Stuffed Cat

After David Hammons

In this world anterior

To where you have been

What you will become

The drum is a reminder

Of another world

Extant but not recoverable

Still hidden by its being revealed

An open secret or prophecy in reverse

Of all lost things they tried to destroy

The sun as it shines on dead things playing alive

Uncanny because we think any moment they might wake

Awaken cat! Where there is only the sunlight of recognition

And the refusal of the life-like dead to be recognized

Your snow globe is not a ghost

The coverings on these mirrors only obscure who you’re not

A relation of objects begetting objects

Readymade for the fall of Amerikkka

Armed as it were by your right

To opacity and enigma
What is and what ain’t.