Almost Clear

Between the old batteries and the tangled twine,

I found a green marble that used to be mine.

Or maybe I found it out back in the mud,

where the spring rain is stirring the silt and the flood.

I hold it up high to the glass of the pane,

where the neighbor’s brick wall is a blurry red stain.

It’s milky and frosted, a ghost of a bead,

with a fracture inside like a secret I need.

Everything’s cloudy, the rent and the rain,

the way that the window shows nothing but strain.

But the light through the marble is soft as a bruise,

and it’s one of the few things I’m willing to lose.