Self-Portrait as the Flatwoods Monster Struggling to Open an Obstinate Jar of Peaches

After the glittering blitz across the cosmos
and the crater a spacecraft can make of a forest—
after the needlepoint of a child’s fear pierces
the night before it stitches the earth with ash and awe,
after it all, you’re left in the silence that finds each of us
sooner or later. But lately, the only shriek shaking
the dark is a teapot’s impatience. The only bloom
of smoke withers from a candle extinguished in wax.

This is the mycological growth of a quiet life
and all of its accouterments—the carpeting moss,
its bluets and barrenwort, the formica peeling away
from the countertops, the pill bugs, the lichen,
the immovable lid to a jar of sweet peaches. No—
it still will not open. Not after you wrench yourself sideways,
hunched over the sink with hunger and fury. Not even
after you coax the tip of a knife beneath the lid and pray.

You have scalded your fingers redder with trying
to soften the steel between you and the taste
of summer. In the end, you tap the jar’s edge
against the counter. But glass doesn’t understand
the value of fruit, doesn’t keep itself from shattering
under the pressure of desire. Doesn’t stop
the spilled fruit from filling with transparent splinters
or the syrup from seeping into the dirt.