It is not shattering I fear,
                    but the hairline crack,

not the sudden, unmistakable sundering

                    of once neighborly molecules –

shards, chunks, loosed dust, an intact handle,
                    swept up and summarily disposed of –

of what was once mere clay, before the potter
                    took it into his head

to turn mud into mug, like water into wine,
                    an earthen chalise fit to

fuel the firing of synapses, a bearer
                    of that most industrious of molecules.

I once had a mug with the chemical formula

                    for caffeine printed on the outside.

I don't recall, now, what happened to that one –
                    purged, I suppose, in one of many

attempts to manage the accumulation
                    of household surpluses, the blight

of late capitalism – itself fueled, in no small part,
                    by that most industrious of molecules.

No, the irony does not escape me . . .
                    but I fear one day it might,

leaking out through a hairline crack –
                    or perhaps many –

harbinger of a slow sundering of the neighborly
                    synapses of my brain, and this

despite that most industrious of molecules. 

                    Or because of it.