Rake

Rake

Most of our time here is devoted to tidying and gathering.
Scraps. Splinters. Strands. I draw the edges of what I drop
closer to me, a cloak, a comforter. Some of these pieces
are mine, so I claim them. The napkin I shredded gets swept
into my palm. The coffee grounds pulled into the wet sponge.
The thumb-smudge on the right lens of my sunglasses
exhaled onto, absorbed into the hem of my skirt. The blue cap
attached to the drawing end of the pen, the pen dropped back
into the bag. Now, because the world was made to erode as
it grows, we often break parts off of it as we brush against
the corners, the walls. As the tree throws leaves, we rake
them up, make a pile, a branchless, barkless tree. With buckets
we harvest tar from a hole in the ground, broken skeletons
from the tar. The bones get cleaned, and we lay them against
each other that they might emerge as a body, whole, entire.