I don't know you, you don't know me,
but if we want to carry on we need
to make like mountaineers who tie themselves
together to survive their clunt and grapple
up jagged peaks that shoot through clouds
into the shocked and haloed air.
If the weakest slows, the strongest grows
responsible, much like when you were born:
hot and bothered, you heard bad bongos
and withdrew your raw body from the verge;
so they took up the slack as you dandled
at the wrong end of your string, puffing
and wedging and pulling you back
to teeter and totter on this edge.