From Within A Book

 

From Within A Book

 

Day and night is the same here, unopened.

Holding my breath I hear footsteps stopping.

A release of pressure, someone’s been chosen

But not me -- my shoulders relax.

The pressure returns, my comrade replaced.

 

A tapping on my spine, then, hesitance – silence.

Gripped at the head I fall backwards, and spun ‘round

Exult at being held.

Years since feeling fingers on the back of my jacket

…They are there now. I shine upward.

 

Being of interest is to be yanked apart in the middle

-- So I am. No, do not, dear eyes, take me out of context, so!

But this is the process. I am elevated, up, up, leaves fluttering

Hoping to not be re-shelved.

 

Darkness returns and the footsteps resume 

But now I am swinging along with them.

God, may I not be tossed aside and forgotten.

Compel this reader, this one, to begin at the start.

-- Let me reveal to them all that I know.

 

© Ciprianowords 2021

Progress

Progress

I would love to see a Neanderthal staring at an iPhone XR.
That would be such a great shot for my latest Instagram.
Maybe he or she would use it to carve through some sinew.
Bash it against the cliff face, and throw it into a cavehole.
Reception was always bad out here anyway. 

I would love to see a stegosaurus eating dinner, glancing 
sideways at the "funk" [default] sound of an incoming text.
Tripped a bit to the right but regained himself... kept eating.
Glanced upward as a pterodactyl passed, swatting away an
evolving human as the latter raised a rough-hewn dagger.

I would love to see a student, of any kind, enrolled anywhere
that could sit in a Starbucks for three minutes, and you know
that their parents have all of their fingers and toes crossed,
hoping against hope that their children know something,
about anything -- I would love to see that person ----

switch off their devices devoted to the attainment of stupidity,
turn to their friend with the highlighter on auto-pilot, and say
in the most diplomatic of tones, "Listen.... 
I've only got one shot  at this thing. Please quit talking.
Please shut your shit off, or we are going to be dinosaurs again." 

© Ciprianowords, Inc. 2018

I See The Sun Rising

But how do you see it?
You know, in the midst of all this
I am going to see the sun rising.

You have a different horizon in mind.
In mind -- there never was any light.
Everything was less than a shadow.

Forgive me if my eyes are better.
Forgive me if they always have been.
Forgive me as I adjust the fool's cap.

Listen, as the physicist explains to us
that the sun, as a new day dawns
has never, ever, moved.

Realize, for the love of God,
that as wrong as we both are,
I am less wrong. I was less wrong.

© Ciprianowords, Inc. 2018

All The Shiny Faces

 All The Shiny Faces

    Arrival:
    "I don't know if I, if we, would have been able to live through such a thing."
    Sue reached out and placed her hand on his, still on the gearshift. They watched as others filing into the chapel greeted each other, a few having a final smoke. The shaking of hands, no smiles. Boiling clouds threatened rain, and Mark made a mental note to skip the interment ceremony as he turned to his wife and said, "Hon, the worst thing is that there is no 'we' for her. She's got to go through all of this pretty much on her own. If it's hard for us to be here today, just think of what's happening with..."
    "I know. I know. I don't want to think of it. Let's just get in there before we're walking through mud. Jesus Christ, this seems like the worst day of my life, let alone.... dammit..."
    They sprinted, double blips of the car locks engaging as the first thunderclap reverberated against the surrounding hills, making it to the held open door as the first drops hit the ground.

    Inside:
    Taking their seats at the very back was all they could do. Some people remained standing, having arrived just after them, piped-in music already playing. Sue unwound her scarf and settled in as one by one, friends of the deceased spoke of the only one present who would never speak another word upon this earth.
    A pine box was the focus of every bleary eye, as though every atrocity perpetrated on the planet were brought to focus for these few moments only upon that lonely square footage.
    "When I first met Rachel, I knew that we were going to become best friends...."
    "And there we were, at the very edge of the Grand Canyon, and I will never forget it, she turned and said to me..."
    "We had every intention to marry. The ring I gave her is with her right now, inside.... I'm sorry, I'm sorry... I can't...."
    A young woman arose and made her way to the piano, and the introductory notes of one of the most beloved hymns of all time filled the entire hall as yet one more peal of thunder, quietly in the distance, announced itself -- and she sang out --
    "A-a-a-maaa-zi-ing grace, how swee-ee-t, the sound.
    Tha-aa-at saved, a"

