The Lid Gave

I found the container in the back

where I'd left it to become itself,

and it had—the cabbage turned to brine,

the lid had cracked, the seal gave back.

White mold bloomed across the top,

the smell was sharp and wrong,

a thing alive too long,

a thing that couldn't stop.

The liquid pooled on the shelf,

slightly opal in the light,

a small disaster, a small blight,

a thing that ruined itself.

I didn't mean to let it break.

I didn't mean to watch it go

from possibility to overflow,

from promise to mistake.

It's in the trash now.

The smell is still in the apartment,

still rising from the bin, still marking

the place where things transform

without permission,

without warning,

without me being there to hold them.