Kintsugi
by JOHN MURO
If only a life could be repaired
with such delicate precision,
reassembling and mending what’s
been split into pieces with a drizzle
of lacquer and a dusting of powdered
gold, while allowing the breaks and
blemishes of our undoing to remain
visible. But the simpler truth is that
a life of enduring grief cannot be so
easily fixed even by a quiet mind
and such pleasing means of repair
where intricate fragments are faithfully
rejoined, leaving our fault-lines
exposed and making no attempt to
disguise the deeper damage. And so
we go on, a sad and disfigured thing,
searching for what once was and
incapable of unseeing the past while
knowing all the while most things
in this life can never be truly fixed
and it is only a matter of time before
we fall, fracture and find ourselves
broken again.
John Muro, a resident of Connecticut, has authored two volumes of poems -- In the Lilac Hour and Pastoral Suite -- in 2020 and 2022, respectively. A third volume, A Bountiful Silence, will be published later this year. Since the publication of his first book, John has been thrice nominated for the Pushcart Prize, twice nominated for the Best of the Net and he has received multiple awards of merit, including a 2023 Grantchester Award. His work has appeared in Acumen, Barnstorm, Cool Beans Lit, Deal Jam, Moria, Sky Island, the Valparaiso Review and elsewhere.