Two poems not exactly about hope

1 Past and present, future tense

Subterranean coal fires can smoulder for centuries. 

I didn’t know one yearned inside of me 

until we met again.
Pure oxygen.

Ablaze with fierce invincibility,

Amazed you still - once more - wanted me,

I had no use for futuristic abstracts such as hope.

until you told me there was none. 

2 What was left after what you said

In Pandora's story, 

after the monstrous shadows of genocide and war and pestilence
and exploitation and famine and government surveillance
had dispersed to every corner of the earth;

After the mosquito whine

Of piles and nightmares

And dogshit on the streets

And rising busfares

Had swarmed irretrievably

into the cooling evening air

to visit their faint horrors on humanity;

Pandora uncovers her ears, snuffles back fears

and, still cursed with curiosity, swallows her tears

to crawl across the floor 

to see what remains inside the jar, 

glowing softly and singing to itself.

Well aware of this cautionary tale,
I dared not break your seal, although
I longed to run my thumb along your lip.

Such sweet surprise, then, when

you opened yourself to me,

and no dark miseries overflowed the rim.

The aroma of a nourishing meal,

darting iridescent words,

honeyed smiles setting flowers aswirl

to settle around my heart.

But when all that

Couldn’t be put back

The jar was empty except
for the hollow echo of what you said.