A spider casts a drifting line into the openness
between two great growths of oak, backlit
by the yellow burst of a streetlamp into spokes
of light, the squeeze of wet eyes in cold wind.
The web catches the breeze, surfacing to glint
and glitter then disappear. I want to give you that
spider’s legs, the sticky sureness of its lacework,
its drive to plumb the night between footing
and free fall, make you something wild-eyed, craving,
instead of the cold switch-off since your father’s death.
But I can’t decide if you are the spider or the caught
moth. As soon as we see an animal’s grace, we see another
devour it, aspirations gone. Some nights our cast catches
the wind and grasps a woody growth in the dark,
some we are caught by a trick of thin luminescence.
I walk in the house, sweaty red, a brisk clearing
in my eyes, see the living room tangled with blankets,
bunched socks, leaves of food packaging. A small light
draws me into the bedroom to switch it off, slip
the glasses from your face. Spun with sleep,
fluid in its fabric, your splayed figure arrests me.
