If the Lasso of Wonder Woman Was Forcing You to Tell the Truth
You hang from the threads
of a backwards dog, tongue wagging, dripping
with the sweat of a horny pig, fearing
a sloppy drop, shaggy knot,
long term nerve damage
in the veins of the spirit,
that never comes.
Forty two years in, you finally surrender
to the snakes, constricting
around your ankles, wrists, chest, thighs, waist,
like nooses tied with freedom, with love,
as if the lasso of Wonder Woman was forcing you
to tell the truth, expose the heart you buried
as a child– a heart, like an empty sailboat,
given away too soon.
The cords, mooring it
to the dock, cut, casting it
into exile, a wandering ghost
lost in the turbid waves
of the stormy sea.
If only someone would have taught you
how to bind your body with love,
so that you could now feel safe,
slotted in the harbour, protected
from constant and battering winds,
the echoes of trauma.
But no. Instead, you can only get close
to this feeling of true rest, with the help
of a backwards dog licking
your wounds with his ropes,
listening to your tears,
tuning in and out of the channels
of your pain.