Countertop Theories
It’s easy to mistake spilled coffee grinds
on a counter top for small dead ants.
It is all too easy to mistake sugar granules
for the white sands of Montego Bay,
to push dunes into a drop of lukewarm water
with the etched whorls of a seashell finger
farming for life among scattered elements.
I have seen the cows that graze on skin,
some are as big as elephants, some flock like sheep.
The relativity of size and shape
troubles them not
they munch through dead epithelial cells
while you, a giant among pigmies
drink your coffee, rinsing your brain with
picayune tsunamis.
At the bottom of the mug where the past is revealed
it’s easy to imagine how all the minuscule beings
that grow too large to live
can end up as spillage on a countertop.
All too easy to conjecture
that where you touched your lips with a fingertip
worlds broke apart, ran like mercury
into a thousand fiefdoms of cloned flora,
exiles determined to survive
the Brobdingnagian avalanches of your fall-out,
a debris that can be instantly wiped away.
It’s easy now to see
that there is an aqueous cosmos in a bead of sweat
that is ignoring you completely
as if some greater hand were constantly
wiping you away also.
Post Comments
Poetrysoup is an environment of encouragement and growth so only provide specific positive comments that indicate what you appreciate about the poem. Negative comments will result your account being banned.
Please
Login
to post a comment
Turn off ads, get more exposure for your poetry, and get more features with a
Premium Membership.
