Day 21: Deathfat's Neighbour
I got my arm caught
in the folds of your gunt
for 127 hours.
I asked you to move
so I could free myself,
but you replied
that you could not.
I begged you to call
the fire brigade
for assistance,
but you were
continually
on the phone,
ordering pizza.
After I passed out
from dehydration
you chewed my arm
off at the elbow.
I awoke to the sight
of you gnawing on it
like a chicken wing.
Screaming at me,
in between bites,
to fetch the BBQ sauce
from the ruined
French dresser,
where you store the
overspill from the
fridge/freezer.
Five years ago
you had most of
your bones removed
as part of experimental
weight-loss surgery.
A team flew in
from Venezuela.
They worked on
you for nine days.
Your bones were not big
as you had often claimed.
They were normal-size
and they were
broken up into pieces,
or warped, as if they
had been subjected
to intense pressure.
When the surgeon asked
what you wanted to do with
the bric-a-brac of your skeleton,
you instructed him to
“Boil it down for soup” and
to make you “iggs,” which,
I explained, is your word
for two-dozen fried eggs
sealed inside a giant pancake.
Yesterday, the scent of
warm cinnamon rose
from the chimney of
your home, momentarily
blotting out the rancid
clouds of your flatulence.
I wondered if you
might have died;
whether that,
as rigor mortis set in,
your body had expelled it's
reserves of sugar and spice.
I waded-in, knee deep
through the antique
fast food containers,
to find you huffing
aromatic doughnut fumes
from a brown paper bag,
from a nearby bakery,
enquiring,
between inhalations:
“Is this vapin'?”
Adding:
“Ain't no calories in steam.”
When you die
they will hire
mass-gravediggers
from Colombia
to make the hole.
Your mark on this world
will be a solitary footprint
of unfathomable depth.