"The Pool of Being"

BY NATE STAINS

when the masonry is done

and the hollows of irregular aortae

pour cool dew as a maiden of heaven would

from silver, stepping upon the sand

fine as white chalk, recording

every footstep

every scale

as tracks round the mirror’s edge

under the cool awning of stone

between the pillars that hold the sky, human passion

burning as swift bonfires

that sublimate into a hiss

when that crackling roar grows elder

and its life is stolen into the frigid air

as what once was metamorphosizes into

a cloud of firebugs

and now and then these darters

come like willowisps to the 

reflection devoid of vanity

they cast themselves in, and ripples grow

and move, the language without words,

sounds, figures,

images 

or grudges of any impurity.