Research: Journals
The Journal
Past Issues
25.1
Carol Potter
Who Breaks. PaysThe seditious heart. Tells you to lie down in the road and weep
a bit.
Wants to see all you’ve lost glistening on your cheeks.
It’s the heart’s pastime. Tries to convince you
it’s just a trick of the brain that keeps you from caving.
A few well placed birds, some sky and pretty water shining.
Wants you to believe your real work today is grief.
Doesn’t care where you do it. Private. Or public.
It smells sweet like new dirt and blossoms after a rain.
Swells up like some sort of bulb ready to sprout.
Gets odiferous and you wonder what that smell is.
Flowering trees. New birds. Snakes come out of hibernation.
You can’t place that perfume. It’s your heart making that
smell.
You wouldn’t mind putting it down somewhere.
Maybe you could plant it. Remind it. Who Breaks.
Pays.
That the break isn’t where it stops.
Remind it. Up and down the street, town by town
there’s people going on about their business not breaking.
They get up in the morning. They smell the pretty air.
They go out into the day and see the fat blossoms basking on green
stems.
They get in their cars, they go. It’s that bright yellow bouquet
in your hand,
so sweet you can hardly breathe.
(warning sign in a Venetian glass shop)
