That String-Thing
For many years I’ve dragged a string
fastened to some part of me
I can’t reach or see in a mirror.
Today, though, as I walk to the lake
it tautens, halting me in my tracks.
Sick of the last ideology,
I wield my pocketknife and cut
the string where it doesn’t hurt.
I hear a distant clatter of stone
as the colosseum topples in Rome
and the Parthenon in Athens
and Wailing Wall in Jerusalem
and the Great Wall of China.
Graves open in Boston, Salem,
and Brooklyn, releasing the spirits
I’ve admired and dreaded the most.
In the British Library, Karl Marx
returns with a puzzled expression,
and in Paris, Balzac prowls the streets,
taking copious, incisive notes.
With that long string cut, clothing
unravels on Manhattan streets,
exposing the most exquisite
and post-professional torsos.
Despite the chaos, I reach the lake
and step into the icy water
with a sigh of sudden content.
As carp try to nibble my toes
the stub-end of the string drops off,
leaving a puckered wound to heal
as slowly and scabbed as it wishes,
allowing me to mistake it
for some loving cosmic kiss.