JIGSAW PUZZLE

Issue 16

The puzzle is the lone survivor of so many.
For some reason, it was saved,
if being stashed away in an attic trunk
        is rescue.

He's back from the war,
from one pitiful truth to another,
scouring through out-of-vogue moments
       from the past.

There it is, beneath musty letters
and a decaying wedding dress,
a sun-ripened landscape never to be
        put together again.

He can remember being consumed
by the picture on the box,
a Hudson valley scene, a symmetrical
        green and blue,

and a castle on a hill, sublime, romantic,
at an age when he was fearful of those words
as spoken but not when patched together.
        by hand.

And here it is,
lonelier even than his life,
passed down to a non-existent generation,
       waters stagnant,

green hills damp with brown,
castle shuttered, no longer to be solved
but to be pitied, one thousand pieces
       plus one.

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John Grey is an Australian poet, US resident, recently published in New World Writing, River And South and The Alembic. Latest books, “Bittersweet”, “Subject Matters” and “Between Two Fires” are available through Amazon. Work upcoming in Rush, White Wall Review and Flights.

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