It’s broken, she said, flicking the latch on the door. I need to have that cabinet fixed,
he thinks. The teacup falls from the counter and shatters. The levy crumbles. A baseball comes
hurtling through the window, scattering glass onto the wooden floor. The link no longer works.
The lock sticks, and the key won’t move. The rusted cars are stacked on top of one another. And
here you are, trying to reconnect with yourself in a broken world. A bridge collapses. A plane
cannot leave the gate. A car won’t turn over. A shelf of canned goods comes crashing down.
What have you learned in this disconnection from yourself? Put it back together again, glue it,
hammer it back together, use a rubber mallet so as not to split the soft edges. Throw it out, then
salvage it, dig it out of the trash. Replace the wiring, get a new bulb. This isn’t about your heart,
it’s about your connection to yourself. Your self. And what does this life look like after it’s been
pieced back together? Stitched, epoxied, caulked, cemented into a solid piece after being
smashed to bits? It’s jagged here and there—rough—but it’s beginning to take shape again. This
is the dream of a home now, seen through older eyes. A smaller place you’ll need to re-paint and
re-wire. You’ll learn to replace plumbing. And the dream of a future lover, now with grey hair and
a softer body. And here is the dog, a carefully chosen breed and temperament, and a
backyard for him to run in. All later. Now a framed photo falls flat on its face, an email address
is cancelled, a telephone is disconnected. A leash snaps. But you, you are not broken. You will
rise again in a surprising new form.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Christopher P. DeLorenzo—writer, teacher, and baker—is on faculty at USF, facilitates Laguna Writers workshops (with retreats in Mexico & Hawaii), and operates DeLorenzo Desserts. His writing has appeared in Karamu, The Rockhurst Review, and Bluestem. He lives in San Francisco with a large collection of cake stands.