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Meditation on Ruin
by Jay Hopler

It's not the lost lover that
brings us to ruin,
or the barroom brawl,
or the con game gone bad,
or the beating taken in
the alleyway. But
the lost car keys,
the broken shoelace,
the overcharge at the gas pump
which we broach without
comment—these are the things
that eat away at life,
these constant vibrations
In the web of the unremarkable.

The death of a father—
the death of the mother—
the sudden loss shocks
the living flesh alive!
But the broken pair of glasses,
the tear in the trousers,
these begin an ache behind the eyes.
And it's this ache to which
we will ourselves oblivious. We are
oblivious. Then, one morning—
there's a crack in the water glass—
we wake to find ourselves
undone.

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