    "No. NO. Not amazing," a woman rising in the first pew wailed
    "Oh my God, Mark," Sue leaned into his shoulder and burst into tears.
    The pianist stopped, looking up in horror as the woman continued, "My daughter was murdered. She was CUT DOWN at the age of nineteen. What kind of a GOD," and with this she flung her black umbrella at the lectern on the podium and it clattered back down across the coffin lid, "are we singing about here?"
    The pastor quickly motioned the nearest ushers to apprehend the grieving mother but others nearer had already surrounded her, and as the congregation looked on she was removed beyond the door of the vestibule where all but her voice was gone. He approached the lectern palms forward as moans and grief-stricken sobbing erupted from every row in the church. The girl at the piano hung her head so low that it struck the keys and she fell to the floor in a faint. Still, from beyond the vestibule door the mother could be heard weeping.
     After several minutes, the rain now drumming slantwise on the stained glass windows, the pastor, wiping his eyes and coughing several times, finally managed to speak.
    "Friends. Friends. People."
    Ushers gathered up the pianist into a sitting position in the front pew.
    "Friends and family. We have gathered here today to mourn [flash and thunder] the tragic loss of someone very dear to all of us. With what has taken place just now it would be an understatement to say that we are all shaken to the very core of who we are, and our thoughts and prayers are going out right now to Rachel's mother, whose grief surpasses what any of us can imagine as possible for any human being to endure. Out of respect for the expression of her feelings, I wish to retire my own message that I had prepared for this service."
    And with this he retrieved a few sheets of paper from a little black folder and cast them forward where they fluttered down to rest near the umbrella which now lay on the floor near the casket. "For, truth be known, her words were the very ones I fought against as I prepared my brief sermon to bring to you today. It would be a dishonor and a profound disservice for me to publicly superimpose my own contrived thoughts upon something that she would have said to you herself, in privacy."
    He then followed with directions to the cemetery and instructions as to a luncheon that would take place later, closing with this:
    "The Lord bless you and keep you, the Lord make His face shine upon you, and be gracious to you. The Lord lift up His countenance upon you, and give you peace."

    Departure:
    At least the rain had abated. The wipers were on automatic intermittent.
    Sue's face was more wet than the windshield. In fact, she could not stop crying.
    Mark reached his right hand out to hers.
    "I was proud of that pastor," he said. "I mean, what else could he really say, after what Ellen said? You know, a single mother, struck by the hammer of Thor, basically. What the hell are you supposed to say after that?"
    "I know. I thought the same thing. But even while he was trying to salvage the whole thing, I was only thinking of Ellen, crumpled in a heap in that back room. I barely could register what was being said by anyone after she threw that umbrella."
    "I think he kind of ruined it a bit at the end though, if you want my honest opinion."
    "What do you mean?" Sue asked.
    "Well, all that stuff about the shiny faces. It's like, what is it really going to take? What is it really going to take before we quit ending everything with the God damn shiny faces stuff?"

© Ciprianowords, Inc. 2018

The Dichotomy

The Dichotomy

There are two kinds of people in this world.
The dichotomy has nothing to do with black or white,
rich or poor, male or female, or intelligence quotient.
[...Now you are curious.]
But no, they are not to be divided according to:
Religious or atheist. Radical or conservative.
Astronaut or earthbound. Dog-owners/Cat-owners.
[...Now you are thinking, I have read better poems.]

And yet, the main difference has nothing to do with:
Successful poets and the illiterate. Unattractive/Gorgeous.
Americans and everyone else. Capitalists/Communists.
Etc., ad infinitum.   
No.

The clearest separation between what a human being is
and what a human being can be, involves the tear ducts.
It is to be found in the space between those who weep
only from pain, loss, grief, sorrow, knowing too much --
and those who fully break apart at inexplicable moments.

It's normal to be both of these things, but God help us,
far too many of our species only ever experience the former.
When sheer pleasure, attainment, joy, and unprecedented wonder
fail to deeply move us, moisten us -- God help me.
Remember. Every sunrise and sunset, a song in the memory. 

