Spinsters by Emma McKervey

In this week by the lake tiny spiders have netted my skin.

At first I picked them off and settled them carefully

on some invisible current of air to ply their spindle elsewhere.

But now I let them roam at will, leaving their fine tracery

to bind my limbs and stream in the ripples of my wake;

tresses of a beached mermaid spinning beyond the tide line

and reaching along the shore.

 

The breeze carries these silken threads, spreads

my sfumato image across the forest;

the curve of bicep hangs loose from a young larch,

my shoulder blade caught in the crook of a pine,

and my nape swung free out over the water –

suspended now, taut, between the reeds.


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