POEMS

Hanging by a Thread

The thread by which
family hangs, attached
to memory, a network
of duty and responsibility:
is love assured in this?
We wrap the thread
around our waists, our necks;
our hopes & disappointments
are suspended in the air
of who did what to whom,
who, what, where, when
and the single word
shaped in a circle
of regret & anguish,
why?

And then the thread
breaks making the sound
of grief & disappointment,
oh brother, son, father,
& mother, former families
we said we loved,
and into the darkness
we fall, as though our past
never existed.

Oh thread, oh broken strings,
twanging instrument,
banging drums & a bird somewhere
out there among the damned.