people in stained glass houses 

my uncle replaces all the windows in our house with stained glass
while we're asleep. 
he starts with the small rectangular ones 
on the way up the stairs.
he doesn't use glue or adhesive--
he just tells the pieces of colorful glass
that they must stay in place. 
he barters with them
he says if you stay here 
& let the light pass through you
i will come here every night with new colors 
for you to wear.
he doesn't know where this idea
comes from or how he knows that the windows
are ravenous for new colors.
the windows agree though & let him
fill them each with shards
green & brown broken bottles
from the drive way where the beers
through themselves after he finishes them off. 
i hear the crashing from my window each night 
& i count them. sometimes twenty 
sometimes ten. sometimes just one or two.
sometimes when they break they turn
into moths right away-- moths with glass wings
tinkling as they flutter & break more
when they smack against the porch light.
my uncle used to work in a stained glass shop,
but that was a long time ago.
i never saw the shop, so i would imagine him
in a building where all the walls 
were different glass colors
making a collage of bright oranges & red 
& yellows across his face. 
he steals from church windows
each night to appease the ones in our home.
he brings them all shades of red 
& blue & purple. the churches 
all over town have missing teeth 
but only a few people notice & 
the ones who do are scared of what missing
shards of glass could mean,
so they tell no one. 
one person reads it as a prophecy 
& prays for god to choose someone else.
my uncle doesn't tell the family about 
the windows & none of us say anything either.
in the morning i make my rounds
through the house to peer out each one
& check for the new pieces of color 
stolen the night before. 
i talk to the windows & ask them 
what they see when they look through me.
i tell them i see the backyard full of fragments--
the tree wearing a red slip.
my uncle isn't satisfied & starts
to replace walls with stained glass.
the saw rattles the house at night 
& we find the living room a box of color.
none of us have the heart to tell him to stop.
the bottles break themselves
loud the next night
ten twenty thirty. he constructs
a room of brown glass
a glossy scab-- a bottle for a door knob.
he closes the door in our house made
of beautiful beautiful glass & we're scared
to move-- everything is so fragile
clinging to itself 
only for the promise of more colors.