There were shards of glass

            Atop the balustrade

            Along the border of the park,

            Enough to lend the evening light

            An unexpected spark

            They may have been the remnants

            Of a battle or an accident, 

            The play of chance or choice

            It got me thinking if a person

            Lost a bit of skin or blood

            And carried on a little more in truth –

            The costume ruffled that had taken

            Years to sew, a callus shorn, 

            Some tenderness behind

            I thought how much I’d added on

            Three decades hence becoming more myself

            Through losing parts of what I was – 

            The silly dreams of raising Cain or

            Multitudes, of parting clouds

            To shed a greater light on

            Faces such as yours

            With something like a poem

            A shuffle from behind awoke me from my reveries,

            A body on the ground, a faint perhaps,

            Or worse

            I rose with speed

            To lend a bit of order

            To the crowd that gathered,

            And a hand

            Still in possession of a certain skill

            Although I spend the greater portion of my time

            By singing low and sitting tight and

            Watching very closely 

            The crustacean evolution of a 

            Silhouette