The Glass (rewrite)
Standing outside
the kitchen, I look
into the glass of water
at the three ice cubes
that appear inundated,
would flail had they arms,
would cling to each other
if they were castaways
in a frigid sea.
Inches in this glass
become leagues of empty,
lifeless depth, lapping
at the drifters’ edges until
all becomes one lukewarm
swirling body
of like molecules.
I know I’m lost now.
This placebo was
supposed to lend
me clarity; the crystalline,
crackling tonic, tipped
toward my sightline,
a new lens, and the tap
water a cold shower
to my torpid gut.
But it’s helplessness
I’m about to drink.
Roughly 20 ounces
of maritime casualties,
an industrial tragedy,
their screams jittered
by the clatter of their
jaws. Face down
in filtered suspension,
they can’t see me
examining their struggle,
they can’t sense the metaphor
I’m about to make of them.
They hear the clamor
of their bodies
against the glass, and I kick
among them, naufrago
in a chilly marsh of carpet and dry-
wall.
|
