Before That Iron Door, Before

As historians of quarantine note,
The species is doomed to repeat mistakes
But blessed to rediscover successes.

The wave will escape, the monster uncoil
Scales as plentiful as the scales of seas,
And a wave can never be put away.

Waves vanish when stretched to oblivion,
When whatever one wave was has become
Some other waves rippling somewhere beyond.

You can break a wave. You can counter it,
Obliterate it, or redirect it.
You can’t stuff the dragon back in its cave.

A dragon will change. The cave is your skull,
In your own case, at least. You can keep things
In, let things out, admit new things. You can’t

Have anything, not the tiniest coil
Of a tail, not a particle of scale,
Return exactly as was when it went.

For this reason, you are doomed to repeat
Mistakes, blessed to rediscover success.
No wave’s another and all so alike.

Back of the cave, meaning curls on its hoard.
How long you’ve studied those glittering scales.
Worse that you can’t leave or that you will go?