Another sonnet I wrote, this one in a somewhat more serious vein.



Vessels

A couple of hours before your mom phoned
to explain how your friend dozed and the car turned
over twice—glass in your arm, a head wound,
but the friend was fine—I dropped your potted fern,
black soil exploding across the kitchen floor.
It was like Fate sneered in advance: “You think that
was an accident? You think that will leave a scar?
Wait and see.” While I cursed my clumsy lot
a surgeon was stapling the tender skin of your scalp.
Could we have seen the fissures of these misfortunes—
the driver’s drooping eyes, the slackening grip—
and all those that came after? Made our decisions
stronger than the mistakes they were meant to contain?
Pots and windshields will break, and break again.