Pact

“The deaths of two Saudi sisters…
discovered on the banks of New York’s Hudson River…
a double suicide” -CNN 10/29/18

Together. Our thin-
lipped secrets protecting
the dead and the living, the ones who did not
protect us, never will. We have measured and cut
the rope, tied it around our bared necks. Pulled the strands taut.
There is no truth in the telling, no telling in the truth that tightens
into this noose. Will you dangle here with me?
I with you?
This is the sisterhood we dreamed
and feared,
but, wait,
over there is

the small jutting pier at Riverside Park, and there the two
Saudi Arabian sisters. See. They are duck-tapped together
at ankles and wrists. They have not
been long in the water. No one
suspects foul play. Look
how their dark curls
float about them.
       There is time. Is there
time? There is.
Let us cut our own
Is there time? There is        despair
    Is there?
        and save them. Here is

Is there?      the knife.
Do it now.