Once the calenders are up and slow January has melted through to July,
we will be the ribbon in the clearance bin at a craft store after Easter.
You and I and everyone, we are the sky-blue silk that,
having finished doughnuts and lemonade
I'd run my sticky fingers through, slipping under cellophane wrappings and unraveling rolls as my mother pulled me through to the felt.
Cut straight we fray, taken to flame we change,
and on an oak table in the kitchen of some suburban household,
we will succumb. By the hands of a grade-schooler, our God,
we will harden to plastic and by candlelight, our means and ends
will unravel no longer.