Particulars

Small and quiet things stop me in my tracks:
two eyes and a round mouth open in surprise
on the face of an electrical socket. A drop of rain
strung like a pearl on a spider thread, still holding
on to the morning’s light. When is a window just
a window and not symbol or metaphor? Once
I walked into a street and saw nothing but ruin
on every side—clapboard houses fallen from 
a temblor, a hydrant gushing water everywhere.
Strewn contents of rooms confessing their love
of trinkets—porcelain ducks and milkmaids, 
one glass goblet unscathed amid an explosion
of shards. Brick and wood, pried loose of finish.
Each unstitching a question among more questions.