It’s not the lost lover that brings us to ruin, or the barroom brawl,
or the con game gone bad, or the beating Taken in the alleyway.
But the lost car keys, The broken shoelace, The overcharge at the gas pump
Which we broach without comment —
these are the things that eat away at life, these constant vibrations
In the web of the unremarkable.
The death of a father — the death of the mother —
The sudden loss shocks the living flesh alive!
But the broken pair of glasses,
The tear in the trousers,
These begin an ache behind the eyes.
And it’s this ache to which we will ourselves Oblivious.
We are oblivious.
Then, one morning—there’s a crack in the water glass —
we wake to find ourselves undone.
- Jay Hopler
I have changed the arrangement of the words to make this poem more readable. In case you are wondering, this poem is about how little things (rather than the big things) wears a person down as he ages.
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