THE SPIDER
It is loneliness that makes me
tie little bows of silk to leaf,
branch, blade and blossom.
I build my web for the company,
not the blood. O I love
the blood, of course: a vintage
in which you taste a year
your ancestors knew.
But it isn't blood
that sustains me: it is
the shiver through the web
like a doorbell ringing
through an abandoned manse.
I hurry over as if to help them,
but before they can beg
for mercy I am turning them
like a spindle on a lathe,
their cries growing
quieter with each orbit,
until I can hardly
hear them hum.
And then I am lonely again,
a poet between poems.
It is loneliness that makes me
tie little bows of silk to leaf,
branch, blade and blossom.
I build my web for the company,
not the blood. O I love
the blood, of course: a vintage
in which you taste a year
your ancestors knew.
But it isn't blood
that sustains me: it is
the shiver through the web
like a doorbell ringing
through an abandoned manse.
I hurry over as if to help them,
but before they can beg
for mercy I am turning them
like a spindle on a lathe,
their cries growing
quieter with each orbit,
until I can hardly
hear them hum.
And then I am lonely again,
a poet between poems.