John Swain

The Inside of a Jar

End of the wilderness

at our cross purpose,

this scabrous city.

The farther fluid fathering sky

let chaotic waters

pressure the stones into law.

And all of the sons became his executioner

and all of the daughters were born widows.

I laid in the place

where the bones were removed

from both the fallen animal and its ground.

The lock of this altar

provided your face with an eye

of blue natron,

I tasted its taste

like the inside of a broken jar

I could not enter

or decipher its meaning.