La vie eternal by Z.H. Gill

We called the pellucid tank in which 
we kept the man o’ war the 
box o’ war. 

We called the creeping moss
growing splendidly 
along the deck

(despite there being upon the boards
no soil from which to grow) 
the moss of life, we

called it. The box of life sits 
in the closet gently sitting |
in the pitch-dark

closet. We hung up lights,
we paid the bills,
we drove 

our neighbors into early
graves. We borrowed
body-parts and fed

them to our two boxes | the
man o’war got first 
dibs and then

we satiated the box of life,
as well.

________

Z.H. Gill works at a vanity label in West Hollywood, CA.