Richard Buckner The Tether And The Tie
Coming up the stairs, lying in the smoke, waiting in the
weeds, dropping on a dare, sometimes, you just know the
light through the leaves as you’re coming on.
Can’t you let it go passing on the other side, shifting
down in double-time, saving something up again: watching
as you don’t arrive?
Everywhere has been dragging in the sparks.
And the tether, and the tie?
Where anything is spent, last, to rush the running field,
I’m giving up (this time, for real), soaking at the
smallest tear, leaving what they couldn’t steal.
Waking where you start, running until you’re dry, taking
from your own everything you are, come around the line.
Trading in the walls?
Trying to get’em back?
Something serves you right. Haven’t you seen it move
always gone and almost new, toasting? As you’re buying
out, is something coming over you?
