
Complex
The young man breaks plates now. He grew up
to become exactly what his mother expected,
fulfilling the promise of each curse she’d uttered
quietly inside the cramped interiors of her Malibu, or
into the phone on the sun porch. “Florida room” was the name
she’d given that breathy space, in which he learned to read
each of the Nikes she threw across the room at his father
as her sincerest wishes to return to happier times.
They’d visited parks. That counts as engagement. But
where was she always staring off to? Why did she fuss
when he wouldn’t drag his feet through the loose stones
to stop swinging? If he quit kicking and let himself down
gradually, she might’ve found another moment to daydream.
How you ruin something has somewhat to do with the way
you were raised — who taught you what, and why.
Also: what you listened to, and what parts stuck, or didn’t.
Because of her, he wrists his ex’s stoneware plates
at the wall the way he’d fling a Frisbee, then squeezes thin lines
of Tacky-Glu so none’ll seep when he presses together
the edges of the fragments. Or shards. Wishes. Answers
to his questions. The color of the stone’s glaze echoes
the gravel he’d kicked up, dragging his toes. He thrums,
though it has been ages since he last hopped off the swing,
emptied by the crack of loneliness he’d heard in her voice.
