A box he hadn’t finished making the bottom of

A box he didn’t construct the bottom of

A box he hadn’t finished constructing

A construction he never boxed

A box he didn’t get from the liquor store

Not believing you or anyone

A box he couldn’t bother

Swans in the water were a bottomless construction

Who could get boxes at the liquor store

Only every esteem he couldn’t finish—

Aromatics, hyper-vigilance, the insignificance of passports

It doesn’t count if you can’t lift it

You were always finishing from the lip

Unfolded and immobile as a huff

Of fingerprints on gemstones or lunation

An armful into a box only stood the sides of

Its bottom the red arabesque on the rug

We could see right through it

Porous ambulations mean skin is a silent film

I can only house you on my sides said the box

Flaps splayed around like peplum

Or a man’s collar detached on the nightstand in the 19th c.

Its wings an evening around a box

Wax and blood disappear equally when they reach the bottom

A false equivalency dull as fingerprints on gemstones an index

Of waxen trespassing fines and plate-glass

When they land, you can’t see them in the same way

Opals of compounding interest

Water filled with a surface of swans was a bottomless construction

Most crescents are constructs you can hear

Dangling or modifying on behalf of the moon

A box for whose bottom he hasn’t collapsed

Caroline Szpak lives in Toronto. She’s the author of the poetry collection Slinky Naive (Anvil Press) and is currently an MFA candidate in Creative Writing at the University of Guelph.

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