The String

unspools someone's
carelessness

out of the sun-
bleached day

toward a culvert's
dark underside

where it threads
a broken bottle's

teeth, tangles twigs
and leaves and trash

into a reckoning
of what we can

do without—partial,
but the string goes on

with its work,
its daily, studious

accumulations
strung along knot

by knot, a time-
line forgotten

with the ease of
a hand letting go.

Though here's a child
who comes to trace

the string's trail
down the slope

and under the wind-
scoured overpass

she's been told never
to hide beneath

in a storm, who
pinches her small

hand into a loop
she slides over

snarls, burrs, a straw
sleeve, tentacles

of magnetic
tape, a cluster

of fur, the string
she thinks of as

a tornado
she's unraveled

to see what's inside
all that gathering;

there is so much
she doesn't want

to forget: crickets
scattering before

her into darkness,
the dry cough of her

shoes on cement,
cars clattering

over her head
like storm clouds

oblivious
to the thrill

of something new
unraveling

from a forgotten
length of string.

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Copyright © 2011 Corey Marks All rights reserved
from Harvard Review
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission