Friday, May 29, 2026

Triton at the Kitchen Table

I sit at the kitchen table
and pour ice cubes into a large bowl
rimmed with gray and blue shapes
that might just be billowy clouds
when I squint my watery blue eyes.
I am Triton watching the ice melt
into an epic sea that is for now
quite calm except for the cracking
of cubes as they create a world,
one where amoebas and bankers,
grocery store clerks and housewives,
sailors one and all in a universe
inside of another and another,
carry on their trades.
I will not stir the ocean into foam
with my trident, the fork
that I used last night for brussels sprouts.
I am a benign god
who sees birds fly past my window
and hears the postman on the porch.
Should not these microbes with history
be allowed to do the same?
My only concern is that one day
this diorama will evaporate
like all nested universes,
bowing to entropy and Poseidon’s whim.
And, oh my goodness,
what will we do then?

~William Hammett


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