Loading page... Wait Bar Animation
TobinMueller.com Mobile Menu Close Button Mobile Menu Button
Home Bio Recordings Music Videos Photography Writings Illustrations Contact
Puzzle People
poetry reading from As Simple As Soap by Tobin Mueller
Jump to: Lyrics As Simple As Soap album
Poetry Text

facing each other like unlucky mirrors,
fragments infinitely reflected between,
you touch me along my broken edges and
i trace my fingers over your jigsaw scars.
piece by piece we are dismantled,
each by the other's hand.

you reach inside and find
the heart, the lung, the deeper part
your hands becoming finger puppets
behind my eyes.
this is no metaphor, this gesture.
this reach is real.

between our kneeling frames
it's all been laid out
i have no skin left to safeguard.

i take, give a cutaway from my sternum
and it fits you like a badge.
pieces from the pile,
one, two, after the other,
onto, into each other
completing the riddle,
leaving gaps and seams and happy overlays
and spaces for entering.

drying pools we leave behind:
more than stains tattooed.
one easy moment,
replacing the questions of the world
with something greater than an answer.
and from you, i
this miracle
like loaves and fishes welling:

pieces left over, still on the bed.
too much self to fit
back into place.

"Puzzle People" ©2000, 2016 Tobin Mueller

As Simple As Soap

Return to the As Simple As Soap page.

Other lyrics pages from As Simple As Soap

  1. As Simple As Soap
  2. Old
  3. The Fall
  4. Puzzle People
  5. Wall of Heaven
  6. The Cigarette
  7. Under the Basement Stairs
  8. To Die Awake
  9. Abraham and Isaac revisited
  10. Swing Set Music