Being fragile is hard.
Once, I think, I felt indomitable, a solid handshake.
Now, I would look away, eyes cannot meet.
Seagulls over a landfill. The nobility of garbage-pickers over broken things.
Sisyphean. Leave me to it, mumbling over bright things that catch my eye. Broken. It is hard to be fragile. I look away.
For fragile friends our ready hands do reach
To touch away a pain; to wipe away a tear
Or on your arm to steady passage o’er a hellish path.
Tho’ you be fragile now, you are to us, still
The solid handshake; whose eyes do meet.
So look to friends when fragile you do feel
for friends they still shall be
both during and beyond
your painful dance with fragility.