Libra

The one who pulled the trigger with his toe,
spread-eagled on his girlfriend’s parents’ bed,
and split his face in halves above his nose,
so that one eye looked east, the other west;

sometimes that sad boy’s bifurcation seems
to replicate the math of love and grief — 
that zero sum of holding on and letting go
by which we split the differences with those

with whom we occupy the present moment.
Sometimes I see that poor corpse as a token
of doubt’s sure twin and double-mindedness,
of certainty, the countervailing guess,

the swithering, the dither, righteousness,
like Libra’s starry arms outstretched in love
or supplication or, at last, surrender
to the scales forever tipped in the cold sky.

Source: Poetry (February 2016)