ELEGY UPON A BREAKUP

The moment has a terrible clarity

a knife slices though the heart

a helpless hemorrhage

a sudden vertigo

disbelief, this can't be!

A sudden need to turn back the clock,

to start again,

to re-enact the fateful hour

with a happy ending.

But pain invades

in a procession of needles

that puncture the frantic denials

followed by sterile choices:

to run to the safe lap

of a predictable mother,

or offer useless tears

on a silent altar.

Then fear, anger, self-loathing

entangle all thoughts

paralyze all goodness,

until time takes pity

and offers the slow healing

of blessed forgetting,

that in days to come

will make the heart whole,

ready to recklessly

love again.