Moth writhing caught
in a spiderweb
pitching against
its own convulsing
white spinning through white thread
wishing itself away
from its own form,
regrettable wings.
Fluorescent coiled bulb
in a metal cage
lights the orbed web
& white spots in a cross
on the back of this thing that weaves to kill.
The spider hangs on a long strand,
its tinged-red belly & pointed legs
easing towards
the vulgar haste & curving rounds
of this fated moth that flaps
flight-heavy weary sickened,
shaken. I
stare at the spider’s manifold legs
& little clawed mandible flickering
with evening’s shine, tittering
corners of death’s bite. The spider gives
to what it has hit upon
the chance to witness
its own preciousness
as it banks its broken gabble
of movement due
to enter further into expiating darkness.
The next day I head out adream,
& see the web, a fissure in the middle of air,
the dried moth carcass. Skinny wings hung
on silver strings lunge only
in the breeze now. The spider is in the spot
where I saw him last, the brute clot an
emblem of craven patience.
Some inhumanness stirs—thrown every instant
again & again into
a dread void, not to be accursed,
but to be interposed by a sudden face
that is one’s own, noonlight itself narcissus
liquid in its immediacy
spinning in its thin white thread.
