Walking

Every footstep
Steeped in spider webs
Swept; snapped
The tendrils tenuous and trembling
Quiet crescendo
Baby spiders squeal
Squished.

You kissed my cheeks so tenderly
You wrapped my hands in wool
You blew the frost away with breaths
Light like eyelashes

I wished on you
With eyes fixed on faded desert stars and
Hazy New York pin pricks.
We slept in a pulsing grid of
Those deep-sea glowing fish and
Waves of whales I wished I wished

I walked
I held in sea-salt breaths

A liminal life
Hands wrapped by some new city
Absurd sounds and unlikely light
A bird a puff of feather flight
Unlikely borne by air but
There she is

Walking through cobwebs
White from the snow-skies I threw hope on
When I was drinking you in with wider eyes
I wished I wished—

But no wishes for those baby spiders squished.

Painting by Georgia O'Keeffe, "Lake George", 1922