Keeping

I check the jar three times today,

the way you check for rot,

the way you watch for signs

that something's going to spoil,

to give way.

The bubbles rise, persistent, small,

relentless in their rise and fall,

molecules becoming something new,

fermentation, the way things do

when time and bacteria agree

to change what used to be.

I sit across from it.

We're learning what we'll become

when this is done.