Arachne

Take shelter in this dim gold of blown kisses,
near misses. You are the dancer, the gesture,
erasure eked out of delicately falling
atoms. Σῶμα, a body breathing. Lash
your limbs to this brief, transfigured landscape,
escape the sentence of sentience we’re all
co-doomed to: the finite infinitives,
subject-verb-object, antecedent, predicated
patterns life relaxes into like water
filling a bathtub. Needle and thread
can weave a robe, a flag, a web. Caution
duende not to troll you, control you.
The splendid motion of stars stirs in us
silent, terrible echoes of our birth.

* Σῶμα, /soma/ is Greek for “body”

*This poem was written as part of the TELEPHONE global arts project. It was inspired by this piece. Read my note on the poem and check out the full exhibit!