On Tenterhooks

Suspense seldom kills, but too often
stretched between the hooks, the cloth
drying in the sun so its weave might be straightened
rips in one section and the whole taut fabric,
so like a riveted drumskin or the canvas of a trampoline,
goes slack, its practical use over —
that anxiety which kept us searching the heavens,
wringing our hands, wiping our brows,
questioning the outcome,
only a matter of tension: that intangible
way of holding things we'd just as soon let go.

Dick Allen
The New Criterion
May 2006

Copyright © 2006 by The Foundation for
Cultural Review, Inc.
All rights reserved.
Reproduced by Poetry Daily with permission.

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