I can feel the music swirling inside,
Splashing up against the glass,
splitting apart,
Explosions in miniature
knocking around inside my head.

If I turn over the tumbler,
will the notes spill out,
wash the floor,
cool my heels as a liquid blessing?
an offering to the first god who’ll take it—
I’m not picky anymore.

Or will it stay, suspended
in this rarefied atmosphere,
an elixir of life, almost oxygen,
not quite enough to breathe?

If I get close enough,
the notes will knit themselves into my bones
pour through this frail skin
and remake me into a creature fluid and beautiful.

I can hear my mother’s voice,
“Turn off the music,” she says,
“I can’t think through all the noise.”
But I also hear a promise—
Just give me this,
my heaven, drowned in light.

Just let me get close enough,
let me break the glass against your floor,
And I will take the blood and the glass,  
I will weave you a castle,
And this one, finally, this one, will be right.
And we could disappear inside.

Yes, make me into a storm or a song or a broken glass,
turn me into a handgun or a time machine or
those last few stitches in the kind of wound that wouldn't heal.

And I will forget, I will be what I promised,
when we were young, and still remembered the old prayers.