Love heart

 

You’re young

and you meet someone

the right one, and beguiled

your nubile fleshy naïve heart

gets pulled and twisted, bruised and battered

but you survive, thrive and love grows

 

later perhaps children come

love becomes serious

life, work, house, home

and your muscular parental heart

tenses to carry the weight, holds firm

and your love widens, ripens, polishes.

 

Eventually the children will leave home

to live recklessly, fearless

to learn, travel, work, perhaps marriage

and your mature, experienced heart

develops a rind, a skin, catching their fallout,

love is strong, easy, trusting, solid, close.

 

Oh! But then a grandchild is delivered

a tiny scrap of skin and bone

that grows, investigates, absorbs

and with the tiniest fingers

gently scratches away at your heart

leaving it fleshy, nubile, and unprotected once again.

 

© Graham Sherwood 12/2018