How to Hold Soup Upright

I. Time

She found the world melting:

shopfronts drooling into tiles,
hours hanging from the ceiling
in pale, intestinal ropes.

She pressed both hands against it—
grave and helpful as an ape
trying to hold soup upright.

The ruin closed around her wrists
and cooled.

By morning,
Time crossed the corridor
without looking down.

She remained kneeling—
terribly sincere,
almost house-trained—

still believing catastrophe
had asked for her personally.

II. Meaning

She gnawed herself free by noon,
leaving two strips of skin
in the world’s cooling mouth.

Beneath a ruined directory
she found an answer,
pale and soft as a tongue.

Before she could name it,
it became a face.

Before she could love it,
a doorway.

Before she could enter,
drainwater.

She chased it on hands and knees—
philosophy’s damp little cockroach,
trying to bottle the floor.

At last she cupped
one trembling mouthful.

It almost said—

almost—

al—

It evaporated
before she could misunderstand it.