Catching Webs

A fragrance would call me out of the house:
threads sweet with pollens.

I'd walk into any alien zone or quiet radar -
(those stolen threads always fitted so close).
And sometimes coming back into the house
I'd feel a thread break across my lips.

I remember the white purdah of those days
spent amongst the undergarments of trees,
air crisp as dressmaker's paper
against the bright textile of summer.

I was a child with so much of my world
snatched up in a mending, as life unspooled
from my fingers though I could not feel
those long strands tariling to the South.

I'd go out after meals to watch a thread
trace itself on the sky and wait for it
to drift into my hands; or walk amongst
the flowers draped in the negligee

of their leaves. I remember sky
on rising sky, cool air on my lips,
stars that sewed themselves onto the air
like buttons in order of brightness

and a child's heart pushing in
like a needle, making a pattern
of its incisions; making a web
out of the stitch of its own silence:

thin thin darning that holds the heart separate
from its white dress. I knew a thread
could be pulled right through
the human body. In the fragrant air,

I felt the moon in my blood, trailing its wedding.