WHAT SHE LOOKED OUT UPON

What she looked out upon

through the small grille

of the kitchen window

was the exhausted clothesline

strung across the yard,

its soft and sagging middle

a hammocked emptiness

that crossed her eyes' rest

as a thin shadow

of the depression

she looked in upon,

thinking of what was to come:

the winding down,

the thinning -

of bone, of hair, of skin,

of patience even.

Hoping enough would be left

to finish with some grace

what had begun without thinking.

Thinking how the days rolled out

in laundry and bad news. How the pole

that held the clothesline

held the wires

that pulled the clanging world in.

Most of the time not listening

unless something

caught her attention

the way the moth

between the window and the screen

now did,

wings flailing

against the vague web.

She could see the spider too,

shroud maker, paying out thread;

little god, moving gingerly along

the avenues of its invention.