Pickled


If I could keep the thing airtight,
if I could just keep out the air,
there might be peace in there somewhere,
so pushing, pushing, I still fight

because the air will make it rot,
will eat the very heart, will kill
the innocence of life and still
will eat the carcass in its plot.

I push it out, I push the air,
I struggle with insistent winds.
I rage as though they were my sins,
the bold mistakes that bore despair.


Donald Zirilli
1997