The whisper of the dramatic

The old masters write that only the most beautiful creatures

tame and shatter our souls, that the smile of a woman can save us

from our own hell or from another's purgatory

and that our world can crumble when our beloved

turns her shoulder or walks away,

and I respect the old masters, except on those occasions

when they are fools, proud idiots, and ignorant magicians.

Our inner selves are far more fragile than the old masters

ever imagined, weak vessels liable to capsize and sink

at a mere memory or a smell in the air that reminds us

of childhood loss or middle aged apathy or elderly boredom.

Our hearts are not glass, but the image of glass, painted

on cracking paper by the maddest of the old masters.

We break not at the dramatic, but at the whisper of the dramatic.