The Back Room

There is dust everywhere,
and splinters and if you look closely,
blood.

Everything here is broken, and
in transition, being broken
further

or being reborn, sanded, smoothed,
slowly pieced together to make something
new.

No one sees the work. Either they see the ruins
brought into this room, and give up
on what was,

or they see the finished work, glossy
with shellack and catching the light,
so perfect
it seems impossible.

But no one sees the work done here.
The trial and error. The failures
one after another,
the halfway mistakes
and the injuries,
and most of all
the persistence
that make magic
real.

About this poem

Every life has a journey. And most of them are messy, no matter how it appears. (Experience speaking.)

Tom