The dial is turned until the pressure
finds the throat of the glass.
Here, the thermometer ceases its binary habit,
forsaking the comfort of seasonal shifts.
In this narrow chamber,
the molecule is a three-headed juggler.
It maintains a solid spine—
a rigid, crystalline debt to the floor—
while the surface simmers
in a fever of departure.
Below the roil,
the ice knows no shrink.
It holds its sharp and brittle filigree
against the very steam that rises from its skin.
A violent stillness.
The water—a pact signed
in trio states of panic;
a busy and impossible domesticity:
To be the stone that builds this house,
the flood that ruins this rug,
and the ghost that escapes
through this chimney flute,
all before the barometer blinks.
Everything is true at once;
the boiling,
the freezing,
the staying perfectly, terribly still.
***
_Majekodunmi O. Ebhohon is a Nigerian poet and playwright. He is the author of ‘The Great Delusion’, winner of the ANA Prize for Drama, 2025. He writes from Benin City, Edo State, Nigeria.🇳🇬_
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