Broken like what?
A still day?
A rippled night?
Wings,
water,
windows?
A banished tooth in a deer’s leg?
Like syntax,
Innocent, illegal and knowing,
That’s been knocked onto the floor
To be swept up later?

Broken beyond what?
Money, conversation, messages, white couches on
beige carpet, discovery, case studies,
journals – personal and peer-reviewed,
UN missions, Aristotle, Newton,
the Antarctic, art, cable,
the reach of helicopters and a rope ladder?
Belief?
Glue?

Broken into what?
Frames?
A part,
a piece,
a puzzle?
A growth industry
An attendee
Dues?
Something to see
To hold
To crush?
A moment,
A monument
An atom,
The blues?

But what of
being held hostage
at the summit
by a great owl atop a cypress
Rendered in royal, black silhouette
And bearing a likeness
To the Mona Lisa hanging
on a fading, orange horizon
smiling in conspiracy
at the full moon rising

The day breaks into twilight
Treasures flow from its cracks
This spell will be broken
Its time will eventually lapse
But until then just linger
And listen to its gasps

Night comes at last
Whispering its call
To the words, the mirrors, the bones
The trees, the planes, the halls
Everything that can
And will be broken
In front of gods
Great and small
Carried by the dark
to the river
spilling over the falls