Crack
By Rebecca Foust
It takes just a nick
of me, of you;
one crack to break
what binds the book.
One ping
from a chain
swung at the right
height & speed,
flicked at the weak
spot’s atomic knot.
A chain wound
around the palm
of the boy
who roams the rows
of cars in the night lot.
One flick of the wrist
to smash the glass
then he’s in & what
was whole will lie
in chop-shop parts.
It’s true, too, of hearts:
one tap of the peen
just so will smash the pot.
It’s not what you think.
Drink deep while you can,
for the glass will break,
your boat will spring
a leak. All it takes
is one window cracked
then wedged wide.
Even in dead calm,
waves will wrack
you bow & stern
& you’ll be lost. Lost
is the cost of the ride.
It’s true your boat
was born a wreck &
how brave it still sails
for a time. But once
you have to bail,
you may as well
give up. I asked
my mother How?
How stay strong
through the years?
The trick, she said,
is not to crack.
Be the book
with each page bound,
not cut. Be the boy
with the chain.
Be the chain, its arc,
its grace & speed,
strike where the sweet
spot spins. Be the light
that gleams glass shards.
be waves & wind.
Be lithe & fast, be strong;
most of all, be young
& don’t fall, or get sick.
Don’t crack, she said.
It only takes a nick.
Rebecca Foust’s seventh book of poetry, ONLY, is forthcoming from Four Way Books in 2022, and new poems are or will be in Bracken, The Hudson Review, Narrative, New Letters, Nostos, and Ploughshares. Recognitions include the 2020 Pablo Neruda Prize for Poetry judged by Kaveh Akbar, the CP Cavafy and James Hearst poetry prizes, a Marin Poet Laureateship, and fellowships from The Frost Place, Hedgebrook, MacDowell, and Sewanee.
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