In Glass

She was a creature made in glass

A camouflage transparency

Pierced by light and colour, she

Could be seen in all her trembling

The pulse in her lips standing out and

Anodyne innocence recurring

By turns she hid and by turns she gave

That laughter of daybreak on snow

Then dull unto fading, lest one forget

Incongruous afterglow

Every embrace the first, the last

With frets for nerves pulled thin

Exquisite as a crystal shattered –

Swayed like a bough in spring

Distances

The only reason she has him, is because she doesn’t.

This man, sitting next to her, who cannot remember to put the bathmat back up on the side of the tub. She sits next to him only because he is so laissez-faire that he let it happen – and then she became a part of his routine. A part, not a prime mover.

Like his cards. Like the music to which he bobs his head. She is the movement of clothes, some his, some hers, into the washing machine. It happens.

She is the added pressure of a pair of feet on his thighs while he reads his newsfeeds. He could be doing the same thing minus that pair of feet; that’s how she knows he would be the same without her.

She wouldn’t be the same without him. Without him, she would no longer be measuring these differences, coming up with distances.