"Fragile"

Women spend their time whittling away his heart, soft as soap, each tender word slicing curls of lye and fragrance so easily melted with careless, warm tears. It is their American sensibility, inbred ideals of wasting, of unending abundances, of grasses greener in another pasture while the seeds of his heart prepare to germinate with only the thought of a gentle touch, so willingly cultivated by glances ripe with desires promised. But these women do not understand the chemical composition of something as fragile as soap, as love, something so simple and pure with its powers to cleanse all that is tainted, to hold them upward into rebirth, into the sun that rises above the morning fog hanging heavy over their lids. Aleathia Drehmer 2007 Published by Munyori Poetry Journal 10/07