Fragile

in March

hours before we pulled up the drawbridge and shut down

my doctor gave me a box of nearly new women’s shoes size 7 ½ for

the shelter or the shop ore. . . from his wife who died quite suddenly I knew her

from high school when he slid the box of shoes into my car

he said she hated shoes I remember her Birkenstocks

we embraced a tiny buffer between anguish and the next breath

the neatly packed shoes wait in my closet for now

the seeds I planted in eggshells in March are tomato plants

I feel fragile sometimes

like the spider-crack on my computer screen

like a fault line

like a land mine

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