Of what matters to the remnant
tattered obsolescence next to clear glass, cool water
I am a rusted tin can, river-full of sandy rocks and bits of past
She
Is a Milk bottle alone in the fridge a the beach house on the first week of May

Long ago I like to imagine I was opened by a mom.  the baked beans eaten and the can thrown in the river by a bad little boy
to rest on rocky shoals to oxidize in currents bumped by fish scales and furtive bird feet

While she was emptied of the last of summer cleaned and put in the ice box because no one knew where else to put it.  And on through winter sitting alone in the dark with no one but the listing hum of the compressor making it cold
It is not a shame how they use her
when they open the plastic jug and pour the contents into her so they can use the empty as a marker for the crabtrap.

But how do I meet her? I am a last and lonely cup my accent is grit and swirl
while she is white and full and creamy.  I bear the bottom of this river like scar like the message of deliverance and duty.  While she mates with mouths as they secretly swig.  Bearing her up in the warmth only to put her back int he dark and cold.
How do I make her real to bring the message I have of river
long love and wide and sun strewn.  

That i can be a place for her to nestle to have her own life that the world of being taken and locked away for later is just a dream.  That my own story told
is how the can became a man who sat dwelling and remembering till the rocks cracked around him and powdered away.

That he could reach for her in that place having rented just the right house on the right beach in the town of gentleness and hope and there reaching in to remember the crab trap the moon light that dapples up and kisses and taking her out and saying the magic words that make her real

How do I hide the rusted dark edges so that holding her does not hurt the real tender flesh she is instead of glass now.  How do I love.  How do I make the tape and paint and gentle kindnesses that mold myself to the world.  How do I stop and fall below the suffering and lift her and myself to stop the slide to only hardness

How can teach her that she is not the container but the message of love and strength that pours through her and that

I am the river