Things not meant to be heard alone

Tinkerpaw

It was a woman, it’s always a woman, that built
ruin in the heart, the wreck you set to sink on
a hill overlooking the city and the wept out sea.

Georgia, was it, or Irene, maybe a Lucy that did
him in; one kiss that led to the absence of a thousand
more that come haunting at sundown, bleeding sun.

None of us is impervious to the soft charms of
comfort, the silent sitting side by side when the sea
is whispering things not meant to be heard alone.

His did him in but good and he never let her stop, not
for a moment, stone by stone, the endless patching of
a man’s heart is something that is simply never done.



One atop another, the wrought iron of loneliness prods
the finding, the cobbling, the fitting, the quest for more,
each scar another ornament to be affixed and gazed into.

Sink of thorns, chipped abalone shell, beer can, pop bottle,
Mason jars gone botulin, rat-gnawed oat boxes, rusted water-
heaters, mortared archways, cracked statuary, dry wishing wells.

In this way, the woman never leaves, but stays on to
skip the ironing, forgets to cook, slips the shackles of
chores, the duties asked of wives less able than she.

Joseph Gallo
May 5, 2013