a broken chair sits in the corner:
outcast, the child who does not play with the others
but watches sitting down.
why does your heart go out
to a piece of furniture, so much wood and glue?
does it have the same regrets you do?
can you read some pent-up frustration
in the paint slowly peeling from its rickety staves?
when you look across the whirling room,
your eyes seek it out and glimmer
with some secret, unshed sympathy.
for me, it is only the shared sense
of unreliability, of being unable to bear weight
any longer: a dusty sigh
and the peace of resignation.