She's lost hours to the study
of mirrors, memorizing ghosts 
who live behind the red wire 
of her smile.  She wants to break 
the glass.  A hundred smiles 
scattering across the carpet like ants.
Outdoors, a hundred houses and children, 
endless husbands jointly throwing 
up their arms in disgust.  She finds 
a dying elm to sit beneath, 
twists her ankles in the grass, 
tangling her feet in the furniture 
of tree roots and dandelions.  
When she releases the slender shards 
from her pockets, throws them
into the shifting branches, she imagines 
what they will taste like, 
all those slivers of sky and sun 
falling toward her, those thin moments 
of flawless, burning light.

She's learned that water breaks things,
deluge or slow drizzle.  
Once the clouds lift, you're left 
with nibbled coastlines, granite 
worn smooth, boulders whittled 
into pebbles into sand.  
Take this man, for instance, 
waist deep in the public pool, 
his lower half dislocated.  
She knows he's broken, 
each word a glittering mirage
whipped from air, sunlight, 
reflections of himself glimpsed
in her eyes.  Still, they'll drive 
home through the diluted wash 
of afternoon and the smell of rain 
will trap itself beneath her sheets, 
where his hands will be trying 
to break her and hers 
will be trying to make him whole.