Heaven is below the bowl

(September 2021. After Luca and I cowrote ‘Heaven is above the bowl,’ I felt inspired to write another poem in response to it.)

Heaven is below the bowl
Paradise is inside
Growing evermore whole, detained
By the rubbings of blindness.
The people’s eyes fill the darkness
And the darkness fills them in return,
Recyclable bottles of glassy light.
The more audacious my escapes
The more elastic the bowl bends
Rounding off the sharp new ends
Protruding from my attempts at penetration.
On the other side is nothing,
And it is impregnable.
One day I will plant a tree
And its branches will touch all edges.