Breaking Glass

I place my shards
     at your feet
is what I hear when I pick
    at broken glass in the dirt


Perhaps placed is not
    right for the vandal
doesn't care
    where the shards land or
whether they puncture a paw
or file into a foot

    In fact, the vandal doesn't care
for anything at all
   when that bottle busts--

evidence of
   something intimate ignored
or forsaken, something that rises
  amidst glowing faces
round a ravishing fire

Damn it all to hell

the shards convey
  whether in the woods or

at sea (broken over
   the bow of a boat? shattered
over the jetty's jutted edges?)
  dusty and misty
collectible and collected.

How ironic--this now dulled
   mad dash at the world
for its own careless ways
    sits innocuous in a dish

    the focal point in some
stranger's living room.