If I had ever had to parcel myself up in a box to send by Royal Mail, I might have added a best before date and a few air holes, but I doubt I would have thought to add the label: Fragile! Handle with Care!!
But now that it is an irrefutable truth that I am ACTUALLY made of glass, I will be bubble wrapped and placed in moulded polystyrene before such an event!

Bone:
The stuff of arrow heads
And daggers,
A durable, plosive, flint of a word.
Bone:
Surviving the centuries,
Outlasting soft sinew and spirit,
The teller of tales,
The hardware of human history.
Shelves, stacked with skin softening,
Protective and rejuvenating products,
Hold few pamper kits for the bones,
Beyond the back store,
Bottom shelf bottles
of vitamin D and calcium,
Lurking behind the hair restorers
and removals.
It is no surprise that we learn
Only on impact
Of our irrefutable fragility,
That in fact
We are made of china,
Made of glass.
A spun sugar network,
A dry spaghetti tower,
With marshmallow joints
Just waiting
For an accident to happen….
And in an instant
We are transformed
From weapon and warrior
To weak and wounded,
A Fragmented,
Shattered,
Splintered
Version of ourselves,
Needy,
Obsessive
And intolerant
At worst.
At best?
Probably asleep.
I imagine
My favourite coffee cup,
Fractured and repaired,
with steel and screws,
The blue stem of an antique sherry glass,
Splinted and plastered
And almost upright.
I am not vain,
But vulnerable
Where I was invincible,
Fearful, not less,
Of the fall from
There to here.
Here
Where I await
The morning’s unveiling
Of my repairs
.
