The sink is a bowl of gray water

The sink is a bowl of gray water,

a stagnant and soapy sea.

Outside the window, the slush

is the color of old mercury.

I saw the white flats of Bolivia

on a screen that flickered with light,

a salt-crusted mirror of heaven

where everything stays clean and bright.

My thumb left a smear on the atlas,

a blue, ink-heavy stain on the page.

I’m just a man in his kitchen

measuring the bars of his cage.