Arachne at Home

by Amanda Ryan

Along the shady nooks,
around the shrouded angles,
you cast your myriad looks 

with your garnet eyes,
in your brown velour,
a sleek but get-back guise.

Leggish and very abdomen
you skit, skirt, and dart
beneath the ottoman

and back to the dusty dark
behind the bookshelves,
your young on a pin-sized heart.

Watching surfaces swept,
and messes made by small hands,
your work is safely kept

in rooms and rooms and rooms.
You keep to the sides of the sun
and cast your dreams on a loom, 

by Wisdom doomed to spin
with invisible arts
which men call common

but by which you beckon—
“all who need rest, stop here.”
With softest silks you reckon, 

then drive a fang through one ear.

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Amanda Ryan holds BAs in English Literature and Music from UC Davis and an MA in Theology and Letters from New Saint Andrews College. Her poetry has been published by the Orchard Poetry Journal, Ekstasis, Mezzo Cammin, and Grand Little Things. She lives in Bellevue, Washington, with her husband and kids.