FIRST SLIP

It was August of '73. The sun hung heavy as a hammer over the clay pots of Clover. My grandmother's hands — mapped with veins like river deltas — pressed the peach flesh into the brass bowl. "Headspace, child," she said. "Leave the moon its breath, or the glass will drink your blood."

I did not leave the space.
I filled the jar to the screaming rim.
And when the fire woke in the furnace,
fifty jars sang their shattering hymn
across the floor like fallen stars.

STICKY

I did not sweep the shards. I did not wash the stain.
I knelt in the amber sea and licked the lesson from my thumb:
Precision is mercy. Precision is love.

Now every preserve holds the void between worlds.
Now every seam remembers the gold.