Spilled Spaghetti

Photo by Markus Winkler on Unsplash

It wasn’t a grand disaster,
not a dropped wedding cake
or a shattered heirloom,
just a fistful of dry spaghetti
slipping from my fingers,
rattling to the floor
like a handful of loose bones.

For a moment, I considered
leaving them there—
a modern art installation
on my kitchen tile,
or a tribute to gravity itself.

But then, the dog wandered in,
tilted his head at the mess,
as if to say, Really? Again?
and I knelt, gathering the fallen,
wondering if somewhere in Italy
a grandmother had just felt a shiver
run through her apron strings.