Libra Poem by Thomas Lynch

The one who pulled the trigger with his toe,
spread-eagled on his girlfriend's parents' bed,
and split his face in halves above his nose,
so that one eye looked east, the other west;

sometimes that sad boy's bifurcation seems
to replicate the math of love and grief — 
that zero sum of holding on and letting go
by which we split the differences with those

with whom we occupy the present moment.
Sometimes I see that poor corpse as a token
of doubt's sure twin and double-mindedness,
of certainty, the countervailing guess,

the swithering, the dither, righteousness,
like Libra's starry arms outstretched in love
or supplication or, at last, surrender
to the scales forever tipped in the cold sky.