Things keep breaking
Everyone is better now, we ordered a part for the freezer, and I've gotten used to a naked window while we line up new blinds. But for a week, it felt like everything was breaking (including me).
This poem is sort of a sequel to a previous one, “Not everything remains broken.” Both poems are linked by little periods of time when everything seemed to start breaking at once (including our health this time around).
It’s happening again. Things keep breaking. The cord snaps and our blinds plunge slapping the sill in a gray puff of dust. We sleep with the window’s eye wide open staring into the neighbor’s yard. The chest freezer dies during the night rows of waffles wilting, mini pizzas melting from the sudden lack of frost. All our safe food lost. My middle son coughs, my husband’s throat burns— my little daughter has chills on a hot day— my oldest son tries to hide his headache— red lines bleeding through a slew of white tests. Around me fevers surge and break and I trudge to keep up with the dirty dishes, the dark window the little waves of despair.
This is a marvelous example of poetry out of calamity. Well done! Reminds me of something Kierkegaard said about poets' moaning being turned into beautiful music. I also like how it feels sort of like an upsidedown sonnet, including a rhyming couplet thrown in.
This is wonderful. I’m glad you all are feeling better. I love how you capture what’s actually going on in the moment in your poems, good or bad or in between. It’s such a gift.