Broken Glass

As we walk past the familiar house

The usual longing remains

But the house seems bigger

It was once so small

Every footstep heard

Every breath shared

But suddenly it seems like enough

For two

For us

Us-

That word plays in my mind

Over and over and over

And as the blue jay flashes past

I notice the crumbling bricks

On the side of the garage

And I think about the way

The pieces of concrete are missing

The way the mortar has failed

To withstand the brutal winters

And the dry summers

And the way we are nothing like those crumbling bricks

And the way the thing between us could never

Fade away and lose what it holds

And the browning crabapples that lay on the dirt

Fallen from the tree that overhangs on to our land

Or, the land I once called home

I look at the window

The one that was once shattered

The one that I used to see the world through

And I think about how one day we too will have broken pieces of glass

The shards of the cup that binds us together

The shrapnel of our promise

And then I see a cardinal perched on a low hanging branch