Poems
Arachne
I know the spider in the fire pit, There, scrambling along the circle of steel, Will be past my tracking gaze soon, the heat Will have its way with it before its will Will have inspired the frantic escape: The needles have caught, twigs are traced in flame. Arachnid below all notice now, its lap Not incomplete but unrecorded—blame Our scale, the voices in the dark across The ring whose cadence indicates my thoughts On what to do are wanted. Someone cares To catch a word from me. Two urns, the plots, I think, without thinking the words. Two graves, Etched stone. Who will let us down that day? I toe the embers, watch shimmering waves Of heat flow up. The wood is dry and grey As ash. I prepare my report and dip To push my glasses up my nose. My eyes, Their eight small lenses moving in one group, Observe the night and set out my surmise.
D. Eric Parkison is the author of a chapbook, No Arcadia, and recipient of a 2022 Massachusetts Cultural Council grant in poetry. He is director of programming at the Gloucester Writers Center and lives in Lynn, MA. Find him at deparkison.com.