Whether braided, twisted or coiled,
Bast fiber, strong as muscle,
Is useful for holding back a mob,
Dragging cars out of ditches
And in the hands of the South
In the 1930s, for lynching
If looped and knotted to any strong tree.
Love as shrink wrap
nearly air-tight
or so she thought
he found a way to wriggle free
without her seeing
then wriggle back in again
Don't say that I will depart tomorrow --
even today I am still arriving.
Look deeply: every second I am arriving
to be a bud on a Spring branch,
to be a tiny bird, with still-fragile wings,
Her heart knows this man from long before, passed years,
nearly a thousand since then.
Like a storm he raided—
burning her home,
stealing her virginity and leaving,
as if it were his right to take her known life away.