Gothica
At a table
with goblets
set for a feast
in a forest
where spiders
hang pictures
spotted with
jewels of mist
and the departed,
someone sits
chewing on glass.
It is crunching,
as it turns to liquid
in their mouth
swallowing
with small
undisolved shards
pushing their way
through them,
needling and
touching the meridians
of their soul.
One—lone shard—
pushes through
their heart, where
what was liquid—
like mercury—
becomes frozen
in the air
and turns
into a rose
bright red
with the blood
gone unseen.
If you touch it
it will melt.
For, the warmth
of touch
turns it into a puddle
that, drips
down their shirt
in tears
they dare not spill.
At their right,
a spider
made an inquiry
into an army
of glass ants—
not liquid not solid—
walking across
the table.
He pushes
a mislaid sugar cube
into a pool of
rainwater
and dribbles it
down the tablecloth
and onto a chair.
Nimbly he climbs
his drop sailed anchor
back to his web,
and sitting
on edge
he pulls it down
to meet the chair.
His web laden
with a sweetness
all his own,
burgeons on the
pool below,
till one explorer
invests a moment
to pursue
the sweet aroma’s
vapors and rises
upwards.
Before he can usher
the words
“Stay Back,”
as tacks
adjoin his feet
to weave,
still another
pursues this maze,
and the two
gaze out
one at the other—
the admired
and the admirer
both with
death’s shadow
Now approaching.
