Beautifully Broken

Sinéad Mongan

is the sound of chilled chocolate
ice-cream casing, cracked open
by your kissing eye
its vanilla heart
putting a stammer in my stare.

Rising is the whistle
from capillaried oven-hot jars
hymns freed by the sorbet
of your sorry, unfettered
by the tease of time.

Gone are you down streets
where grasses grow, through
dust of winnowed chaff,
to a place too banished
for the bandage of a hug.

In the snap and pull, I fill pots
with elderberry readiness
all along the long acre, reap
again the how of plenty,
the mastery of preserving
providence in batches,
far from the miracle
and melt of your running eye.