is revolutionizing containers.
Oil will slide through pipelines,
glue will flow, bacteria will be unable

to find purchase in stents and IV lines.
Through my one summer
as an incompetent waitress

I watched people trying to slap
ketchup out of bottles, then
use a knife. Here in the coffee shop,

I wait for you and watch
a student at the next table wrestle
with the Sriracha. And you,

my daughter, in your doctor’s coat,
your wedding ring, sit down
across from me. I try not to want

too much. Consider all the ways
we try to get things out
that seem to want to stay in,

as if there were a will to it.

Donna Spruijt-Metz is a poet, translator, and Professor of Psychology and Preventive Medicine at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. Her first career was as a professional flutist. Her writing has appeared or is forthcoming in venues such as Vinyl, The Rumpus, and Naugatuck River Review. She gets restless.