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50ml of India Ink
Opaque, & black as gravity,
the ink is perfectly unlike
the small glass pot
whose shape it occupies
so passively. It is
something’s burnt remains
that makes it black.
It is the sticky leavings
of the lac-bug
that makes it shine.
(The name of the lac-bug
has nothing to do
with absence, but means,
in fact, a multitude.)
It performs its tiny fractal
creep through the paper’s
knitted capillaries,
& finds itself astounded
with significance. It means
I am not yet dead.
I was not untempted
to leave this blank.
From Some Integrity. Reproduced with kind permission of Carcanet.