Of course you are still looking for sea glass - Rosanna Montemayor

​you were six when you dropped 

      mama’s vase in the kitchen then buried its shards

            in the tide. Sometimes

there is no way but to hide the accident,

      no way to calm the quivering of your petal

            hands; how could you

learn what holding meant

      until you knelt on the unpolished

            tiles, lifted up the fragments

off the floor? Remember, you had

      crammed every corner of the house with silences,

            having never said

you love her, lest she

      stuff your mouth with sand. Now pray

            time will be on your side, let the water rise –

let salt weather down the teeth

      of glass: edges now rounded, frosted surfaces

            scattering light. No wonder

you wade in every day, without fail,

      fingers wrinkled from having been soaked

            too long in the shallow, you

grab wildly at stones or shells or bits of dead

      coral in search of the crystalline

            pieces. You walk home with palms

empty – cradle

      the ghost of a vase

            that never held blooms.

---

Rosanna Montemayor (21st century) The Philippines

Source: Harana Poetry no.6