The Art of Waking Up - Brenda Taulbee

These poems are about poverty, family, loss, the vast significance of the everyday, the wisdom of eating when you are hungry.

But mostly about love.  

Here’s a poem:

I AM A KNOWN  BREAKER  OF BROKEN THINGS:

I am a known breaker of broken things. / I can guarantee the permanent dismantling / of anything even moderately salvageable. / While gluing the handle back on your / favorite mug? / I will undoubtedly manage to chip the rim. / Patching your jeans I’ll blow a seam / rendering them unwearable. // Listen. //  Next time you’re on your hands and knees / digging through dust bunnies for those lost batteries. / You. Will. Regret. The day / I offered to fix the remote control / because I inevitably manage to crack / the plastic snap off the back, / that delicate tab meant to / hold everything together. // I’m not the best at keeping it together. // See, my dad was the guy who’d give you / a reason to cry if you couldn’t supply / a full alibi for every. Single. Tear. /Complaining about scraped knees or bee / stings earned a two-fold return in the currency / of pain, teaching a younger me / the most efficient means / to overcome one agony / is replacing it with another. / I don’t mean to be blunt / but the force of trauma was the only lesson / I ever learned from love. / I will be a kick in the ribs / when what you needed was someone / to kiss it better. // Darling, I can see the seams / where your delicate dreams are knitting themselves / back together. // So please. // Don’t offer me those parallel lines, / scar tissue rungs strung / across your upper thighs, / the ladder you climb to escape / each personal hell. // Don’t tell me the history of your body. / Describe the trajectory and delicacy / of stick-thin child limbs, / plaster walls elastically / absorbing the full weight of you / after mom had one-too-many gin nightmares. // You are porcelain / and these hands were tempered in concrete. / Your wings might be a bit bent (testament / to the turbulence they underwent) but / they are healing. // Don’t tempt me to fix you. / I am a known breaker of broken things.