Two Pieces

It fell from the counter—

a mug, a small encounter

with gravity, and it broke

into exactly two pieces. I spoke

to no one. I just stood there,

looking at the break, at the pair

of pieces on the kitchen tile,

and I stayed there for a while,

understanding something about

the way things break, the way about

half of things is clean, final,

without complication, minimal

in their damage.

Two pieces.

Not shattered, not ceases

of ceramic in a thousand fragments,

not a thousand small segments

scattered across the floor,

just two pieces, no more,

no less, just a clean break

down the middle, the way a break

should be if breaks could be

what they should be—clean, free

from complication, from the mess

of breaking into a thousand less

recognizable pieces.

I didn't clean it up.

I just looked at the cup

in two halves on the floor,

and I understood something more

about the way things end,

the way breaks can be clean and send

a message—that some things

can be broken simply, that some things

break the way you'd want them to break

if you were going to break,

the way you'd design a break

if you had to break something.

Two pieces.

A clean break. No releases

of chaos, no thousand fragments,

just a simple statement:

this was a mug,

now it's two pieces,

and that's enough.