Amusing Stories from the Casket Company

You came to the house to kill me or to give me a porpoise,

it’s not clear, but something’s gone awry, and you invite me to a party instead. It seems that in some other life, a life adjacent to this one, I stole your wife. But it’s hazy, like a butterfly in another language. You offer to translate. Death smells really bad, you say, like that kid from first grade. But he can’t help it. He doesn’t know any better. 
It’s really his parent’s fault.

They aren’t looking after him properly.

Cheese is melting on the counter. It’s sunset, after all, somewhere over there; you can hear the chain pulling it down. There’s time for one more before you go. We’re exchanging symbolic lions at the door, that ancient ritual we’ve both forgotten & don’t even realize we’re re-enacting. A man comes down the stairs neither of us recognizes. We stare at each other questioningly as he folds us both up 
like a couple of identical shirts.

He’s going on a business trip to Sioux Falls. 
We’re going with him. 
The taxi is already at the curb,
the meter running.