Sodium Tetraborate

I spilled coffee on the floor this morning,

brown spreading across the tile,

and without a moment of warning

I reached for the box with a smile—

borax, sodium tetraborate,

a mineral the earth compressed

for millions of years, to create

order from the mess.

I poured the white powder on the stain,

watched it settle, watched it break

the brown into nothing, watched the pain

dissolve with every flake.

There's faith in reaching for dust,

faith in trusting what the earth made,

faith that something—and I must—

knows how to make things fade.

The floor is clean. The stain is gone.

And I'm holding the box in my hand,

thinking about how we go on,

thinking about faith, about sand

compressed into purpose, into reason,

into something that knows what to do,

into something that comes when we're freezing,

into something that fixes me too.