possible, unthinkable

I had like seven other poems I was going to post today, for a wide variety of reasons, but I am having one of those days where nothing quite goes according to plan. Not necessarily in a bad way, just Thursday. Anyway, Dorianne Laux has a way with a phrase that astounds me. This isn't the poem of hers that was actually on my spreadsheet, but like I said: not everything always goes according to plan.

The slate black sky. The middle step
of the back porch. And long ago

my mother’s necklace, the beads
rolling north and south. Broken

the rose stem, water into drops, glass
knobs on the bedroom door. Last summer’s

pot of parsley and mint, white roots
shooting like streamers through the cracks.

Years ago the cat’s tail, the bird bath,
the car hood’s rusted latch. Broken

little finger on my right hand at birth—
I was pulled out too fast. What hasn’t

been rent, divided, split? Broken
the days into nights, the night sky

into stars, the stars into patterns
I make up as I trace them

with a broken-off blade
of grass. Possible, unthinkable,

the cricket’s tiny back as I lie
on the lawn in the dark, my heart

a blue cup fallen from someone’s hands.

—Dorianne Laux (b. 1952), "What’s Broken" from Facts About The Moon, 2007.