| String Theory |
String Theory
I was fed with first hungers, rich foods after long hunger,
but second meals are thin. And one greater yet
has a house outside. My master's endless belly,
wet and fed on other's tongues.
If puppet show on string, would I be shrill, ridiculous,
or pardoned by some folly? I did not keep my storied lines,
not paper smiles,not parts I played on separate days
and strings appear from hands and lightly on my lip.
I have no eyes than learn of holes. I have no hands
than handle knives. I have no salt that does not drink,
no thigh from dress not ate from hunger,
from hunger's taste and salmon tongues.
Though I fall into a road kept by a god that pardons,
dolls undone are worked till broken,
soon are lost or put away, or
worry and tease an older boy;
a twist of twine in cradles, stars from store-bought cloths,
the hand that cut my mouth has stitched my brain
where hunger makes its only house,
a little death a little day.
And even before then, until both good and evil players
feel the same licks of peeling flame
that lifts and lessens holy martyrs
on a hill of thieves and crosses.
I did not slacken any line; I made mirth of a hero's fall.
At play's end release from tension joys, strings through
limbs. Fall down puppets in silk shirts and pale piping
all equal, atoned, and put away.
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