Upon the Threads of Slivered Glass

"The attack was intended to break our spirit.
It has utterly failed."

      Rudolph Giuliani

I've bought a dozen books by now —
opened them like dry cocoons.
Binding broken by the pull
of sadness looking for escape.
The benediction of a poem
is pigeon-droppings on a square.
I need to wear the massive grave
as padlocks on my liberties.
Aflame with fear that I'll forget,
slip on sandals, comb a beach,
without my eye on acres of rubble and ash.
The art of living on requires
the blending of survival moves,
waltzes of remembrance
upon the threads of slivered glass.

As freedom plays its orphaned song,
an orchestra is warming up.
A monarch tarries on the lips
of crimson tulips in the spring
as I recall the vapor trails
of heroes twisting into dust.
I can't forget these puppets of terror
grafted their faces with skin of our own.
Days of Armageddon gloom,
eclipsing suns, calling matches
to our candles quivering in brutal wind.
Someone shaves a bright green lawn,
paints the beaten, leaning blades
blood red, moon white, navy blue.
Taking back the dawn is hard —
pasta slipping from a spoon.
For lack of fitting syllables,
a brick just forms because it does,
because the sand is wetted by unspeakables.
Words must be that olive oil
which floats above this vinegar.

— Janet I. Buck