Non Finito I

"Never before had works of art so clearly revealed the process that made them."
Jeremy Angier

I.

When you die, you leave
dishes on the counter
you swore you'd wash

tomorrow. Or is it 'you
had sworn'? Tasks like that
become past tense right

in the middle of things.
For something so definite,
everything is half finished.

I imagine Donatello knew
this, left his works non
finito––a woman's face,

pensive, praying, perhaps
for hands instead of
the unhewn stumps

he left her; a wrestler,
struggling ankle- and wrist-
deep in the stone slab

of his uncarved opponent––
the suggestive power
of the incomplete.

The crumpled ghosts
of your dirty laundry.
Last song on the stereo, un-

rewound cassette tape
playing six seconds
of static. Not just the dishes.

The dustless circles
on the counter once
we washed them.