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THE POET’S CORNER

Fixing Broken Things

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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.


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