Oxblood and Glass

The closet floor is swallowed up in shoes

and keys that went to doors I’ve since forgotten.

I’m looking for a thing I cannot lose

while sorting through the silk and pilled-up cotton.

I found a bottle in the very back,

a deep maroon that looks like thickened wine.

The lacquer has turned brittle, almost black,

around the neck in one long crusty line.

I twisted till my knuckles went to white,

but that old stain is holding like a weld.

It’s dried-up vanity, a scrap of light

that won’t let go of all the space it’s held.