I cannot hold fragile things           

I want to take the heavy glass,
the kind that sits too smugly on the coaster,
and see it bloom into a thousand jagged petals
across the kitchen lino.

There’s a tension in the quiet –
the way the radiator hums a single, boring note,
the way the curtains hang, strait-jacketed and still.
I want to shatter the beige politeness of the afternoon.

Not out of rage, not really.
Just to see the silver insides of a thing,
to hear the sharp, soprano cry of ceramic
giving up the ghost,
to feel the air rush into a space
where a solid wall used to be.

Suzanne Fairless-Aitken