Poem: "The Break" in "Stick Figure Poetry"

Since the composition of "The Break" (republished in Stick Figure Poetry, Issue #23) dates back nearly 30 years, I decided to pair it up with an image from history's archives -- specifically, from Das erneurte Stamm- und Stechbüchlein, Georg Philipp Harsdörffer's emblem book circa 1654. The rhymed German couplet originally accompanying this print has a very different tenor from my own poem: "My heart seeks the glory that skill and books bring. / With diligence, I want to vault up to the clouds." Yet the overall esthetic speaks to me while also reminding me how much I'd like to do an expanded version of my chapbook Religion, Anatomy, Catastrophe (where "The Break" originally appeared) as an illustrated manuscript. For now, here's the poem. The Break

The bone snapped

clean

like a salted cracker

or finger and thumb

rubbed together like

crickets’

legs.

A crack

that pierced the air

when what was once one

now is two.

The severing

into a pair

that which should

have stayed whole,

of a piece,

a thing in and of

itself

entirely 

transpired.

Credits: The image comes courtesy of Flashbak; the poem c/o Stick Figure Poetry.