Umbilical cord (Margret Attwood tribute)

Are you still the captured steer
a wild bellow, snot and dust.
Slapped to raise a breath,
branded from your birth.
Still carry the taint of unwashed afterbirth
Echo's from the Vagina's walls
its cloisters, reverberate with joyous pain.
Encore of feelings,
curtains of prolonged sustain.

Frail strength spun in a spiders thread,
and in dawn's rays,
bejewelled in wonderment.
Its span to cover continents
not the inward naval gaze.
The invisible bond inside each mind,
a hug that bends the spine.

The lariat, that ties you close
 The docking hose
The child that's wailing in its pram,
the draw of warm breast milk,
a lark ascending as it smiles.
The knot that's tied, dissolved, but still survives.
The link that only death divides