• Recently Published

    • A Parisian Affair by Kevin Wranovix
      Inspiration is a foggy fellow, emerging from nothing, dissipating into nothing, answering to nothing.
    • Our Theseus by Nathan Jefferson
      Last week he was a dishwasher who his coworkers called Ricky. Today he’s a day laborer named Eddie, clearing a pair of fallen trees off a new build’s lawn and fixing up a large garden. Rotting plank ripped out, new plank inserted.
    • Robbing the Pillars by Marie Goyette
      Ruth stood on the narrow iron bridge, gripping her father’s obsidian necklace, and wondered how many years it would take before the river wore them both down to nothing.
    • The Call by Eben E. B. Bein
      I hungered into that quiet until— there—unbelievable!— a wolf spider scuttled onto a leaf.
    • Saturation by Claire Oleson
      I no longer harangue every desk nurse at every hospital for a taxonomic breakdown of her bills. I don’t ask for the numbers of the Benadryl, the water cups, the abdominal touches done with gloved hands. I am the most American I’ve ever been—she costs what she costs and I eat it.

Why I Break the Dishes by David B. Prather

October 3, 2023
Reading Time: 1 Minutes
Nominated for Best of the Net


I want to see my true self,
all my raw, unglazed edges,
all my broken pieces a puzzle
shattered on the floor. I want
to think of myself forged
from earth, fired in a kiln—
to see the dust beneath
 
the glaze. I want to search
all the kitchen drawers for glue,
something that will create a bond.
I’ve fallen apart before.
Sometimes, the smallest chips
and splinters must be swept up.
Sometimes, the decision must be made
 
to keep them or throw them away.
Shards will be lost, enough to see
the veins that mark the damage.
When I ask myself how strong I am,
I say ceramic. I say adhesion.
I say I can trace every wound
with the tip of my finger.

Share

The Weekly

Prather, David B.
David B. Prather is the author of WE WERE BIRDS from Main Street Rag Publishing. His poems, essays, and reviews have appeared in several print and online publications, including Prairie Schooner, Seneca Review, Poet Lore, Cutthroat, Cutleaf, The Literary Review, and many others. He studied acting at the National Shakespeare Conservatory in New York, and he studied writing at Warren Wilson College in North Carolina.

You might also like

Caught by Chris Bullard
November 19, 2024
Second Winter Solstice During an Epidemic by Marianne Worthington
September 26, 2024
Beautiful Generative Machine by David Fowler
September 17, 2024