Where the Magic Begins

You have been destroyed
too many times to count.
Rendered unrecognizable
by lies and your own failures,
by the slow ravages of blindness,
largely unrecognizable
by any who stopped to look at the wreckage.

Fortunately, most do not.

They see what was, what they expect to see,
what was there before the bombs fell,
amazed less at the destruction that dismays you
than at your survival,
and love you craters, blood and all,
which of course
is where the magic begins.

About this poem. 

Generally, when I say “you” in a poem, I mean me. But you knew that.

The ravaged fainting couch is in the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

Really.

Tom