OUR MUSEUM

We molded ourselves into a little death community.
Like Pygmalion the master we fashioned each other
in the image of that which we found most beautiful.
Into hollowed-out jacuzzis we poured sweet crude oil
and tied together the ankles of endangered pelicans
and holding them in our arms we fell backwards
the way that Olympians fall: with austerity.
We took photographs with our smartphones of these events
then uploaded them to Flickr and Facebook accounts
with tags, with highlights, and pithy captions;
no better way to build a mirror than that, or this.
We kidnapped vegans from the aisles of upscale markets,
we bound their wrists and dragged them from farmers’ markets,
and we force-fed them ortolans drowned in Armagnac.
We purchased illegally harvested coral from Craigslist
and with this coral we decorated our glass aquariums
which held Amazonian tree frogs, crucified and drowned,
not so venomous as others would have you believe.
Splayed like victims of vehicular manslaughter
in the image of that which we found most beautiful.