String
Think about it, a piece of plain string,
any length, a piece of hemp, a strand of
bright orange strangleweed, north
to south, east to west, tie, bind,
or hang according to our gravity.
Of any color, green, indigo, black,
or white. You think of a piece of string mostly
white wrapped around a ball of its own kind.
I read of a falconer trying to trap a hawk.
She fashions a noose of twine
around the feathered body of a live blackbird
then hides in the woods with the end of the string
in her hands—and if the hawk takes the blackbird
she will pull the loop over the bait-bird’s feathers
to catch the hawk by its legs.
A special knot that hawks and string
must contend with. What is a string,
what is a hawk on a gossamer of air,
what is a predator knot without
the straight extension of string,
of any color, doubling back
on itself, then back on itself
if she is able to catch the blackbird?