Friday Water-When

you know how you pour water, from a jug to the sink. for you to wash. and the jug is big like an 8 made of ceramic and glazed, a neutral pastel, and it's full: not stupid-full, all the way up to the top, but a full that fits the jug. a restrained full stoic and precisely there. and you need both hands and arms to hold the jug and tilt it: not like a baby, more like a small log for the fire. and as you do the feeling is of thrill-wrapped apprehension: is this working? will I splash and spill? will I somehow dishonor this mother-shaped give? and then water comes out a silence; but not silence: it concentrates all sound near within a water-quiet: the tv has a pouring sound now; the street outside has a pouring hushing through it; and that birdsong - it's congealing to a poured quietness. the pour from your arms commands the attention of the here.... then it's a lick, a long lick; a long that licks out the air; a long of air the length of which becomes a pouring only where air licks it. like a long glass tongue. which the sink will destroy: un-shifting sink. solid; unmoving. arms crossed watching the water come, knows the future here, and stays. so the water explodes on contact. an obliteration held in place only by the sound of it's splash, and the sink, which waits for the water to settle, to sigh to itself again, resigned to it's fate as fire