Wabi-Sabi

by Catherine Esposito Prescott

Wabi-Sabi  by Catherine Esposito Prescott  
  
I want the makeshift bridge, rickety
splintered wood planks, the missing
ones like knocked-out teeth, banister
ropes with slack smiles, the sway
 
and push back of each step. I want
the rock-worn, unpaved road,
the unmarked trail, gnarled trees
and tangled grass. I want the uncrested
 
wave, its blue unfrothed top,
and the broken shell under blankets
of sand, the crab circling the seafloor
on one leg waiting for the other
 
to grow back. I want the manic spiral
of my hair on a humid day, the frizz
that coils like antennae to whatever
frequency it finds. The chipped tooth,
 
the detached nail, the split ends, 
calloused feet and unpainted toes. I want
to walk the rough edges of day, to wake
hours before sunrise in the unfinished
 
dream as it echoes and fades, to sit
in the conversation without closure,
in the half-written song, in the half-heard
heart, on the edge of a broken lip, in the thick
 
stutter of the incomplete word, in the dip-
thong before it rises, in the note reaching 
for pitch, in the mind’s miasma shooting
thought-stars to the cracked synapse, and listen.