It's Still Life

Part II. LAST RITES FOR THE SHATTERED VASE
(a personification ceremony conducted in four movements)

I. EULOGY BY THE WORM

you held
not just water,
but the pause
before the spill.

now you are
1,001 portals
to elsewhere—
each edge
a new
mouth,
each curve
a stopped
clock.

(it sprinkles the shards with compost)

II. CROW’S FINAL BLESSING

he places the laughing-water shard
atop the pile:

let this be
your headstone
and your whetstone.

may you cut
and be cut
by beauty
forever.

III. CAT’S UNREPENTANT HYMN

i did you
a favor,
old thing.

now you’re
more interesting
broken
than you ever were
whole—

like a star
that only learns
its name
by bursting.

IV. THE OLD WOMAN’S LAST GESTURE

she fills her apron
with porcelain pieces,
and spins
like a dervish
of glitter—

the air
is thick
with flour-snow
and sugar-ghosts,

and every shard
shivers
into a verb:

to shimmer,
to sever,
to outlive
the hand
that held you.