Bound / Unbound

Hiroko Lancour, "Chance Operations: Enso," 2014

1. Jump
To leap is to commit: hours of drill, of gathering speed,
accelerating, one-two-THREE-and-POP. You don’t fly off
the ground without jettisoning thought, without letting
your body think for you. A penultimate step; sink down,
elastic, all bound up and coiled; then you rise, unbound.

2. Drive
We’ll light out at first light for second chances like these.
I can feel my shoulders loosen and drop with each mile
gone; can you? The road hum: drummer’s brushes on a
snare, our conversation scatting over that rhythm. Even
silence makes an open empty music, where we’re bound.

3. Rest
Asleep and dreaming, I hold the ends of a rope, one in my
right hand, one in my left, making and unmaking a lover’s
knot by way of practice. The rope, now a snake twining its
caduceus, sticks its forked tongue out at me, slowly winks.
Years later I awaken, find my books have come unbound.