Tattered Heart

He guards his poems closely
for they are pieces of his heart,
broken off and chewed on
with a writer’s loving art.

They are not polished prose,
nor are they careless rhymes.
They are real and true and living
filled with echoes of our lifetimes.

I saw him writing yesterday,
though I know not what about.
I’d wager it must deal
with the girl he goes without.

When she died, he did not cry,
not in public, anyway.
He saved that for each night,
suppressing sorrow as he lay.

But time has passed;
his tears have dried.
He’s left now with her memory
and a thousand wounds to hide.

Now he guards her closely
through the practice of his art
where she lives among the pieces
of his tattered, shattered heart.