Passover

　　by Mary Rose O'Reilley

　　 "Art is what remains when the pot is broken."-Chinese proverb

　　 I know we are bound to the earth，and the cracked heart， old terra cotta，surrenders to vine.

　　 Listen-I've seen wind stir the hair of the dead at Belsen，growing like art from the lacing grass；

　　 what is terrible， even， rises. The ruined pot dreams of ignition，each molecule coddles its flame.

　　 Enough alphabet for a torah sits on the tongue. And all shards from the winds' end gather again.

　　 I know we are bound to the earth by desire's green thread or the milk snake's slippery pass.

　　 Hepatica splits now from its leaf-wing. Out of the vessel's wreck，inwardness forms on the air and that ghost tenderly enters the soul of some mortal thing.