A coconut never cracked so cleanly

or so quietly as our world

breaking in two. No warning,

no distant rumble intimating a storm;

just a sudden calamity, out of the blue.

Us on opposite sides, poles apart

cut off in mid-sentence,

trying to make some sense

of humdrum, everyday things,

platitudes we hadn't recognized

as disenchantment.

Now we have to make a choice, consider

a momentous unknown leap. We have hindsight

and a second chance to give each other

a second glance (and pray)

for surefootedness finding the way, back

to how and where we first began.

DAVID PARKINSON

"Fault Lines" appears in Clutching at Straws, Ra Press, 2005.