“I find beauty in things
that are small, fragile
even microscopic. Here,”
she whispered, breathing in
the dust from off a tiny fern,
“smell the aroma. I could brew
tea from it, a mild subtle blend
were the plant not so small
or so slow in growing.”
When she went to the beach
she would pick up only fragments
of shells, pieces worn thin
by the waves or faded by the sun.
“I couldn’t think of taking
anything that was whole.” And indeed
her house was a refuge for all
that was crippled and sick:
lame dogs, blind cats, fractured birds
who had to be fed by eye-dropper.
Even the men in her life