Pinpoint

Once there was a man 

With a needle and thread, 

Who stitched together the pieces of my life, 

Repairing the old with the new.

Here, Love initiated his pursuit, 

Awestruck and smitten in this suede shoe.

For years, we laughed until we cried 

Rivers that formed crevices in our cheeks. 

When life’s heels were too much to bear,

We tiptoed on the twirls and twists in the arms of one another, 

Balancing our shared tongue on the penultimate of deep utterances,

A vibrant flame we never once desired to smother. 

Love matured at forty-five. 

We broke bread with twenty mouths of our own, 

Almost too mind-numbing for two in love. 

We were strong‒ teetering 

On the sole of this home, this love‒ 

Slowly withering away to the tune of admiration quivering. 

Decades revealed its stains on our home. 

These distressed leather walls enclose and shrink

The thinning sand we spin on. 

Those needles of craft love to prick and poke

Through the lining, Love is dead‒

And we lie suffocating from the smoke. 

With an ashen picture of a past lover in the hands of another, 

Remembrance folds on a pinpoint 

Like a bead of sweat that captures more

With each tumble terribly out of control. 

Still, I stand on this single spike,

With stinging softness for the man who built my life whole.