Cobwebs

In their trapeze act they can connect

almost anything-tree to tree,

the bench to the porch crisscrossing the doorway,

sometimes ragtag, like an afterthought, sometimes,

like this construction among the geraniums,

a geometric perfection, a filament

of the imagination. And there

after a morning's work, what it gives of itself

and what it withholds,

it hangs, dead center, against all odds,

the way you hang a metaphor

in thin air. How sticky

they are when you touch them,

when you try to brush them from your mind.