Escape

Not in crowds, nor in the company of a few

close friends, nor when I’m alone, and even with you
there is this restless weight the soul won’t relinquish,
small knots of sorrow it’s strangely loath to undo.

 

I wish I knew to unravel their ends, I wish

I could tease their rough hemp fibres from my flesh
and bones, from spaces of the self, I wish I knew
to snip one link and escape beyond the whole mesh.

 

But no cities there made of jade, there are no views

of freeways glistening in rain, no green ooze
of rivers, nothing beyond the pale knots of anguish
that’s any different from here, nothing to choose

 

between these two sides of the rough tightened lattice

at least not so marked that you’d sit up and notice.
What world can be made whole if it’s without you
and what’s an escape if you aren’t an accomplice?