string and strung

   

This is what it's like.
We've been
facing each other
each with a ball of string big enough for a lifetime,
and sometimes we just sit there,
sometimes we look across the room,

sometimes we start throwing loops of string
at each other,
at vases and lamps and chairs,
catching them sometimes,
and then when
people or dogs or monkeys
come in,
we catch them too,
in this net made out of our string,
which becomes a net when it is thrown enough times—

and all the knots
and all the nots
become the unanswered, unanswerable
rubble
at each intersection
of string and
strung.



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©2007 Susan R. Gilbert
www.plasticduck.net/susangilbert