What’s Fixed

By Bruce W. Niedt

(after Dorianne Laux)
 
My car’s transmission, its thin red serum
no longer seeping. Your pearl earring,
 
with a tiny drop of epoxy.  My wrist, shattered
to an S-shaped monster of blood and bone,
 
bolted together to knit almost whole.
The garden hoe handle,
 
through the miracle of duct tape.
A friendship, torn apart by the lack
 
of a thank-you card, limping its way
back into the sun.  A city, shaken down
 
and washed away by a vengeful earth,
re-collecting its pieces.  And we,
 
under a reconciled moon, round again
if only for tonight, holding each other
 
together, our glue even stronger
than the thousand shards it mended.