Broken Glass and Other Sharp Objects

by Genevieve Creedon

Paring knife meets plastic meets
index finger amid kitchen preparations
for tomorrow’s chicken pasta salad lunch:

red dyes soft fabric in dim lights
during efforts to contain the stain,
blood meets counter meets

tongue and then water, washing it away.
But blood washes better than brooding
erupting in tomorrow’s chicken pasta salad lunch:

recollection, rising, unleashed,
in the corner of the living room,
a wandering eye meets cardboard meets

boxed remnants of a long past attempt
to learn to draw—the penciled contours
of life, chicken pasta salad lunch—

now, a mess of miscellaneous blades,
charcoal, and led jutting, reaching, piercing
the air that meets memory and ignites
tomorrow’s chicken pasta salad lunch:

A moon-shaped slice in my left hand,
glass, twisted metal, dangling
side mirrors, the throbbing blackout

that came not then but later, the constant
returning to the car in darkness,
a moon-shaped slice in my left hand,

spinning, spinning, spinning on ice
that hisses across the night, each day since,
side mirrors, the throbbing blackout,

the cold, the depression, the spring,
the summer, the winter, the slow teeming
recovery, a moon-shaped scar in my left hand.

Later, there is survival everywhere, and I forget
to notice until the pinkwhiteorangegreyyellow sky
in the side mirrors, throbs through blackout:

pink peaks brimming blue impending night,
and all the cracks in dusk let the requisite light in,
a moon-shaped scar in my left hand,
side mirrors, the throbbing blackout.

A flash: bloody hands searching the wreck
for the unfindable thing, bricks, buildings, light,
a new city rising, the pastpresent in my pocket…

On the night I cut my finger opening the cheese,
the sky was clear, the crater-like moon
flashed: bloody hands searching the wreck,

above the crunch of snow, the precarity
of ice, branches holding each other,
a new city rising, the pastpresent in my pocket.

The hand towel wrapped my finger,
the night enveloped the car’s carcass,
a flash: bloody hands searching the wreck.

Water and snow mixed in the sink,
in my boots, wandering the side of the highway,
a new city rising, the pastpresent in my pocket.

One hand reached for the other, cottoned
mountains ascend, aching, to the sky.
A flash: bloody hands searching the wreck,
a new city rising, the pastpresent in my pocket.

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