(After Emily Dickinson)
Yet for the conjunctions
we can weave a rope
winding its way into togetherness,
a matrix of either/or and not only/but also—
held together with conjunctions
sacred as the interlocking arms of flying acrobats.
But sometimes introducing conflict—
a conjunction can condemn a happy sentence
or rescue a convicted man.
Grammarians bury us in rules
of conjunction compatibility—
each side a parcel in collateral
like tyranny or maybe rather like grace.
We resist subordination because
we can’t bear either to be alone
or to be one and the same.
We will be incomparable
and nothing (or nothing)—
although we will be made to bear
private graves without conjunction
whereabouts we leave all the ands behind
like our respirations—while the living
will be made to make do with all our
unfinished junctions. As long as
we are speaking with equivalence,
as soon as we stop speaking by deadlock,
by the time we are no more, in the event
this happens sooner rather than later,
whether or not we are done,
provided that or supposing we fail to end up—
in this case a conjunction is for any sentence
that doesn’t want to let go—