True Vessel

Pack up riots and riotous laughter,
Bring them to concrete and candle
Grind them, and concentrate

Choose to engrave a red letter,
And flit away, with cool paste,
Left on wings of bees

Carry gladness like perfume,
Carved from sidewalk,
Made of breath

Carries me still and is carried,
running through the tunnels of our underground,
that’s just an endless station, that sheltered the enemy,
but was built by sturdy friends

Chills me and is chilled,
The air in motion, full of the unknown dead,
Distant wail of dial tones,
And the city’s fuming thirst

Pushes me, pushed,
A comb that broke inside my hair,
Unteased now the sharp edge,
Where no hand grips

Brushes, brushed
A true vessel’s always empty
And clean enough
To fill

She told me this was the thousandth life in which we’d met
And that this was the thousandth time that I had scorned her

One day we would unite, and in that lifetime everything would come to a blistering end
All of it – not just our drama, but yours, and theirs

I believe she took too much
And every object from here to the racing edge of the cosmos,
Filled up with myth