
It smells so horribly female,
as if my teeth are infected with a virus
patched together by some doctor
with spectacles and a grudge.
.
I wake up Sunday mornings
my mouth and hands smeared
with red. There’s steak in the refrigerator.
Maybe I just get hungry.
.
How can I tell who it is I’ve consumed?