I share my daily bus ride with many college students from either university, and occasionally I am witness to attempts at and sproutings of new relationships. Some interactions are alien to me (for instance, the guy who talked about his sports achievements and then showed off the boa constrictor he was carrying in his bag); others are more resonant:
Wire, Tight Like Twine
the bus wouldn't wait so from the bench where two stout men might have sat between us where your words like pliers held steady in the air chest-high the invisible wire grasped by the texture of your tongue the wire and needle sewn in, dragged tight as I walk away like twine, bent and folding on itself catching as I tug, tightening its thread throughout my heart until, like my will, it breaks
There are bits I really like in this poem, but I recognize it is not complete, and I have several times dreamed of a new version of this poem, one which allows Keats’s negative capability to come through.
