Silk Poem II

Silkworms depend on mulberry leaves
The way you and I depend on trust.
Their weight increases ten thousand fold
Since hatching. Fattened as we become
With love, they spin silvery cocoons
By nodding their heads in agreement
Until they are liquid as we are with desire.
Miles later, we drive into a distance
Of sustainable comfort, the little car
Of our cohabitation encloses us
Like silken caskets. But no one is safe.
The farmers kill the sleeping larvae
With the sort of heat that inflames our bodies.
We never thought about danger, how the fibers
That connect us could be unwound.
That a single thread could be what matters. So
Fragile any word could disrupt its continuity.

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Copyright © 2017 Joan Colby All rights reserved
from Pirene's Fountain
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission