Nicolette Stasko
Nicolette Stasko has published five volumes of poetry. Her newest UNDER RATS is forthcoming this year with Vagabond Press Rare Objects series. She currently lives in Sydney.
Arachnology
There’s a spider silk thrown
all the way across
my neighbour’s yard
catching the sun
perhaps four metres or more
a trapeze the acrobat
still waiting in the wings
I realise suddenly
that the engineer
of this Glebe Island bridge is
one of those tiny creatures
never actually seen
hiding in its curled up leaf
a miniature gondola rowing
through the air or
idling precariously
in a moonlit bay
This morning the net is stretched
across my garden
at one end the tracing of a Spanish fan
the other anchored
as if by steel
gleaming and
blowing in the wind
how was it done?
in the secret night
the lone rider spinning and flying
to span such distance
strong enough to stand
the constant battering
strong enough
to hang a week’s laundry
I look in vain to find the architect
of such a grand design
Coming up empty
I have just seen the Queen pounce
from her observation post—
from her sacred stance
on the rooftop
elegant as Egyptian tomb sculpture—
into a hammock of honey suckle
then her departure
out of sight no tail dangling
from triumphant mouth
an embarrassed gait
suggesting wounded dignity
the light is like butter
I imagine her fur
will smell
like blossoms of wild flowers