Some objects are beyond repair: a shattered glass
an obsolete computer, an old wife who must
be swapped for one who’s younger, cuter
a home exploded by a storm, a busted reputation
a banged-up auto only good for scrap
a kidney-damaged senior cat.
Think then of things not completely lost
though by gravity and clumsiness attacked. Consider
kintsugi, the Japanese art of piecing back
broken bowls with golden glue: the shining mends
the imperfections honored, the damaged,
the storied, treasured just as much as new
or even more. Witness the prodigal redeemed
after his many falls. The tales you don’t want
to hear though he’s rebuilt, clean and sober now
and stronger at the seams for all you know.
“Fixing Broken Things” is published in the poetry collection The Minor Virtues (Ragged Sky Press) by Lynn Levin. The book is available at the Doylestown Bookshop, on Amazon, and can be ordered wherever books are sold.
Lynn Levin is the author of nine books most recently the short story collection House Parties (Spuyten Duyvil, 2023) and the poetry collection The Minor Virtues (Ragged Sky, 2020). She is the 1999 Bucks County Poet Laureate. Her website is lynnlevinpoet.com.
Poet’s Corner is curated by Bucks County Poet Laureate Tom Mallouk and supported by a grant to the Bucks County Herald Foundation made possible by Marv and Dee Ann Woodall.
