The Field and The Sequence Both Belong To The Potter

by Dan Smith

Sleeping in stark white,
Blinded by the heavens' inertial forces,
Pressurized air filtered and filtered and filtered
To the point of staleness,
Bodies expelling more than the machine can process with
Nowhere for the lungs to rest.

Sleeping in a neutral net,
Swaying with the rhythmic rise and fall of a chest cavity
Still ventilating through compression
Despite the coffin.
Vines crawling towards the sun through the glass,
Never designed to cling to the paint,
Intended to soften the manufactured comfort
And artificial deception of the will.

Sleeping on industrial heartwood
(an immature harvest),
Trees once stood proud
Now sold by the foot,
Worn smooth under feet,
No room for comfort;
Cotton-swathed warmth only behind behind thrice locked doors,
Keys riding rails
Out of service underground.

Sleeping in muted grey,
Suffocating, surrounded by the dust of vertebrates
Unaware of their responsibility for respiratory arrest.
Oxygen laced with personal poison
While systems of immunity cannibalize friends as enemies.

Sleeping on silver
Steel without reason,
Careless.
Regret a resounding echo
Through the vessel now hollow;
Bitter freedom from fear's leash
Tethers soul to despair,
Eternal patience weighed
Against the feather of truth.

Sleeping in pure pitch,
Peace earned through fire,
Life expiated in a furnace or reconciled in a kiln;
Incinerated dreams coming true.

Sleeping in a liquid fortress,
Shallow breaths in a blindness
Seen only through eyes unexposed,
Awaiting the end of the ellipsis
With walls thickening and thickening and thickening
Until a premature rupture of membranes
Leaves life
Dead in the water.