Weekly Poem: ‘haiku (failed)’

By Nick Flynn

The thin thread that holds us here, tethered / or maybe tied, together,
what / do you call it–telephone? horizon? song? Listen / to yourself
sing, We are all god’s children / we are all gods, we walk the earth /
sometimes, two sails inside us sometimes / beating, our bodies the
bottle, a ship inside each / until one day, for no reason, it sails–
hello? / damn phone–until one day it sails / out of sight, until one
day it cuts out of / earshot, bye-bye muttered into your cupped palm,
bye-bye / boat, bye-bye rain–Look / maybe this is the place we’ve been /
waiting for, maybe this place / is the day, inside us, inside each /
corpuscle, the day, that day, everyday is / inside, my body, your body,
everyday is / this thread, everyday you said, come / get me, everyday
you said, it’s been way too long / you said, bye-bye, bye-bye, not a day /
went by, the thin, the thread, so thin, this thread, are you still / here,
is it still, your heart, is it well / well welling?

Nick Flynn is a poet, playwright and memoirist whose most recent book is “The Captain Asks for a Show of Hands” (2011, Graywolf Press), a collection of poems that are linked to his latest memoir, “The Ticking is the Bomb” (2010, W. W. Norton & Company). He teaches creative writing at the University of Houston.