puzzle piece catastrophe

one day when I was six

I found my mother in the bathroom

cleaning up a mess

“Oh mother mine, why do you cry?”

“I’m sorry, sweetie, a mayfly died.”

“Oh mayfly mine, why did you die?”

and never did I think

to recall that specific day until

one day when I was twenty-six

and I found myself in the bathroom

cleaning up a mess

I fled down the stairs

blood-stained rag in hand

past wilted picture frames

screaming out my name

“Oh mother mine, why do you cry?

Oh mother mine, do all things die?”

in the living room

you were finishing the final feat

of a jigsaw masterpiece

and I could see it in your eyes

Oh wife of mine why do you cry?

and in your fractured picture-piece

I saw reflected all my dreams

“Oh husband mine, I did so try

I’m sorry sweetie, our mayfly died”

the six word story

Hemingway once told

rang all too true

in our humble abode

you kicked that pretty picture

of the elusive American dream:

picket fences and big houses

three kids and a couple of trees

setting in motion faults

tearing down the puzzle piece seams

you ran onto the front yard crying

I couldn’t convince myself to move

only watch you fall

by the dead magnolia, our never-bloom

and into you I threw

my fears of empty attics and empty rooms

this window I stare out of

becomes a headstone

and our house

a tomb

“Oh mother mine, why do we die

when there’s so much else we can do?”

“Oh child mine, we can never hide

and we only die quicker the more we try.”