ballpoints and vinyl

[aquamarcia]

Title: Puzzling Piece

A poem is
a puzzling piece.
A puzzle piece, jigsaw,
with an enigma on its face.

An author takes
a piece of her soul,
makes a copy held in memory.
Contours, weight, thickness
and image are made clear.
The copy in memory
is digital, faithful and
unchanging.

She takes up her pen,
analog, a stylus in
an album's groove,
and writes
the puzzle piece's characteristics.
The copy on the page
is right in every way
but one. Stylus, revolutions,
vacuum tubes, where ink meets paper.
Contours, weight, thickness
are held true.
The image,
more fragile, shifts
across a range of frequencies.
Ears and eyes made
wealthy fools.

Was the image of three painted toes?
leaves turned, fallen, resting
on a tree root?
a buttress supporting
a cathedral's wall?
The author won't see
any of those things. She still has
her own image to recall.
She drops the puzzle piece.

An audience forms. Let us
look at one among their number.
He picks the puzzle piece up
from where it lay.
Contours, weight, thickness,
will they be true,
the piece finding
a fitting place?
And what of the image?
Stylus and groove,
not so solid state,
will it fix
and match his soul's patchwork?

As is always the case,
that remains to be seen.