The Sun and Shrapnel

Some hearts hold both the sun and shrapnel - and learn to call it whole.The Sun and the Shrapnel moves through the full weather of love: the certainty of "This Love Is Home," a marriage that keeps promising "just us two" and never arrives, and the harder, steadier turn toward a life built on one's own terms.At its center is "Dinner for One" - a woman raising a glass to an empty chair, discovering that the audacity to order dessert alone is its own kind of freedom - and the note it inspired, written for anyone who has ever been asked, with that same small pause, whether they were sure.These are poems for anyone who has loved fully, lost something that mattered, and kept moving anyway - arriving, in the end, not at bitterness but at becoming.Some poems in this collection previously appeared on the Wingword Poetry Competition platform, where the author received a Commendable Mention.The Sun and the Shrapnel is Book One in the Sunshine, Lifebuoys and Wreckage series.