Rope, String, Thread

Brought only low-key tools with him: a battered

guitar laid flat on a tabletop, a couple of cheap

effects pedals. Played it with sympathy, using its

eccentricities. Music, entirely improvised, learned

how to roll them together as he worked, moving

his hands quickly, using his fingers as levers on

various parts of the gear. Heard a fuzz sliding into

a thump, heard spotless, echoing chime tones trans-

forming into overdriven hum. Music, moving it

between. To make sounds, he lightly touched a

screwdriver, a radio antenna, a nail clipper, which

he slid under. You are still the one I know. You

were unwavering, you moved so slowly away.

The number of layers. More than you needed

to know. The terrified boundaries. All their

fortifications. Broken things, not in the kingdom:

in the dust, the ashland, guileless. Go ahead.

The circuit of memory is a loop, like a string

of Xmas tree lights. When one goes out, they all

go out, so who can tell what really happened, who

started it? Unknots, trivial knots, collections and

hoardings, piles and piles. There was the house

with a hundred cats, there was the lady who lived

on newspapers, and you, of course you, and me

remembering you. Once it was tied, then it became

entangled. The actual memory, the song, the emotion

associated with it. Something just shifts, a finger

pulls on the center of a string figure; it unravels.

If it was a true knot it would get tighter, it would stop.

I wouldn't have to ask, are you near, are you safe,

if I pulled, I'd know, I'd never have to ask. If

someone said my eyes, like yours? I'd say of course.

I'd say why not? The same notes on the same guitar.

Every year the same thing, the same way forever.

We leave it exposed. Some thread.