than we can ever know in this lifetime
once you traced a finger along the traffic
of webs in the distance stitched along
the top right corner of the window frame troubling
the sun its beams breaking apart at the web’s
center a single open eye flicking light along our open hands
the spider builds a new web every day bigger
each time in the left corner and then the right the spider once worked
above us while we slept & then in the morning the spider spun
itself into silent waiting or longing maybe invisible but for its hunger
which is another word for desire if desperation were off
the table & all that remained were two open arms waiting
for an agreeable heart but it is like me to imagine the spider
believes itself a failure what with its dance from corner to corner
its web eclipsing more & more of the woodwork with each passing day
& still nothing to show for it but another night of tearing down
& rebuilding & another morning of light stumbling into a window laughing
at the barren web which is a plea a moan a disaster of a lonely maze
I respect the patience of heartbreak how it waits
through the sweetness through the familiar beauty & then reveals itself
through what doesn’t return or never arrives at all & it is only you
& a series of blinking memories the moments you had once & believed
yourself able to touch again I think another word for this is hunger
I make the bed in the mornings now every day
it looks new again like no one has ever been in it.