Poem: Tears and Tears

I cried today after a long time, before turning poker face. But it turned into a homonym play.

Poem: Tears and Tears

A little pain somewhere
A tear of the muscle — this one
The doctor can’t diagnose
It’s a fist-sized muscular lump
In mechanical terms, a pump
That cleans and pushes out
The crimson liquid of life
A tear like that —
The pump won’t leak
That an engineer can fix
Yet the tear explodes into an ache —
An ache that produces another tear
Like the meltdown of a glacier
The cold, business as usual façade melts
And leaks a salty, warm version
The tear that tells the pain
That is caused by the tear
The saline drop from the sea of love
Only she would understand
The tear of the heart
And the tear from the eyes.

~Ashok Subramanian © 2025

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