The Well

The well is deep, the rung is steep,  

I kneel where shadows waver, bend.  

Hands clutch the wetness, fern-draped stone,  

the water laughs, the echo bends.  

Is it me, the gleaming blur below?  

The rippled mockery of want, of me?  

Or something—hidden glass, perhaps a pearl,  

brushed with breath too sharp to see?  

The droplet spins; the truth retreats,  

its face obscured by mercy’s veil.  

A quartz? A flash of bone unearthed?  

The world gulps back its buried tales.  

I linger, swallowed by reflection’s joke,  

a slip of light misplaced, erased.  

The whiteness lives where eyes can’t go,  

lost but shimmering, never owned.