1st Paper
2nd Cotton
3rd Leather
4th Flowers
5th Wood
6th Iron
7th Copper
8th Bronze
9th Pottery
10th Aluminum.

aluminum: a metal,
glimmering, malleable—
(malleable: able to be shaped—
shaped: fashioned and turned,)
sturdy in form, carefully filed down,
smoothed for days upon days:
on late-night couches,
along crashing waves,
beneath gilded aspens,
on a bluebonnet carpet,
amid blue-green and turtles,
huddled in glacier air,

we are malleable, shaped—
pounded thin and remade,
across the table,
across the miles
(a wandering decade),
a trail of fragments left behind:
scattered in a stairwell,
littering a screened porch,
sprinkled into a gravel driveway,
and now,
marking the trail to the playground—
debris, discarded,
intentionally and not.

a poor metal, they say,
lightweight and yielding—
yet tough, I say,
strong to endure:
moving, then death,
blood at eight weeks,
a horrible phone call,
and a million ordinary clashes.

11th Steel
12th Silk
13th Lace
14th Ivory
15th Crystal—

will we shatter too?
others have,
hurling shards through the heart,
and so we will tread lightly
through the meantime years,
through hardened years,
and years woven fine;
delicate years,
and years carved and gleaming.
and we will never arrive,
but with grace,
survive.