I

Pieces of music,
Pieces of
Places, faces,
Conversations, silences

Moments of time
Scattered across
Expanses, destinations,
Events in life

Faces in photographs,
Excerpts from conversations,
E-mails, souvenirs,
Fragmented figurines

Pieces of stories,
Pieces of
Characters, situations,
Glimpses of light

Photographs, fingerprints,
Pieces of faces
Dreams
Lost to the night

II

Pieces of poetry
Like bread
Broken and
Handed out
Hand by hand

Passed along
Throughout the crowd
And read out loud,
Intimate passages

Overheard by strangers,
By strangers repeated
And repeated
Until these secret treasures

Multiplied by the thousands,
Losing personal significance,
Misunderstood,
Misinterpreted,

Take flight
Like airplanes
Piloted above us,
Going out of earshot,

Becoming messages
Transmitted into
Outer space,
Signals

Lost to dead planets.

III

Her face in the morning,
A wild rose in bloom

The sound of rain on the windowpane,
A favorite love song

A piece of music,
A shooting star

The full moon,
A planted field

A relic,
An artifact

The calm after a storm,
The wakes of ships

IV

The fragments of these figurines,
The outstretched hands,
The dancing feet,
The dreaming heads

The headless dreams
Like snowflakes
Glittering
In the streetlight,

Appearing and disappearing
In the calico
Changeable skies
With their glimpses of stars

Glittering like pieces of glass
Like pieces of glass
Like pieces