CORDAGE

It's amazing the strength
of the thin threads,
even though frayed,
that knot hearts
together.

These cords must be
the tensile stuff of spider webs
or the bands that cable the spans of bridges
or strands of muscle striated between
the ridges of bones.

Still, with all the wonder,
we watch helpless
as they unravel and spin apart
and the ties weaken that bind
the chance trajectories of lives.

Yucca leaf and backstrap sinew
pound out with a rock. The fibers
twist and join and roll from your thigh
tendrils, reaching out to tangle
in a tender mesh of hair.

And hearts that beat bound
by bast and filament,
fragile, resilient,
braid again across loss and distance
a thin lattice of love.


© 2001 by Richard W. Todd

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