Tender Fallacies

 

We are not a thing

to whom things happen;

we are a happening.

 

When someone says something

that you find callous or galling,

say to yourself: they don’t know.

 

They don’t know whom of us

lives in private extremis.

 

They don’t know

 

That some of us are like oysters

whose illnesses have produced pearls.

 

They don’t know

 

That while contemplating the face

of a withering pumpkin

we see our future

swimming in a jar.

 

They don’t know

How sometimes for no reason

our bodies bleed tears

that lead always back to

the ocean.

 

Or how in the scent of

ocean water is the diary

of all our feelings

preserved in salt.

 

They don’t know

 

Who amongst us

wrote our love songs

on pianos in a psyche ward.

 

Or how our hometowns

have become no more

than retired fables.

 

Or how we had climbed into

the arms of trees to escape

the neighborhood bully

we had dared to love.

 

 

Or how the local priest could be

aroused by the ragged beauty

of our youthful sorrow.

 

Or how some of us

will one day trace a beam

of a light back to land

in order to attend

to the lost.

 

8/23/23