Alluvial Poem by Lisa Gluskin Stonestreet

The build-up, the accretion and you wonder
why you ever bothered, all the little objects— why not
a perfect silence, a white sheet: cool and opalescent,
tracking the sun. Then yesterday the dream of blue
ice, pure balance. But with it your echoing voice. Plains.

Here, now: the compound, the rough. Something mars
the surface, lets itself in. Crumbs everywhere, toast and time
flaking away. Maybe it will fill you
from the inside, squeeze out with each turn and cough.
Hard to see yourself against the background.

Then was a brilliant nothing, star burned clean
in its oneness. Now your days are multiple, dog hair and dust
in three dimensions. Silt on the banks and in the doorways:
making and making. You are grabbed from behind,
held. The water from the tap bathing every dirty dish.