Pronkstilleven

What you see on the table by the sea
where once a count dined with his eyes stoic
foreseeing his imminent doom doesn't call for
murmuring 'Hedonism' as if you lead
a Spartan life with one wooden trunk holding
all your earthly desires and possessions
as well doubling as a table.

A few of your miniscule animal-pleasures stand here
baffled with the freedom to devour a buffet of words,
amidst those names we give to the things –

those gravity's fruits, opacity of the cheese,
promise of life in demise from the tenderloin,
or the translucence of the lobster.

The waiter whispers, "Here, quality becomes quantity.
Here, every night divinity shares roes with sin,
and one tells the other that everything is transient,
alive between two zeroes."

What do I know? I chew what will go
from one embodiment to another and rot,
and what will perish even before that.