In retrospect, it is no clean thing

Colloquially, a broken heart

seems like such a clean thing--

a monolith split down the middle,

two neat halves. It's a tragedy

but what else can you expect?

That which is petrified, calcified,

hardened, will split 

under a focused blow. 

Thus it has always been.

But wait--what if your heart

isn't hard? And it isn't--

you hope, you despair, you laugh,

you weep, you love.

You are maybe not soft,

nor pliant. Perhaps you're too old,

too leathered by life for that,

but hard? No. 

Nor do you possess some objet d'art--

a heart of beautiful glass too precious

even to be displayed. Fragile

and locked away. No, not that.

Your heart is courageous. It's more like

a flag or the picture of someone beloved

carried through war--tattered, 

dirt-streaked, torn, mended,

and carried on.

So how does it break?

When fear, then despair,

like an artic blast hits,

your suddenly brittle heart,

frozen and iced over in panic

breaks when the blow comes

but not cleanly. It splinters,

shatters, explodes, leaving you

no choice but to begin a painstaking

picking up, piecing together process,

holding very still and praying

no shockwaves come.

In retrospect, it is no clean thing

when a heart breaks.