Vessels for the lapse of time (2)

Vessels for the lapse of time (2)

Vessels for the lapse of time (2)

2. Helicoid


From the cracked bowl of the morning
rises a roaring sea in your left ear, the helical
pulse unfurling into time passages made

convoluted by fingers tracing a slow
orbit around a breast. Taking an old stethoscope
from the table you heard the loud whispery

edges of your heartbeat; listened for
the murmurous parts of that country
absorbed awkwardly inside, down

to the intricate whorls of your knuckles,
like distorted incense spirals. In this vessel
rests a memory of eating rice picked

three days earlier, smoothed grains
in the coarse capsule of a sack, so recently
bound in curved terraces of wet rice

stretching in tiers towards the horizon;
the taste of earthiness and pith sparking
tender florescence in the reverent

chamber of the mouth. With a word balanced
on the tongue comes simultaneously
its echo in another language, coiled

beneath, entwined with an older image;
the round edges of a biscuit tin decorated
with english birds: pheasants, demure

water fowl, a robin; and the helix of the present
winds more tightly; three inseparable baskets.