Fragment

how is it that I can long for you
when I don't even know what you are—
how does imagination take flight as if
launched from the tip of a fragment,
like a shard half buried in the earth
revealing only a tender line of blue along its edge

a shard that if pulled up reveals
its small self, an unfinished history,
related to other shards that will appear
as the fertile earth heaves everything up,
as every season reveals more and
soil, stone, everything is carried slowly upward

its crackled glaze gleaming white and blue
this shard lies quiet in my palm,
the smokey edge dark against my skin
like a feather, like a wing, like a story
speaking not with words but with
the whispers of vision and gesture—

from this hazy line, like a poem, like a dream,
like a bird that spreads its aching wings
to reach for the light that breaks
through morning's bank of clouds
gold upon blue upon blue,
I reach for the thought of you