My right foot snags a forsythia
root, trip and fall, a bone cracks--
an injury only time will heal,
similar to a broken heart.
I'm unsure if hearts ever heal
completely, scars of battles fought before
trying to present myself as courageous
when inside hides a child missing.
Is it so wrong to be human,
a human filled with faults, a contributor
far too long to the delinquency
of self. And is it wrong to say
I'm sorry, when words can never
recompense pain? Is learning
to live with regret the same
as being human?
For me, this must be my judgment
day, hobbled by a forsythia that broke
a bone and now is making me endure
the odor of my own waste.
-
W. Barrett Munn is a graduate of The Institute of Children’s Literature. His adult poetry has been published in San Antonio Review, Awakenings Review, Copperfield Review Quarterly, Sequoia Speaks, Book of Matches, and many others. He lives in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
