The glass thermometer shattered,
mercury sliding across the tile,
my mother knelt in the spilt silver
discarding shards of glass, chasing
the freed beads onto a plate.
Once she’d caught them all, she called me
to see how the mercury rolled
and roiled, the big beads swallowing
the small, then shivering apart
at the shake of the plate. I watched
them gather and quake, I’d swear I played
all afternoon, poking the beads
shiny as joy, in love with the gleam
and with my mother. And she in turn