8/12/2003

A moment
of inattention
then
one of those
terrible accidents
in which you kill
your sister
or brother
and other family members
reducing your heart
to embers
rendering your destiny
something other than
it might have been
as
in the devotion
of aftermath
you undertake the work
of forgiveness
making amends
and
the miraculous reconstruction
of
what was broken
but perhaps
not beyond repair
if you can divine
what it is
to be human.