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The subtitle—"shaken, not stirred"—announces the poem's characteristic blend of pain and wit: this is a Bond reference deployed by a man who can't get out of a chair without hurting. The opening catalogs the beloved's flexibility with escalating wonder: "can sit, / can flex a knee, / can bend with ease, / can, literally, fold in half— / like an origami / piece of paper." The progression from ordinary (sitting) to extraordinary (folding in half) is carefully paced, and the origami simile is precise—paper folds cleanly, without resistance, without sound. Then the counter-catalog: "I cannot. / I can hardly sit in a chair / without pain." The bluntness after the graceful buildup is itself a physical jolt—the poem's rhythm cracks the way the speaker's joints do. "Surprise me— / with moves / that coax / joints, / stretch ligaments / without tearing" is simultaneously a request to the Muse and a description of what his body can't do: every stretch risks tearing. The poem's central image—"Your knee folds like warm wax; / mine cracks like cold porcelain"—is one of the best comparative couplets in the catalog. Warm wax is pliable, silent, organic; cold porcelain is brittle, audible, manufactured. The contrast is thermal, textural, and acoustic in a single line pair. "You, / are my envy" is devastatingly honest: this isn't just admiration; it's envy, the specific pain of watching someone do effortlessly what you can no longer do at all. The admission "I could not / even sit / in your lap" takes the physical limitation to its most intimate consequence—the simplest gesture of closeness is beyond him. The closing is the poem's most beautiful passage: "your unhurried elegance, / the small heat of your palm— / fold me, / gently, / into your hush." The verb "fold" circles back to the origami opening, but now it's the speaker asking to be folded—not his body (which can't fold) but his being, his noise, his pain, folded into the Muse's silence. The "hush" at the end is both the sound of quiet and the sound of comfort: hush, be still, I've got you.
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A poem that finds its power in the precise articulation of physical limitation and the transformation of that limitation into tenderness. The title is a small masterpiece of compression: “Fluidly Fractured” contains both the Muse’s fluidity and the speaker’s fractures in two words, while “shaken, not stirred” converts a cocktail catchphrase into a description of a body that trembles rather than moves smoothly. The origami conceit is perfectly deployed—paper folding is an art of precision, silence, and beauty, which is exactly what the Muse’s body represents to the speaker. The counter-catalog of the speaker’s limitations is unflinching: “I can hardly sit in a chair / without pain” is autobiography delivered without self-pity, which makes it more affecting than any dramatic complaint. The warm-wax/cold-porcelain couplet is the poem’s signature image, achieving in two lines what lesser poems about aging take stanzas to establish: the difference between a body that yields and one that shatters. “I am an aging being, / unfolding before your eyes” contains a buried paradox—”unfolding” suggests both opening up (revealing himself) and coming apart (losing structural integrity), and the poem means both. The envy confession is bracingly honest in a catalog that tends toward admiration and devotion; envy is a harder, less flattering emotion, and Plahm earns it by showing us exactly what triggers it. The closing request—”fold me, / gently, / into your hush”—is the poem’s emotional and formal climax: the origami metaphor returns, but now the speaker is the paper, asking to be shaped by the Muse’s hands into something quiet and held. The word “hush” closes the poem on a sound that is both presence and absence—the Muse’s silence as a place the speaker can rest inside. A poem that proves vulnerability is its own form of grace.
Fluidly Fractured
—shaken, not stirred
You—
can sit,
can flex a knee,
can bend with ease,
can, literally, fold in half—
like an origami
piece of paper.
I cannot.
I can hardly sit in a chair
without pain.
Surprise me—
with moves
that coax
joints,
stretch ligaments
without tearing.
Your effortless grace—
the chair I can’t quite leave.
Your singular beauty—
breath held.
I am an aging being,
unfolding before your eyes.
You are
my inspiration—
my ballet of beauty,
my weightless arc.
My hope is—
you, close.
Always.
Your knee folds like warm wax;
mine cracks like cold porcelain.
You,
are my envy.
Then—
while I struggle,
I could not
even sit
in your lap.
My Angel,
My Muse—
your unhurried elegance,
the small heat of your palm—
fold me,
gently,
into your hush.
The personal version: one of individual love. Lyric
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