Inventory

"The sky is a century with no windows."
                                 ~ Eduardo Corral

We are poor though we have everything we need.
Out in the yard, the fig tree is resplendent with still-

green fruit, even while its leaves begin to speckle
and yellow toward fall. Through the laundromat window,

we see shaded clouds grow fat over the roofs. Yet they
withhold rain from the afternoon. Papery blooms multiply

on branches of crepe myrtle. They bend over the sidewalk,
threatening to crown the heads of passersby. Evening 

comes and afterward, the ordinary breathing of night. 
The bowl that breaks on the kitchen floor makes 

a chime like a bell. We sweep up its fragments and drop it 
into the trash, where glistening bones of our fish dinner 

lie almost intact. And still we want everything we do, 
though the world breaks our hearts every single time.