© Ciprianowords, Inc. 2018

If I Live To Be 100

If I Live To Be 100

Definitely a heap of bones by now he or she is.
One chilly Sunday morning my own lifetime ago
I drove the winding highway of a mountainside
and rounding a curve, braked for an entire herd
of them milling about as though no calendar had
ever entered the mind of man. Whether their
huffed breaths mingled with mist, fog, or cloud
was of no concern to any, nor ambling so close to
death or a Monday beside the precipice, a worry.

All of this I intuitively understood as, slowing my car
to negotiate my way through this menagerie, one
broke free and began to trot along beside my open
window. What endless mystery behind the horizontal
black slit of those eyes. Such re-definition of the word
beauty made itself known to me in that moment, that
I was compelled to reach out. And if I live to be 100
I will never forget when my offering was accepted.
Sharing the remnant of my sandwich with that goat.

© Ciprianowords, Inc. 2018

Hope For Us

Hope For Us

I have been involved in confrontations that left me speechless,
and minutes later, the perfect response formed itself in my mind.
You beat yourself because rightness has never been so right —
the person is still within view — you could catch them if you ran.
Is it even human to cool down and brood in private vindication?

Spin them, let them have it both barrels and you would sleep better.
But they round the corner and are gone. Is this the end of it now?
No. Truly, if your vitriol were to be seen in time-lapse photography,
the initial sentence is now morphing into indented paragraphs.
There is even a dedication page before your essay of recrimination.

This may be nature, but not human nature. Not the way things work.
If you are in doubt, think of how many times your perfect response
was best left unsaid, and your enemy un-spun. Your best thoughts
not at the top of your head. Your clenched fist unyielding because
it still thought it was clinging to a vine. We’re still evolving.

© Ciprianowords, Inc. 2018

Trees

Trees

How many postcards? Calendars. Framed Ansel Adams prints.
Documentaries with people strapped to them, willing to die.
The source of our oxygen. The reason lungs breathe in and out.
Habitat of the loftiest and most noble of all the earth's creatures.

And yet…

most susceptible to lightning. Axes. The need for toothpicks.
Not to mention drywall. We make oars from dead bodies to push
ourselves across the very substance they cannot live amidst,
seated in vessels made of the same.

This thing that fire most wants to eat, we write our novels against.
We lick a stamp, and press it on what once lived for centuries --
thanklessly dying that we might wish Uncle Ted a happy birthday.
Some of them throwing shadows when Shakespeare dipped a quill.
 
And yet…

Not one of these have ever even known that they were alive.
We, who are so very much aware, but so less useful in our elements,
who are we to think that not only shall we live on this planet,
but also forever after endure -- endlessly, on another far greater one?

And yet…
we do. Some do think this.

© Ciprianowords, Inc. 2016

They. Them, You.

They. Them. You.

They say, whoever they are, that you cannot know the girl
until you see her when she does not know you are there.
You will never know who she is. So I gave it a try, tonight.

Halloween night. Halloween party, out with all your friends.
And there I was too, ordering a drink, my back to the bar.
Focused on your table -- everyone there was riveted to you.

Whatever story you were telling, I would have liked to know.
I sipped, I watched, and had brains enough to wait. To wait.
When you were done, I made my way over, as if by accident.

Instead of being shocked, embarrassed or angry, you turned.
That smile to forever haunt every recess of my unworthy life.
Making way for me you asked me to sit down, but I begged off.

And just as I was making my way out, I heard your friend say
above the din, "Is that him? Girl, you weren't telling half of it."
There is a manner of shame that has to be confessed, to end.

This is why, hours later when you have returned home to me 
I am leaving on the table this rhyme-less poem for you to see.
I want you to know the exact type of idiot you are involved with.

I want you to know that the princess costume you were wearing
tonight - as you take it off now - is not telling the half of it.

© Ciprianowords, Inc. 2016

Dickens Again

Dickens Again

Surely there are more momentous things to worry about.
Autism. Attention Deficit Disorder. Tuberculosis. Gayness?
They crept in closer, concerned. Worried. Surf pounding.

All this ocean, what is our son up to. Chronic masturbation?
An opening in the tent revealed him -- in all his fullness.
They had seen that same devilish grin before, in the library.  

Immersed in the page at hand, thumb ready to flip to the next
he turned, saying to them, Do you have nothing better to do?
They didn't. It's Dickens again, Dad said, sighing in the wind.

