After reading Tracy K. Smith

If not a vessel, a purse
to hold the necessary
scatterings and ticket stubs
that show we prefer
each other’s company
when lights dim and sentiment
is projected to the far walls.
More sturdy than tissues,
comforting than a cough drop.
The bandage for paper cuts.
If not the wallet, its bills, its credits.
Loose string to thread between
your fingers when the line
moves slow, and your screen
quiets under low percentages.
Your small notebook
given a pen to grasp,
flush from that elusive
thought that sits in a belly
lifetimes before the spark
shot head to toe, the gasp,
the dream, the word scrawled
in permanent luminescence
across our every opaque body.