2009 November PAD Chapbook Challenge: Day 15

For today's prompt, I want you to write a hanging poem. There are a lot of things that can hang (some a bit more gruesome than others). You can hang clothes, pots and pans, pictures, and other inanimate objects; there's, of course, the kind of hangings that end lives; or you can even leave someone hanging (as Tammy pointed out to me). So, I'm not going to leave anyone hanging anymore today.


Rope

Because I imagine your heart
swings one way to another
(comraderie of the slackened ropes)
and your words are kinder
lighter and weightier to another
(you wouldn't hear of it)
(in each cellar a rope)
(in these, ropes that snapped taut)
(the completions - witnessed)
(you wouldn't hear of it - the taking down)
(words penned to keep -that rope-,
now slack, there, coiled)
(to keep the field birds' song - consoling)
(around the turning world)
(you don't understand)
(would not ask)(or listen)

Because you loved me
(I did) and you hurt me
(I did)
I'll hang you now
from a rope of silence

I am holding on with both hands
though others -mine- dangle there too
and my bitterness must double
to hold you all.

I am strong.
I have grown strong from all this silent weight.
Decades of it.
Don't imagine, I will ever let go.