There is a silver string which goes from my heart to you
Warm and tight, it was pegged with the tiptoes of a cool kibbutz morning
With grief and a baby unborn, and with southern boats and streams.
I hid away the string in the hem of my Spanish dress
Hard secret, it was soaked with the blood of an injured girl
With bitterness and loss, and so it wound itself around.
Twenty years’ burden’s a dull thing to carry
Worn and grey, it got clogged with candlewax, soot and porridge
With nights of smoke and beer, stretched grins and bravura.
***
Twenty years’ loving, though, is bliss and joy and pride!
In my middle years, I put on a dress again and drove to meet you
One warm July evening my chest burst and the string unravelled.
Wow! We painted it rainbow colours and tied it with ribbons!
We hung pictures of sex and death, children and parents
We made movies for each other and played a happy game.
My love, you stretched that heartstring right out again
I ask nothing more than that it exist there, plainly
The shiny silver string that goes from my heart to you.
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