SPIDERMAN

Death is outer space come down to earth.

Picking blackberries once on a hot green hill

we saw a yellow orb‑weaver spider

put a zig‑zag stitch 'in the bottom of its web.

A swell of happiness.

But that night you cried out crisply

and when I looked in you took a deep breath

here we go arching your back showing me where.

Feel my back, daddy.

You will not remember my sweetest season,

but I will tell this story again, my music,

my perfect condition, about one thing alone,

there's no turning away from your melody

as one can get stuck on a line of a poem,

which wants to be music but is only to music,

as this is about you and to you.

Someday they will also lap at you,

the low tides of mystery, absent outdoor commands,

furious black seasons, the laughed‑off infinite

of foggy nights, a moon yawing in a mist.

Above, the branches are coming for you

like forks, like bare arms.

Nothing Important moves for miles.

A light year is shorter than knowing a soul is gone.

Pressed to this instant, the heart hurt like a stopped fist,

my hand steady on you, little lazy god of work.

My boy, my love, my truly poem,

I will hang head‑down in my garden web

even when I'm gone into space,

at rest in the cords of creation,

marvelous stuff, stronger than steel,

only fused quartz is stronger than spider silk.

And if the web should break?

Trap‑door and recluse spiders,

wandering and fishing spiders,

we'll all pour down like silver and start again.