It's Still Life

THE BOOK OF ALEPH ON BROKEN VASES
from The Book of Spades, Chapter 11: Fragments & Their Afterlives

journey’s end…
the old woman’s favourite vase—
a constellation now
of Swedish porcelain shards—
is catalogued thusly:

Item #7.3.1
Vase (blue and white, chipped rim).
Shattered by: cat
(motive: gravitational poetry).
Current state: 1,022 fragments (minimum).
See also: kintsugi,
if you believe
broken things
deserve
gold
more than
air.

Beneath, the worm has added:
NB: every fracture
is a branch
on the tree
of what might have been.
water it with silence,
and it will bloom
ghosts.

The crow drops a single shard
into her palm:

Here—
the piece that once held
the sound
of water laughing.

Now it’s just
a blade
with excellent
posture.

The Crow Lodges Its Defence:
From his perch
on the void-bush,
he declaims:

“Homer
never mentioned
the aesthetic necessity
of destruction,

but then,
he’d never seen
how sunlight
licks
the edges
of a fresh break
like it’s tasting
the future.”

The old woman
is gluing
the sky
back together.