Eternity

Forever is not a diamond.

It’s an airy, plastic knickknack

from a box of Cracker Jack.

 

One year, there was a baking

powder powered submarine.

Of course, the powder wasn’t

included. But love is not endowed

within a ring. That part’s

up to you.

 

I’ll refrain from the

chemistry lesson. The buoyancy of foam.

The bubbles of

CO₂. The bobbing up & down—

the spout of a bargain

beluga that’s held its

breath.

 

I’ll spare you how I

snuck into the pantry—

not for cookies but for Magic.

They’ve yet to change their label—

in 130 years. They say if it ain’t

 

broke, then hold it upside down:

shake its mage’s

secrets of endurance.

Let it know what it’s like to be salt.

It’s not as vegan as we think.

Go ahead & ask the

wife of Lot—whose celery

stayed unseasoned

till his very end of days.

 

Our wedding bands are claddaghs.

It’s not that we'd cheaped out.

It’s just mining is a heartless liar.

The trees attest to this.

Behold their amputations

fore they’re felled. That is hardly love.

 

Ours is a Celtic knot. Alpha without

Omega. Mine is fused to the

foundation of my finger. Even pumice

can’t scrub it loose. I like to feign

it’s you and not my ever-

burgeonation.

 

Forever’s never proffered

to the miners. The ones

who slog the hardest get the least.

Such is the rule of the world.

See it in their squints

as they ascend to greet the surface—

the sun a blinding gem. The out-of-reach

of light. It may as well be the

fraud you flung in the sea

from an early suitor. How it only

stayed afloat & wouldn’t sink,

 

encircled by the gull who

must have marvelled, dove into

the ripple of this buffed & tawdry fish.

 

 

 

Andreas Gripp

October 27, 2026

photograph: WorthPoint