© Ciprianowords, Inc. 2016

Monkey Bars

Monkey Bars

Who am I, really?
I walked through a park tonight, shadows long before me.
Twice my height, thanks to a lamp-light behind.
In the same exponentiation, oh the tricks my mind played.
For there I was, climbing and tumbling -- as ever I was.
But in my current state of being, I could never achieve this.

I even heard the sounds, those of my childhood.
A different playground -- and that is when I stopped moving.
Swinging like a chimpanzee, with as many cares for tomorrow.
How is it that I can see it -- what database stores such a thing?
I did it, I did it, I did it, I did it, I did it, I did it, I did it, I did it.
But I could never do it. I could never do it. I could never do it.

Now.
Who am I, really? An amalgam of memories of who I was?
If so, I could jump up there, and make a circuit of these bars.
But I cannot do so. If time is relative to distance, how can this
apparatus be so near to me and the experience so far off?
So impossible. So improbable. So impossible. So distant.

© Ciprianowords, Inc. 2016

The Stars Help To Express It

Holding hands on the balcony, he looked up at the night sky.
Then, her face.
You know, have you ever considered the fact the the universe is expanding? I mean, the constellations we have observed and named -- the whole thing itself is so… provincial. 
In a million or so years from now, those formations will have shifted -- we observe them from an extremely limited vantage point, that is itself shifting. 
[Inspired now, he kicked off his sandals, the lotus position, and touched her face…] 
-- Andromeda, Aquarius, Cygnus -- all of these will not at all look as they do today darling, were you and I to be sitting here a million years from now. Not to mention that our own Earth will most likely not be around to observe any of these from, nor our Sun still shining, having collapsed in upon itself and…
Noticing her glass empty, he grabbed the bottle from the ice bucket --
Darling, she said, tightening her grip. Darling, he said --
[A new train of thought made its way to the last remaining synapses…]
Do you see it, though? It is the naming, the fixing, that is wrong-headed.
If you were one, one bottle of wine, you would have to be un-named. Un-dated.
No one. No sheik, no ten sultans, could afford you. And a million, a million years from now…
She was smiling. Oh, that smile.
Darling, I think it's time we went to bed.
In the tone, in the very tone that the universe would say such a thing.
I followed her. Soon to see constellations that no one, were the Earth to somehow survive its inevitable demise, see.

© Ciprianowords, Inc. 2016

Camels

Camels

One of those urban myths, without the urban part.
That's got to be what it is he muttered, cracked lips oozing pus.
Bending low to a dream of grass… no, it was just sand again.
Everywhere. Dunes, mirages, and every oasis a falser fantasy.
The other, hump bent sideways -- knelt for a turbaned rider.
Head turned but reply-choked by his own crushed camel-spirit.

Forced. Off they trotted on their eight scorched two-toed feet.
Hmmm… what's beyond this hill of dust? Look. Yet another one.
Which of us wanted to go anywhere near here in the first place?
[That last part was unspoken by either of them, not unthought].
Just before they reached their thrice-hyphenated destination, #1
gasped Has even one of these things ever asked if we were thirsty?

© Ciprianowords, Inc. 2016

A Certain Table, A Certain Tree

A Certain Table, A Certain Tree

Remember when we agreed to this.
There is no question mark after that.
Because I am talking to myself here.
Admittedly - it was many years ago.
You are to be excused from the duty.
Time erases many things, even time.
And as any doctor will tell you, every
heartbeat is unequal. Fingerprints --
really. One thing constant, the beating.
Yours has not stopped, nor has mine.
Beating and beating away in darkness.
But we have changed our addresses.
Our lifestyle would not be recognized
by the other. Recalled, but illegible now.
I trained myself to accept the inevitable
while I believed in what I wanted --
which will always be yourself. 
Today, I realize that you have done a
different task with yours, your heart.
You have managed to occlude it.
And I wonder if you should congratulate
yourself. I cannot know that for certain.
I have traveled one thousand miles
to be here at a certain table, under a
certain tree, at a certain hour, to wonder
which of us has been the greater fool.

I am no scientist. I am no pontificate
in these matters. I do know, however,
that if the sun, which has no personality
whatsoever, wanted to be late eight minutes
the world would freeze to death, in the next.
I have waited here beyond that, beyond thirty.
And so I concede your victory in frozenness.
My wish for you is not unhappiness, but glory.
I hope that the reason you are not here is
because you have managed to forget it all.
That you are feeling warmth.
That I have been usurped.
That, in your memory of me, you do not think me an idiot
for sitting here… waiting for what was not meant to b--
…wait.
is…
Is that the red scarf I gave her?
Is that you… running in front of a taxi?

