Clear Days that Break Your Heart

I don’t know why, but that phrase
Still gets through to me—it broke
My heart. The heart does not break,

Of course—it fails. It may burst.
It may rip. It does not break,
And a real crack is not meant

When that phrase is used. We mean
We felt the kind of stabbed sad
That hurts, that wounds. We were harmed

In a way that had to do
With who we are, who we were,
What we thought or took on faith

To be true. Gone. Smashed. It broke
My heart. I will not be healed,
Can’t be healed—it was my heart.

And then, too, the phrase is used
For what is too right to bear.
How? How is it a fine day,

Or a faint scent, or a face,
Can sieze a heart so it breaks?
Fierce joys must get kept as loss.