Pieces

I reached for something else

and knocked it off the shelf.

The pot was terra cotta.

It broke with a sound that meant

something final. Not a crack.

Not a chip. A complete breaking,

like it had been waiting years

for me to give it the push,

the reason, the excuse.

The plant was plastic.

Not actually planted in the thing.

I'd never bothered to water it right.

It had lived on that shelf

in the way things live when you

forget they're there.

The pieces scattered across the floor

like they'd been shattered before,

like they remembered what it meant

to come apart. Reddish dust.

Clay that had been somebody's work,

shaped and fired and sold for less

than it was worth.

The plant lay in the mess

unbothered. Dust on its leaves.

Its roots didn't even know

the pot was gone.

I swept the pieces into the pan.

Careful. Like that mattered.

The plant stayed where it was,

small and plastic and alive,

the only thing that survived

its own breaking.