Arachne

I think I shed my skin somewhere over Belgium
a brittle undercarriage falling from 30,000 feet.
I felt the tearing on my belly as it dropped away,
new scars over old scars.

Eye pits sense only light and dark,
fill with tears.
Pink flesh, not hardened yet, flinching from new light
warmed and blinded at the same time.

Forty years of webs, practicing. Sorrow sometimes
hung like dewdrops, cold beads, a weighty necklace on
winter mornings.

Now I take my children with me, free falling, only
a thin silk line
to cast out as we drift and hope we catch in something
soft.

Dawn is warmer here. One leg delicately stepping onto
the grass. One hand cuts open the box and takes out the loom.