Chum (poem)

Chum

Will you be my chum

Sink with me under the bubbling swell

Or take your hacksaw to the cable

Release the weight of me

That binds you

Still

We are side by side

Keep the pear tree, lose the partridge

Keep the gold rings, sack the servants

Forecast for your future harvest

Have a friend for every purpose

Rarely do we do ourselves that credit

Circle in black

Shift restlessly, lay masonry

Immure secrets

Take earth in handfuls

Level landfills

Bury dead things

Yet you and I together sink

A circle

Of waves dispelled

From the place we fell

Chum

Push

(2014, Stephanie Foster)