Broken Things

~ after Marie Howe’s “What the Angels Left” 

First, it was the mugs from the back of the cupboard, 
porcelain chipped, a failed art project a friend shaped by hand. 

Then I noticed the glass’s violent shimmer shattered and vibrant 
in the gray morning light against the slate of the kitchen floor.  

The peaches lay split in their bowls, the grapes warm, their flavor lost.  
The door knobs twisted loosely at the handle, each groove licking the edge 

of the jamb unable to catch, small feathers whispered along the floor  
where the rug should have been. Outside, on the slope of concrete 

the remains of a snail’s shell, partially ground into earth, turned 
like a bed of flowers drained of color in the afternoon heat. So, I began 

to name each snap, each split written down, ordered by lists on pages,  
scraps, the rolling parchments of receipts, my hands wet with soap, shaking 

shards from the fabric of my shirt, its logo fading, too. I worried: what  
will readers glean from these papered fragments, piled across the smooth 

unblemished surfaces of my desk, the foot of the bed? I wanted to gather  
them all, mold and weld them, fit the puzzle together until it glowed, 

before realizing I was meant to let them fall, withdraw from the bite  
that draws blood from under a thumb’s print. Outside, the blurred slide 

of a snail approaching dew laden flowers, a single black-eyed susan  
swaying her golden petals dry, a new dress in the sun.  

JARED BELOFF

Jared Beloff is a teacher and poet who lives in Queens, NY, with his wife and two daughters. His debut poetry collection, Who Will Cradle Your Head, is forthcoming with ELJ Press in February 2023. You can find his work online at www.jaredbeloff.com and as @Read_Instead on Twitter.