There’s something, I think, a flap
or flange on a plane that lets its
fuel tanks hold hands across the
wingspan of a particularly strenuous
crossing, and I think about that
flap whenever I make you laugh, or
when you order the Chinese take-out,
and I pick it up.

Once you’ve squozen the recommended
allotment of shampoo relative to hair-girth

into your palm, be careful when letting go
the bottle for its pop-back-reset,

or the mintfused molecules will panic and,
with eucalyptous hands, cling to each

other in a desperate, schlurpy retreat back
into the globuly hive, leaving only an

invigorating, sulfite-free residue in the air,
your hair plastered, and unwashed.

Like the deep-cleansing morning I spent on the
front porch with my coffee and my dog and

suddenly remembered the day my mother changed
the locks on all the doors and my father,

and I hadn’t even showered.

when in a moment
of inattention your
most precious and richly
stained coffee mug falls shattered
to the floor it knows only
that it is broken
and cannot cry
but desperately
wishes it could