Ode to Knots

For tying one’s shoes is a landmark
For the square is perfect for salvaging
               a busted bootlace
For the sheet bend’s ability to bind two
               into one and the sheep shank’s to shorten
For the taut-lines I’ve cinched to secure
               tarps and tent flies
For all the 8’s that held me safe over the years
               I lived to scale cliffs
For the prusiks and munters I’ve lost
For the strapped canoes and kayaks I haven’t
For how nothing gets through the water knot
For the myriad ways lovers’ legs can be stitched together
For how marriage shouldn’t suggest being tied down
               but having wings darned into your skin
For the thin tubes cut, seared, knit and tucked
               with forceps so my seed dissolves back into me
For how nobody ever showed me how to forge a noose
For how the other boys bound me between trees
               to my own hammock at camp
For the thousands of pounds of red crustaceans hauled
               by my father and grandfather from the green
               sea on the strength of a single hitch
For all the things I’ve held
              with a half-hitch or two
For how a half windsor helps me step it up
For a full windsor is a bit beyond me
For there are so many more than I
               will ever learn to bind: the alpine butterfly bend
               the icicle hitch, the blood knot
For how time twists like a string
               in the wind
For how the flick of a wrist makes a rope
               a heartbeat
For all the loose ends I’ve left dangling
For all of our poorly coiled tangles
               slapdashedly lashed together
For all these stubborn braids I made
               impossible to unravel