B. Andrew Kelly | + Follow Poet |
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String

Do you feel the chaotic concerto?
The cloaked and clandestine composer
Plucking at the ivory keys, exactly eighty eight
With even more ways to tangle those
Countless red strings of taut linear fate.
To be a being, we first must begin
To begin, we must be born, then torn
From the lively, slick, loud, and slimy link
Of mother’s umbilical cord, now
Cut.

Cartwheel your baby body from the delivery room
To sitting criss cross applesauce atop a cedar stool
It’s snack time at age four,
Celery sticks, peanut butter, milk in a plastic cup
Chug whatever lies before your youthful eyes-
Slam the glass down, now look at you, twenty two
Disillusioned with the notes you hear, but cannot play
Plucking the strings, now we all sing to the song
Of a puppet on a string dancing, dancing
To the melody that is tied to us as we trudge along.

“And now here we are at eighty eight,
Did you think you would make it to the retirement home?
The fuzzy television screens, the dementia, the barely palatable
Food that nearly slides itself off your plate, look at you
Still slimy, still newly born.
Let me cut your cord
You made it, this is your reward.
Is this all that you have hoped for?
Well it better be, for this is the sound
Of your string’s final, echoing chord”

Snap.
Break your celery stick betwixt
The anger you feel, your fear,
And the peanut buttery memories
That stick to the roof of your mouth,
The ones you hold so dear

Copyright © B. Andrew Kelly | Year Posted 2024

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