postcards to the edge

He sinks knees into an unyielding carpet,
before a shrine of past and present
and nations' borders that cannot be crossed
or brought closer together
to make one country of his thoughts,
and bring that one smile that meant anything
back to his pedestal.

Stooped, a back curved under the weight
of one word - Alone,
he sifts through postcards from a woman
who never knew the right time to leave,
waited in her mother's womb
3 weeks too long,
and emerged quiet, without a sound,
as if to say,
"You will not break me."

Underneath the gloss of skylines
and testaments to civilization,
in the blue flickering light
of a moving postcard
into other worlds,
he reads between her lines
looking for the hint of a return
faint like sugar hidden
in the cracks of her pearled teeth
and the saccharine pain of pressing his face
into the dress, forgotten
that used to smell like Sunday mornings,
with her.

She does not know why she writes
keeps him hanging on a string
wrapped around the earth
twice over -
except maybe to tell herself,
she was loved, once.

And he,
he feels the strings
unearthing blood from his throat,
thread, twine and realizations sinking in -
wondering when he will find a rope
thick enough,
to bear the weight of this sorrow,
as he throws himself
off the edge of this world
painted pretty in postcards

to the sound of fragile bones
snapping in two
and the flurry of papers
in an open window.