Monday, April 9, 2012

National Poetry Month 30 Poems in 30 Days Challenge, Poem #4

This afternoon, after work, I broke and rebuilt a wine glass for you, Dear

I clipped the table with my hip
  and as the wine glass spun a breeze blew through the window,
  a cold April rain-coming wind
  the sort born from sunlight that's not yet strong enough
  when everything is green buds and the threat of frost,
The glass tipped off the table and traced a parabola to the hardwood,
  which gave in to inertia and bent
  bowed like a servant shuffling backwards from the master
  and allowed the slightest mark to remain to remind me of the arc,
  defined the difference between the good path miswalked and mistake.

The glass splintered and froze
  for its impossible moment showed a thousand fine lines,
  like the county roads twisting back to our house through the fresh-tilled fields
  like the contour lines of the hills running down to the lake
  like your wedding dress lace,
I seized that moment and framed it
  traced the glints as gravity released shards, fragments and grains
  collected them all and with the stem as my keystone
  put them back in painstaking place as the breeze held its breath
  and April looked on with skies promising rain.

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