Two Points Define a Line

The conspiracy theorists have this much right:
there are strings. I don’t mean to indulge
their yarns—tabloids plotting Elvis’s posthumous
cameos, paranoid collages with dead presidents
at center—just the yarn itself. I mean just
that it’s twine all the way down; that underfoot
there are untold filaments, tangled, slack;
and that there are not seven degrees of separation,
that two points define a line. Think of the rope
waiting for the youths who will take sides
and straighten it between them, hand over hand,
until they are close enough to embrace. Think
of the string taut between tin can handsets. You
and I: there is a ribbon between us. I will reel
the looseness from it if you will. Think of the dash
some couples stretch between their two surnames.

*

Cleansing

Once it was hyssop
for mortals and fire
for metals, and then
we learned to make
soap out of ashes.
When that was not
enough, we soaked
our sheets in sour milk.
But life was short
and lye was slow.
Impatience is invention’s
other mother; her son
mixed the first bleach.
To be clear, blood never
fell out of favor.
Sometimes, also,
we tried forgiveness.

*

Jane Zwart teaches at Calvin University, where she co-directs the Calvin Center for Faith & Writing. Her poems have appeared in Poetry, The Southern Review, Threepenny Review, Ploughshares, and–once before–in ONE ART.