In a Glass Jar
Go out into the wind today, catch it in a jar
and hold it to your chest all the way home,
keeping it close enough that it might warm
by the time you fall into the bright room
you left, hopeful jar in hand.
Inside, you are two people suddenly.
One of them takes the jar into the other room,
be it kitchen, or bedroom, or cool, gloss
bathroom with frosted window and taps
shining under the light.
This person secretes the jar somewhere,
tucking it safe and probably behind
another thing secreted there another day
and also safe, perhaps wrapped in a cloth
found special for it.
This person leaves, ready for a rainy day,
fears wrapping the wind better than the cloth,
jar clouded as the air inside changes itself
to suit the jar, the cloth, the secret place,
the shout within the glass.
The first person comes in too, not seeing
the split and fleeing, jar in hand, through
the house to the back where the rest of
the wind waits outside, the same wind as
cries in the glass.
First person scrabbles at the glass, winds
the jar, wrenches it free, forgetting now
why the wind was caught to begin with.
The jar, damp from the cold, dark, wind-
filled night, falls.
Glass from the jar breaks in thick lumps,
diamonds on the gleaming night-ground,
reflecting light from the house as the
wind screams loose, terrible in its fear,
lost like a feeling.
First person, with nothing for a rainy day,
leaves the lighted house, steps out full
into the dark behind the house where
glass crunches underfoot and
a metal lid buckles.
The other sits within, content.
© Amanda J Harrington 2020
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