this mortal coil

This Mortal Coil

ages after curtain call,
why am I still here?
trapped in slow transition,
life a funhouse mirror;
the unhinged jaws
of this strange limbo,
in a fractured mess
of re-reflections,
it swallows me whole.
so numbed, I've fallen
down the rabbit hole,
or did I leap?
half-anesthetized,
I'm bleary-eyed,
but somehow wide awake,
clinging to ten minutes
of commiseration
between an instant's endless stretch
and the bell tower's
pre-recorded peal.