on the wooden table

On the wooden table, long and narrow, I lay out the pieces—puzzle fragments,
the ones I’ll spend a lifetime assembling. How wide? How far? you ask.
As wide as fate allows, I suppose.

While I gather these precious moments, snippets of lives where I’m just a guest,
I realize the picture of my own life has always been about love.

Everything I ever cherished belonged to someone else, not me.
Yet I carry it with care, without loss, because it's crucial to remember the wind from three years ago,
when I last embraced a heart that’s no longer here.

It’s thanks to these pieces I am whole, they are me, and I am all of them.
Even in poetry, I imagine a picture, we’re all writing the same thing, but still, we run, we hurt, we avoid,
we neglect, clutching at fleeting warmth.

And there on the table, those pieces, the ones that shape your life, someone will break them apart,
reassemble, recount, and piece it all together again.
This cycle—now and forever— it never really ends, does it?