No Stopping the Breakage


Clear Pyrex dish that fit my palm -
it's gone. I jarred the drainer
lifting plates.

I held the wine glass delicately
to rinse. It dissolved
within my fingers.

Bisqueware plate separated
along the crack that had held -
possibly for years.

Be careful, I say to myself,
you're accident prone,
yet every thing will break
from us, and every one.

Pain in my thumb fades
till I forget hefting the pole
that punched sudden blood.

I could show you the scar,
but let me delight as my granddaughter
chirps "shoe!" across 400 miles.

Wreckage smolders in far-off countries,
behind others' doors,
in my own heart.

I believe in the flying buttress,
key stone, all that holds what rises,
precarious. We are all precarious.

10/21/10 draft