Molecules of our bodies only lightly
bind, allow for life by not releasing,
in their coupling, enough heat to burn
themselves to ashes, allow for death by easily
losing interest, and unlinking.
What allows us to live permits us to die,
so we never really fasten.
Marriage, moments of a day are sticky
but easily-torn webs spun through
the slippery spinneret of time,
awareness linking then sliding apart,
seeming waves. In this still-cold
dawn of January thaw
my new, young, willful, so-far
untrainable dog, who doesn't come when called,
suddenly stops, turns, streaks across
the flowing creek's ravine, across the field
temporarily freed of snow, and
for one ecstatic moment, makes straight,
makes straight for me.
