One Crumbling Face

Still When I Picture It the Face of God Is a White Man’s Face 
By Shane McCrae

Before it disappears

on the sand his long white beard    before it disappears

The face of the man

in the waves I ask her does she see it ask her does

The old man in the waves as the waves crest    she see it does

she see the old man his

White his face crumbling face it looks

as old as he’s as old as

The ocean looks


and for a moment almost looks

His face like it’s all the way him

As never such old skin

looks my / Daughter age four

She thinks it might he might be real she shouts Hello

And after there’s no answer answers No

One Gold Scar

The Joins
By Chana Bloch

Kintsugi is the Japanese art of mending precious pottery with gold.

What's between us
seems flexible as the webbing
between forefinger and thumb.

Seems flexible but isn’t;
what's between us
is made of clay

like any cup on the shelf.
It shatters easily. Repair
becomes the task.

We glue the wounded edges
with tentative fingers.
Scar tissue is visible history

and the cup is precious to us
because
we saved it.

In the art of kintsugi
a potter repairing a broken cup
would sprinkle the resin

with powdered gold.
Sometimes the joins
are so exquisite

they say the potter
may have broken the cup
just so he could mend it.