home

super glue

featured in voice and verse poetry magazine issue 85

the pharmacy just stocked up

and a new treatment appeared,

“super glue, now for hearts

guaranteed good feelings and dried up tears”

.

one can only imagine the rush

to wrap their fingers around this product

because all the cash is worth it

if it meant closing up their tear ducts

.

i see a man, double my age

stricken by a bitter divorce

he would empty out his paycheck

if it meant healing his heart by force

.

i see a young woman, naive at heart

but who’s seen enough to shatter the spirit of men

could this glue fix her broken body

and spirit worn down and trapped from within?

.

what about the high school student

with infinite dreams, but little choice

maybe the glue can assembly his future

and he can treat expectations as noise

.

the line stretches out the store

and people line up around the block

all with hearts broken and needing repair

and their patience racing against the clock

.

i see the man grab his bottle

and he smears his heart with the concoction

the girl drinks it like bottled water

and the student applies it like lotion

.

they sit on benches, waiting for results

quiet hours passed, and nothing happened

even after waiting, their hearts still ached

and soon piles of glue filled up the trash can

.

it’s been three years, and how things changed

the divorced man found someone new it seems

the girl confronting the hurt she felt in the past

and the student’s rebellion to follow his dreams

.

maybe the glue took three years to activate

and the whole time it was just curing

enough time has passed for the customers to forget

about the pain they thought was ever-enduring

.

was it time, or was it the glue

that healed their broken hearts?

perhaps it was just their unbroken will

that did the difficult part

.

whatever the fact is, no matter the truth

or however the healing happened that each asserts

with just the right angles, it becomes clear

the super glue for hearts definitely works