...and tired

waltz

what happens
to the contents
of the vase
when the glass
succumbs
to the press
of its flaws
and shatters?

the stamen,
the cupped petal,
drenched in their own
darkening liquid,
the stem stray,
holding nothing
together longer,
the lingering spread
of the water,

the waxy leaf
upon which drops
raise themselves
like thin welts
from out of
the wild-
spreading deluge:

water
against

the vague
and gentled
floral epidermis:
the damasked cheek
and insinuant cup
of the tulip,
the bending shifting mouth
of the rose--

all parts distinct
when the vase breaks
past itinerance, past mutiny,
past all endurance,
no longer sustained
as if solid against fluid,
but drenched,
subsumed
in the act of its scattering.

like a star
bends its light, rent
from deepest
midnight.