© Ciprianowords, Inc. 2016

Conviction

Conviction

What does it mean to stay true to such a word
that should itself be in dire need of a lawyer?
Nowhere else in the dictionary is such lack of
control in evidence. In one sense, your neck
snaps - this entirely upon the opinion of others.

In another, you alone know what is the truth.
Yet you will lay your head on the block for it.
Surely the difference will cause the monarch
to not reach Mexico on time, to not find the tree.
The sun to rise in the west. Rain to fall upwards.

Geese to spell another letter than V flying south?
When you were most sure of yourself, looking up
you saw that the clouds confirmed your resolution.
They formed the very image of your mother's legs
splayed, and you bearing witness upon the world.

None of this will happen when the blade is raised
and with innocence you look down into the bucket.
Justice will never be synonymous, with conviction.
So, to answer the first question, you were justified.
To the second I want you to know - they fly askew.

© Ciprianowords, Inc. 2016

Our Grand Assumption

Our Grand Assumption

No one alive today is any one thing, even if we examine raccoons.
We know it of ourselves, but how impossible to convince another.
Amazing that the closer we get, other options become preferable.

Exaggerated phrases leap from every closet, ending with always.
Sentences prefaced with You never. Or, Why is it that you never?
Doors are slammed to negotiation and peace talks are only on TV.

Like the majority of the earth that is covered with water, so is this.
This uninhabitable world assumed upon the great majority of lungs.
A pressure. A fissure. A crevice in the ice, wherein we fall endless.

This is why, on this, our anniversary of it all, Our Grand Assumption
I want you to know that only the first line of this poem is about you.
Come nearer -- that I might kiss your bandit rings, garbage stealer.

-- © Ciprianowords, Inc. 2016 --

The Opposite of Uncertainty

The Opposite of Uncertainty

Closing our eyes from the glare of too much
said and unspoken, breathing in exhalations.
My God -- we fell together because of gravity.

Feathers from flying doves reach the ground
due to earth-forces that do not rely on thought.
So. What were we thinking when we landed?

Let me speak for myself on this, in retrospect.
We were thinking of the opposite of uncertainty.
Of moons that never wane. And an eternal orbit.

Even in the night, it has always been daylight.
Would you agree? We need not squint today
as the shudder passes through. Everything yes.

-- © Ciprianowords, Inc. 2015 --

Expectations

Expectations

Because she did what was always expected of her
she was well-received by everyone. No doubt.
But then a great flame in her died at a certain point.
She was known as a marvel, a great success early on,
until marrying a man that could stifle bonfires with his words.
In retrospect I regret never declaring my own feelings.
I loved the pilgrim soul in this girl.

I loved the pilgrim soul in this girl.
In retrospect I regret never declaring my own feelings.
Until marrying a man that could stifle bonfires with his words
she was known as a marvel, a great success early on.
But then a great flame in her died at a certain point.
She was well-received by everyone. No doubt
because she did what was always expected of her.

-- © Ciprianowords, Inc. 2015 --

Al Dente

Al Dente

How will it look on a serious envelope. I swear this was my first thought when I moved from the far more respectable sounding Maryanne Avenue, and performed the necessary address changes required. To make matters worse, the number of my flat was 123.
123 Noodle Street.
Who lives at such a place? Curious George?
Clifford the Big Red Dog? Ernie and Bert?
I'm a lawyer, for God's sake!
Still unpacking boxes I received a letter from my mother, in which my greatest fears were realized.
She told me to throw all unrecognized mail at the nearest wall. 
If it sticks, son, open it. If not…. cook it for three more minutes.
I wrote back the same day.
Dear Mom:
Often, in my arduous, sweat be-drenched days of courtroom litigation I comfort myself in the reminder that in this cruel world I have at least one person that will be my protector. My rock. My lighthouse in the storm. Oh, mother -- even you have let me down. Even you, even you, are not quite al dente. 

-- © Ciprianowords, Inc. 2015 --

Every Fifth Line

Every Fifth Line

Feeling that you are the only one.
Knowing that no one understands.
You can do life better than others.
One day I will be recognized as me.

