Optimism

I made a fascinating box. Then I broke
some boxes down. I smashed them
into boxed juice. Then I pulled over at the Ocean
Hall to see what monster might rise up within

its watery walls. Of course, it would be
the sea dragon oscillating galleon sails
delicate as scallion skins
through cylinders of glycerin.

Of  course such a wonder is always off to war
with the darkness that surrounds
even aquariums; that grays in pain and says,
This is going to keep happening.

Yes, death will make the poem end.
But we’ll drive on, listening to unloosed color
pencils roll out of plastic grilles, not unlike gills,
into crummy holes waggling seatbelt buckles

which I’ll vacuum one day when I’m truly
old, and the sea dragons, then
the drawings of sea dragons, have sailed
back into their stalls.