1

From an airplane window, I study
Earth’s fractures, its wounds:

mountains where plates buckled
and bent—collisions
labeled with fault
as if someone’s to blame;

the Great Salt Lake like a giant ache
with no outlet,
its water turning to tears;

fields blackened by summer fires;

the Columbia, a bright laceration
along the state line.

2

The clay of our bodies holds
its own history of rupture—
cells splitting
at the very start of us.

When skin is cut deeply enough
healing leaves a luster
on the raised flesh.

3

Silvered with sunlight, the river
reminds me of kintsugi,
the Japanese art of pottery repair.

Rather than discard a broken bowl,
they save the shards.
They fit each piece together
and trace the seams in gold.

An object of beauty: the mended bowl,
more precious
for its lightning marks
its gilded scars.