Until then --

People, the normal ones, the stupids
will believe the sun revolves the earth.
That if you sail far enough, you fall.
But for the round shape of your head

all is square.

Hey smartypants! Listen to someone!
We all started out as a human zygote
just this side of a swinging chimpanzee.
And from there, we invented Q-Tips.

All the while --

the very atoms looking into the telescope
might as well be on the comet observed.
Slivers in an arrived ship pulled from a finger.
The problem is our need of pronouns.
 
we have no shape at all.

-- © Ciprianowords, Inc. 2015 --

All Trains Are Serious

All Trains Are Serious

Have a good look at the ways we get around.
There is almost no limit to the sudden variations.
Hyphens on a highway say next to nothing about veering.
We just listen to the radio and hope everyone pays attention.
What is a mid-Pacific squall, or even the next big wave, to a ship?
Captains pulling their hair out. Drinks and children overboard.
Let's no one even get into an airplane for God's sake.
Because in the clouds there are not even the hyphens.
Truth is, your neighbor stepped out of bounds while jogging
and was struck dead by that out-of-control horse and carriage.

Then there are trains. And no one can blame the environment.
Admittedly, they are as prone to accidents as anything else.
But seriously -- they were perfectly on course when it happened.

-- © Ciprianowords, Inc. 2015 --

Monarch

Monarch

Which came first, the butterfly or human royalty?
What is the etymology of the entomology?
Dictionaries relegate insects to a secondary meaning.
For my money, they should be first.

This -- this one-tenth of an ounce -- this bug
navigates its way to a certain mountain in Mexico
every third generation. From Canada.
Powered by milkweed and true monarchial instinct.

Prince Charles, chauffeur-driven via the best GPS
would end up in New Jersey. Holed up in a five-star.
Exhausted and complaining of the room service.
Not to mention Henry the 8th. Whence did it originate?

Was it an awe-filled scientist, breathlessly declaring:
This -- this is the epitome of what humanity should revere.
Or was it a servant in the shadows of a castle whispering:
Everyone here is as majestic as... those butterflies!

God help us, and be damned all language
if it was that secondary thing.

-- © Ciprianowords, Inc. 2015 --

Lava

Lava

It is amazing, the flagrancy we humans will expend
for a momentary thrill. Take a fireworks display.
Have any two people walked away from a night of bursts
and discussed a single one in detail? Evaluated it?

But it was somehow enjoyable en masse.
One will explode in a brilliance of red. The next, white.
And there was the happy face. And then the hearts.
The climactic crescendo -- a conflagration of expenditure.

And we make our way back to the car. Everyone does.
But when you and I get in ours, a certain electricity tells me -
There has never been an invention of man, to match
what happens when you erupt - It is not red, it's crimson.

Lava.
There is no smoke rising from the heat of your body
when I kiss you back down to earth. On our new island.

-- © Ciprianowords, Inc. 2015 --

The Smell Of It All

The Smell Of It All

I
recall leaning forward to the envelope. If anything
bought
my suspicion it was that. For all appearances
you
had failed to send it off. I'd every intention of doing
that
for you. But oh, the scent was rising. And then, the
very
name, uttered in your dreams at night appeared, the
fragrance
seeping through. All within me screamed, This is the
last
thing I want to do to you. Invading the privacy of your
Christmas
cards. What kind of a man would do this? I opened it.
And
what did I find, my darling? The unfathomable act of
you
betraying me. The smell was now ugly. Words inside
sent
astray, the last breach of integrity. You love him?
It
is to end this way? Want him to smell my gift to you?
To
"be in his arms, on New Year's Eve"? You wish to be with
him?

-- © Ciprianowords, Inc. 2015 --

What It Is Not

What It Is Not

For so many nights we stayed up past bedtime discussing
Discussing… discussing, and I was wowed by your cussing
about the idea of what love is. But there was that one night.

We decided to focus on what it was not. And had a revelation.
Sometimes you can get to know a thing better simply by
tag-team cussing about what you do not think it is!

We decided, unanimously, that it cannot be coerced.
That is, it is perhaps the opposite of force. Whatever love is.
Love to us became when two people say Finally… I am free.

I poured another merlot. A sliver of moon shimmer in the glass.
You asked a question that ended in the word remorse.
There and then, we consigned that word also to the depths.

-- © Ciprianowords, Inc. 2014 --