Contemplative Prayer
Artwork by Erin McGee Copyright 2006

Your Missing Piecelisten

Like a puzzle, you feel incomplete,
afraid to let me see the angry scar
where it was sliced away like so much meat.
You wonder what is left, and what you are --
asymmetry that makes a restless night.
You worry I'll no longer hold you close,
but you're my source, my beacon of delight.
You're, in my eyes, a pruned but perfect rose.

Reminding us of our mortality,
events like this can forge a stronger bond,
a love unfazed by stark reality,
that rides the rapids for a quiet pond.

The bottom line is, it was just a breast;
the best news is, we get to keep the rest.

Bruce Niedt is a beneficent bureaucrat from southern NJ whose poetry has appeared in Writers Journal, miller's pond, U.S. 1 Worksheets, Mad Poets Review, and many others. He has won the ByLine Short Fiction and Poetry Award, as well as 10th place for nonrhyming poetry in the Writers Digest Annual Writing Competition, and a Pushcart Prize nomination.

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