: glass : trap :

by Jessica Goodfellow

Glass holds its breath in random
molecular scatter, in this way
more liquid than solid. Rigid,
uncrystallized, a trap for chaos,
which is itself a trap for self,
map for else. Or else its opposite.

The known ways to untrap the self—
sleep, sex, god, death—are also
the known ways to trap the self.
Luckily the self doesn’t need a trap.
It is a trap, a glass trap, all liquid
ephemeral chaos, until you run into it

headlong. Constellation of scribbled
gibberish, lungful of gravity, translucent
truculent headstone. Call it what
you will: sacred scattershot, invisible
scar. A way of cooling a random
pattern, and holding it: your breath.

 

Read : language : bones : by Jessica Goodfellow.