Broken but resilient

For What Binds Us

by Jane Hirshfield

There are names for what binds us:

strong forces, weak forces.

Look around, you can see them:

the skin that forms in a half-empty cup, 

nails rusted into the places they join, 

joints dovetailed on their own weight.

The way things stay so solidly

wherever they've been set down-

and gravity scientists say is weak.

And see how the flesh grows back 

across a wound, with more vehemence,

more strong

than the simple untested surface before.

There's a name for it on horses,

when it comes back darker and raised:  proud flesh,

as all flesh,

is proud of its wounds, wears them

as honors given up after battle,

small triumphs pinned to the chest-

And when two people have loved each other

see how it is like a 

scar between their bodies, 

stronger, darker, and proud;

how the black cord makes of them a single fabric

that nothing can tear or mend.