Lines - Dave Bonta
______
Just as I'm about to take a freight train up my nose,
I stop with my head halfway to the rails:
a small spider is descending past my face.
I'm struck by the precise choreography of it,
her two pairs of forelegs moving in circles
like the arms of a swimmer, the next pair
sticking straight out like oars at the ready
& the hindmost pair paying out the line.
Not here, I say, giving it a nudge
to keep her off the tray's smooth lake.
She reels herself in, heading for my finger.
I push the thread a little farther & she severs
her connection. Sorry, sister, I mutter
as she drops to the floor — a chaos of newspapers —
touching down without incident among the headlines.
______
Dave blogs at Via Negativa and helps curate the online literary magazine qarrtsiluni,
which is currently seeking submissions for an Ecotone-compatable theme
"Nature in the Cracks."
5 comments:
nice!
like where Hayduke kneels in the sand at the bottom of a little-known canyon, looks around at the toads and dragonflies and writes, "no fucking bridge, please"
Excellent piece Dave - quite a different voice from anything I've read of yours. Love it.
Thanks. I went on a dramatic monologue binge a couple of years ago, and this is one of the results. So that may be why it doesn't sound like me.
Hi Dave--
Nothing like reaching for another voice...
Underneath this poem I see the bones of a Petrarchan sonnet. Or perhaps it's the shed exoskeleton.
marlyat2 - I'm afraid I wouldn't know a Petrarchan sonnet if it bit me on the butt. Which is not to say that you're mistaken -- who knows what all can happen when we start letting the others in!
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