Vessels

It takes 25 tomatoes

to make a single

bottle of ketchup

—the Internet

Coffee gets the credit

in the morning. There’s none

to write of the cup

that’s keeping caffeine in

its place—enduring a thousand-

plus degrees in every kiln.

Its oh well if you break it.

A pitiful recompense.

Ditto for the glory

of Bordeaux.

A barrel’s just a keg

for wine & powder.

As if the wood had

nothing better to do.

Like be a cathedral

for the cuckoo. Or a

perch for every owl

resting talons. Nesting

with her eggs.

It’s the yolk that

we remember. Shells

are but some cracked and

sticky shards.

Forlorn like a womb

which fed & nurtured.

The crockpot

in the kitchen

is lucky to get a bath.

We give it nothing else.

It simmers our many pleasures,

when taste will bleed together.

Our bowls will carry its

blend of Irish stew.

I ask you why

do they get the

laurels—the Irish, I mean.

Did they cradle

the spuds & carrots

in their palms?

Rock the mutton

in their arms

while still a lamb?

Our spoons were made in

Dublin. 

Exactly who are you to

spoil my would-be ode?

Why didn’t Yeats &

Heaney offer praise

where it was due?

If you’re unable to scribe

a sonnet—on the

bottle that’s been barren for

a year—then what do you

know of love or letting go?

How will you build a

schooner for your son?

Explain it other than magic?

How it sailed the tapered

throat despite its skipper

being sotted at the wheel—

from fifteen-hundred

grapes shoved through his

wowed, astonished mouth.

Andreas Gripp

February 24, 2026

Getty Images / andreswd