Kintsukuroi

Ever since I learnt of this Japanese technique of Kintsukuroi,
Heartbreak has become more
Manageable.
You know when they say, get a hobby to get over it?
Well, decorating my heart is my hobby.
I have always been clumsy with this heart of mine,
Wearing it on my sleeve as I do.
But now,
A pour of molten gold and I’m good to go.
Over the years the criss-cross of golden seams have come to resemble a Jackson Pollock painting,
There’s more gold now than cardiac tissue.
It’s definitely a high-maintenance heart!
Still it’s much better looking than before,
And there’s more of it too, than I began with.
I always thought it a myth, false praise,
When they would say, ‘ He had a heart of gold, that one’!
Now I know better. He must have known the art of golden joinery.
I’ve decided I’m no longer going to consign my body to flames when I die,
What a waste of all that alchemy.
I want my cadaver to be donated to the local municipal hospital,
For medicos to practice what they learnt in their first year study of the human anatomy.
I’d hover over them and watch as they crack open the sternum,
And gasp at this huge golden heart
That fills the entire thorax,
with all the other organs mashed up behind.
‘This one, she has loved’, they’d sigh…