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War. And one fierce girl
will not take the bait.
She swims off to stop it,
leaves me dangling, thumb-sucking,
plucking patterns from tea leaves,
scanning advice slips from bank machines,
clutching at strings.
I’d swing
from the cat’s cradle of clouds
crossing borderless skies
if I believed it would catch
and knit me
into any design;
I’d loop-the-loop,
crossing, recrossing truths.
But it all comes loose. Nets become sieves,
knots become loops.
I feel that old slack
no certainty to pull taut
make sing, draw back
that girl-fish
or tightrope out and join her
stitched fast to a bridge
over the Tigris.
From The Wolf 10 (Summer 2005)