After Wyeth's Ropes and Chains

After Wyeth's Ropes and Chains

 the rope always hoisted the 
just lambed does
up off the ground and out 
of the mouths of the coyotes...

Maybe memory, in order
to commit itself some

-what entirely or in part
depending on your port

of entry into your own
bravery, or at the very

least leave a sneaker print
or two surviving the damage

or the convalescence
or what all comes between,

needs to be paired, needs
a sticking post of old oak,

a branch to hold the reins,
rope strips ringed into

the bit on either side of
the face.  And maybe

the brain is the mare or
stallion or gelding you

alone ride or at least most
of the time and train her

or his or their ribs to ease
into the grip of the knees

or in time and matrimony
come to need the reins

less and less so both can
know where it is they're

going.  Association.  Only
in my own knowing of home,

and only if I'm going to
the old swing rope will I

see the boy there and his toes
holding the throat end

he called it stolen from his
stepfather's boat.  He'd told

me going up was like knowing
the way husbands know

their own wives and he let
slide one eye and one closed,

fingers to palm hand over the salted
rope and then one then two

fingers to my elbow then trough
my shirt and the curve

edge of a new and suddenly
unrestrained test.  And up the rope he'd go.

Only in this version does it hold,
through cold October, through

assuming it's only mine ,
now that he's dead, and was

that next summer.  And because
he did it with bare

soles and toes I take my own life
time to take hold and

fist over fist hoist myself
up to give at last my curved back

to his permanently
in the sky and then let him

have his way with me
turn me, eager bit strained

finally, finally, exchanged.