Broken Things

I collect broken things,
he said, broken and
tattered, torn and
shredded, all busted and
burst things, since they
are so cheap, you know.
I snapped up that figurine of
porcelain, carelessly
knocked with a dust cloth; that
dead car battery was a bargain.
I loved that detoured highway
and the soup-stained silk tie, and
the book with the torn cover, and that
ancient oak split by lightning from the
same storm that flooded the
basement. It’s not just things, of
course, or maybe it is:

Prosperity gospel with a
Mercedes for every parable, and
JumboTron worship to make it
all about us; the sledgehammered
Pieta that was always more about
an idea than a statue.
Fruit, forbidden;
denial, times three;
faith, forgotten or abandoned;
war, waged; a small lie, told large;
a gate, unhinged;
a watch, stopped;
towers, twice collapsed;
a child, abused;
a life, destroyed;
a teacup, shattered.

Broken things often
birth beauty, but only by
human accident or
divine design.

Photograph: Old Dodge by Nancy Rosback. Used with permission.