Break it, you said, into manageable
Pieces. Break it down, home-work or bone-work;
Break, and prosper. You told half the fable
Then, leaving out the life-long quest for gold
To lace mending-lacquer.
All I know are fragments. Pieces of shell
Floating in the egg-white, above the yolk,
The soul still miraculously whole, swell
My heart with hope. So I glue myself back:
Your way, but in reverse—
I am introducing my spine to steel
Sound by sound, like the phonics of a new
Language, like the science made to unreel
Year by school year, truth doled out in doses
Just right for absorption.
