How Something Breaks

The glass in the framed snapshot
of my parents hanging on the wall
 
I took years ago at an anniversary
party—they are red-faced
 
and smiling—maybe the glass leaped,
needed more—
 
or slipped off as plumbers hammered
hard to fit a pipe through the floor.
 
Metal and glass may break the same way—
a ductile fracture—as a crack propagates,
 
damage starts small, grows, and coalesces,
advancing the crack tip—
 
the root of the fracture—
one emptiness
 
or two, longing.