Qu

Qu

Pry it apart, the way you’re taught to do 

with most good things—

                                 poems, a cow’s eye, pairs 

of polynomials—

                     and watch it go 

from sounds as round as the river-tumbled quartz

you nestled in your palm last week as if 

it were an egg, 

to cold, metallic as 

the cliq of girls who smack their gum and click 

their red-nailed thumbs on qwerty keyboards. 

Has 

it ever occurred to you that people change 

when separated? 

   Find someone, something— Let

it glue itself to your right side, smooth down 

your brittle front, round off your jagged edges.