Pen of Words

The bond is a rope,

a lash, a knot—

cords that tether,

cords that bruise,

a ligature of loyalty and loss.

We are bound as hogs are bound,

trussed like pork for market,

roped like boars dragged from the sty,

lashed like sows squealing in the cart.

Yet the pen is not only timber and mud,

but ink and nib, where the poet,

like a pig, roots in syllables,

wallows in rhyme,

pens himself in

with his own scratching.

Swine, hog, boar, sow, gilt, shoat—

each name a chain,

each word a shackle or a charm,

binding language to flesh,

binding flesh to fate.

And so the bond is double:

the sty that confines,

the stanza that defines.

Both hold us fast,

        both stink of truth,

                both shine

with the grease of meaning.

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