Gentle creatures

Sweep up
the broken glass
a broken earth-map
on the living room floor.
You with
antelope gentleness,
gathering up slivers,
so carefully:

I hover,
          at your shoulder,
amputated.
I want to help
reach in
cut fingers,
but it would only
bloody the mess.

And inside a
symphony, chiming
through an afternoon
that endures us
              I pull another
black bin bag
off the roll:
snap it goes,
clean off.
              I forget it’s Saturday,
and that you were playing
video games, and
I was reading
on the couch,
before.

Now: picture leaning
on drunk angle,
frame bashed but
intact.

I leave the room
convinced I will
return and
everything will
be the way
it was.