Repair

Your arm sliced the counter
with precision.
Two white cups
fell upon your command,
breaking into pieces,
on the beige laminate floor.

Your eyes paid no mind to them
once they hit the floor,
useless,
collateral damage in our civil war,
bodies to walk over.

Shock and awe ends in silence,
only scrapes of ceramic,
pieces of flesh
cutting each other,
as you dump them into the trash bag.

Without thought, I scooped up
my tea cup,
its missing handle,
cradling it,
mourning its demise,
trying to bring it back from death
by gluing it back together.

Hoping that mine will hold,
making no attempt to repair yours.

J. L. Smith lives in Odenton, MD, where she works as an academic advisor. Her works have been featured in many literary journals and magazines. Her poetry collection Medusa: The Lost Daughter is a narrative collection based on the Medusa myth. Another collection, Weathered Fragments, Weathered Souls, was published in early 2018. Follow her on Twitter (@jennifersmithak) or her blog at https://jlsmithwrites.com.