“The Pleasures of Ruin” by Maya Jewell Zeller

is one of the easiest kinds

of pleasure. Take this stack

 

of colored blocks built

 

by one child, rectangular green

on a red square with a yellow

 

triangle on top: crash,

 

the younger child comes

like a storm into a picnic,

 

like a story. Now someone

 

wants something to put

in the mouth: a small fruit,

 

perhaps, like a plum or just

 

the branches of a plum,

gathered into some girl’s

 

arms. Now something

 

cannot be had. Oh, dear, and

some whole trees, and some more

 

trees, and water, oh, a baby,

 

or a lost job. A hangnail, a day

moon. A bowl of oranges,

 

molding. And the most acute

 

pleasure of some girl losing

her flowers in the stream,

 

she throws in those white stars

 

one by one, even the stems,

even the leafage,

 

the unopened ones, too,

 

she can hardly wait to forget them,

to begin the whole thing over.