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.