waning 

a long thin thread hung across the path
as i walked under the bridge last night.
i resisted the urge to walk on it
to become a tight rope walker
watched by the waning moon.
i wanted to tap the thread with one finger
to continue it's maker. i thought of
all different kinds of strings
of me sitting on the floor of an old bedroom
trying to tune my tired guitar & of 
the broken sewing machine spitting thread
in bunches out the other side fabric. 
as i continued i noticed these clear webs
strung all around. from lamp posts.
all knotted in the branches of trees.
even around the necks of mail boxes.
there must be one great weaving spider
out tonight. at first i think of her 
as the size of a quarter. one of those spiders
with a plump round body as if they were
a berry. then i consider a weaving creature
the size of a human nesting under the bridge.
how lonely that spider would feel in a world
of two-legged monsters who want nothing
to do with thread. i take out my sewing kit
& dip my needle into telephone poles
stringing together the office buildings on main.
this is a note to the largest spider
in the world that she is not alone in her
desires for more seems. i take the sewing machine
outside & mend the cracks in the alleys.
i run the machine all night in the hopes
she would come & join me. i would tell her 
than i was once a spider too. i would show her 
the other six legs i have hidden inside my body.
i would break my guitar again just to free 
the strings. i would plead that show me
where she hides so that no one can find her.
how can one pull a string from their own body
& not dissipate? i'm getting smaller i can feel it.
not shrinking but undoing. i'm attaching 
a string to each tooth so that when i open
my mouth there's an instrument to make new sound.
i return to the place under the bridge
& the string is gone. maybe snapped by another 
human roaming this clear cool night or maybe
taken back by the spider. 
i leave the sewing machine
out on the curb for her. 
i find a loose thread
coming out of my finger. 
i snip it off.