Some Assembly Required

I hear you are a master puzzler,

able to put jigsaw pieces into place in record time.

I wonder, as I hand you the scraps of my heart,

whether you need thimble and needle instead.

Or if you can lock the pieces 
that have been blown asunder by life,

one by one, into their respective places—

or better yet, if you are an alchemist

who can mix new concoctions from old pain 
and turn it into wisdom

I trust you for no apparent reason except you stayed

for the end of a long story one night.

We sat in a cracked-leather booth in an old diner, dimly lit,

and reeking of bacon, which neither one of us eats.

You nodded in all the appropriate ways and places

while you rested your index finger on my palm.

I thought you were trying to read my lifeline.

Instead, you were throwing me one.

And my heart, unsteady as it was in that moment,

knew it was not a good time to skip a beat.

Music needs consistency. You proved to be a metronome.

And it sounds dramatic, I know, but you saved my life

between French fries and laughter

I sat cross-legged wrapped in a coat, with a scarf covering my head,

shielding myself from the cold and the general onslaught of truth.

I leaned into your every word

as your eyes did most of the talking.

Our knees, barely touching, spoke in tongues

making us believe we could decode languages from other worlds.

You measured your words like ingredients for a pound cake—carefully.

Then you dumped them slowly while you stirred with intensity

matched only by the roaring flames hungry

for the wood crackling underneath it.

And I know it sounds trite, but in that moment,

I could have believed anything.

Over spanakopita, coffee more sugar and cream than ground caffeine,

and music switching between Michael Jackson’s Man in the Mirror

and some 1950s tune without the words, I offer you my heart.

I say, be careful. Others have left dents and dings

where there should have been kisses. Lift the pieces gingerly,

or sew with abandon as you intone your incantations.

And it sounds like no small thing, I know, to be given a heart—

with some assembly required.

© Valerie Bridgeman

April 7, 2012