The Globe

Sunny clear day, the ominous rainless sky bright and cheerful

Our family wandered the Space museum

Disjointed disagreeable as we snapped camera photos

And sent irritated pages across the loudspeaker

Always the gift shop represents a gate to a momentary paradise

A toy to fascinate the mind or distract the heart from pain

You selected a globe, with lightning inside when you plug it in.

Jerking from the rod in the middle to the finger that strokes its form

We rushed all of us home. 

 

The windows open in the car and you stuck in the back

The father the mother the child and the toy

Arguing fussing while we planned dinner

And dropped him off at the grocery store

While we went ahead home to open this wondrous thing

This elaborate gadget. Oh you love your toys!

I went to change, to pray, to organize myself,

And I could hear you fumble the globe from the box,

Adjust the papers on the desk and plug it in.

 

In the quiet I often don’t expect the disturbance, the problem, the sudden pain.

The quick sound of shattering glass and a wail of anguish

Brought me running to fix the child, the toy,

But it was already over.  All that was left was to prevent injury

and sweep up the fragments of a broken toy.

I tried to reassure you-

“We’ll go back.  You can get another one.”

But I don’t know when we’ll return there-

We have to just move on from here.