Poetry Friday

My first Poetry Friday post. I had wanted to do an Anne Sexton poem, the heartbreaking "Double Image" but it was too long and too sad. ( You can read it anyway ) I chose "Break" since I put together a 1000 piece puzzle recently, but also because of the narrative flow. The effect of it when read aloud is so graceful and moving yet it has a bittersweet ending.

Break
Dorianne Laux

We put the puzzle together piece
by piece, loving how one curved
notch fits so sweetly with another.
A yellow smudge becomes
the brush of a broom, and two blue arms
fill in the last of the sky.
We patch together porch swings and autumn
trees, matching gold to gold. We hold
the eyes of deer in our palms, a pair
of brown shoes. We do this as the child
circles her room, impatient
with her blossoming, tired
of the neat house, the made bed,
the good food. We let her brood
as we shuffle through the pieces,
setting each one into place with a satisfied
tap, our backs turned for a few hours
to a world that is crumbling, a sky
that is falling, the pieces
we are required to return to.