Socratic Soliloquy

By Catherine McGuire

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I watch bubbles swirl and pop;

the dish soap’s tensile strength

allows a bubble long(ish) life

to travel across the Sea of Sink

skirting submerged cups, greasy pots,

bouncing off other bubbles, large or small

silver-pink domes dancing, sudsy arcs,

eyeballs peering into the world

wildly reflecting their tiny seascape,

precious, precarious,

mysterious, random –

oh god, just like me.

I remember a stoned evening, mesmerized

by their elegance.

I remember other days, morose

at their brief lives.

For what was this bubble-brief beauty made?

For what was awareness; my entanglement

with foreboding, foreshadowing, fore-anything

set in motion?

These bubbles are nothing;

these bubbles are the essence

of what I must understand.