As if it were a star lifted up and out of the eye,

the truth sparks in the mirror, on the table.

It’s a chip of a diamond, a snowflake on a navy sleeve,

a pale seed, a miniature key.

All this can be exactly as you wish it to be,

it winks. As the slow bend of the spoon suggests,

the shift takes place not in the metal

but in the metal inside, that hot core

whose founder resides at the base

of the peak of your being.

What molten pour will bleed

a bright river

this time? Time, whose face itself

is ours.