Unfinished Splinters

Light fractures through the window,

dusting the floor in thin gold lines.

Sawdust scatters, sharp and dry,

like the brittle skeleton of yesterday’s mistakes.

The carpenter sweeps, wrists stiff,

the chair leg still crooked in his hands.

Each grain a fragment, a fragment,

cracking under boots like brittle ash.

It clings to the air, a choking grit,

a memory caught in rough wood shavings.

Unfinished—like everything else I touch,

all the splinters stuck beneath my skin.