Into his heart she wished to peer
To glimpse a shade of his crippling fear.

These feelings she claimed as just a murmur to sense
Of deep loss, unknown sadness, and loneliness.

From where he came baggage weighed him down
To where she found him toiling around.

Listing and rolling on an open sea
A broken man he was, so sure was she.

A place to pile pity, sadness, and sorrow high
To fill a hole in her own mind's eye.

A project, a task, a falcon with clipped wing;
Perfect - for a broken man can only be a summer fling.

A date written in sand to bring the curtain down
Leaves nothing to invest; nothing to lose in a waning town.

Help she will not, 'tis not her place
For when summer sets - off to another race.

What does one do when magnificent marble cracks to its core?
Take on the mantle of repair as their chivalrous chore?

For when one finds a thing more broken than they
Pious self-righteousness illuminates their way.

Always the better a thing that is broken
For it leaves that which lies beneath always unknown.

Talents and treasures in a life yet to live
Are the things that a broken man has yet to give.

For broken is mended through time and reflection
And then is when she might make a connection.

Yet a connect is impossible when hubris abounds
For painted already is a picture that confounds.

Perception turns to reality as mud turns to stone;
A broken man always is as she chooses to be shone.

Just as a broken plate, glass, or jar are easily discarded
A broken man is one who is also easily departed.

As fracture turns to crack and crack turns to decay
That which is broken knows only one of two ways.

To stay broken forever discarded as dust
Or to mend, heal, and repair the broken man must.

As the swift needle of time sews shut his ripped heart
The broken man realizes in this play he still has a part.

Realization that his role does not intertwine with her
Sets the broken man looking for what can only be a cure.

With grout, cement, and epoxy he sets to piece himself together
The broken man works diligently to fill in each fissure.

And as his new form takes shape he can confidently say
A broken man is not forever - only a detour off life's highway.

Lost in that summer was opportunity for more.
Voices and laughter fading with no encore.

A sadness swells in the throat behind the tongue
A song left to sing, but no song is sung.

The broken man mended whole once again,
He'll always look fondly where whence he has been.