Post Vanitas Analysis

Elizabeth Langemak

Pear as stone right up until not. Bruise 
as sinkhole an apple falls into. Mold overlay 

on loaf as aberrant weather: first, a light 
dusting, then school is cancelled. Thumb 

of cheese with dragging skirts as failed 
proposition. Sausage as limb chewed down 

to two assholes. Tomorrow, these grapes 
as unpuffed cheeks, and that nearly visible sigh 

from somewhere as last lungful of partridge 
wrung from the neck of the partridge. People 

drinking wine are one natural enemy of wine, 
and a second is people not drinking wine, 

so pewter jug as every window in a building 
on fire. Skull as neon exit sign over garage 

door. Lilies choking the throat of this vase 
as appearances we keep because we cannot 

give them away. Lilies choking the throat 
of this dry-basined vase as painter's assistant 

sleeping with butcher's assistant for good deal 
on partridge. Loaf here again, but new loaf 

as old loaf. Yesterday's loaf as bird food, 
bloated corpses of bread in the sand. Linen shirt 

as linen shirt so we know this guy could really 
paint linen, even if no one remembers this guy.