![]() Containment
So long I have been carrying myself Carefully, carefully, like a small child With too much water in a real glass Clasped in two hands, across a space as vast As living rooms, while gazes watch the waves That start to rile the little inland sea And slap against its cliffs' transparency, Revise and meet, double their amplitude, Harmonizing doubt from many ifs. Distant frowns like clouds begin to brood. Soon there is overbrimming. Soon the child Looks up to find a face to match the scolding, And just as he does, the vessel he was holding Is almost set down safely on the bookshelf. From Volume 191, Number 6, March 2008 Copyright © The Poetry Foundation |