Steven Searcy

Araneus

At nightfall, she creates
a place you never hope to enter —
circumnavigating spokes that shine
under the back porch floodlight, leaving fine
elastic strands, a pattern perfectly
imperfect, strong and fluttering in faint
breezes, a monument of malice and restraint,
where no one but the maker can be free.

And now the winding thread’s been spun —
her swirling work’s complete.
The web is done.
It’s time to eat.
She takes the center
and waits and waits and waits.

Steven Searcy is the author of Below the Brightness (Solum Press, 2024). His poems have appeared in Southern Poetry Review, Commonweal, The Windhover, UCity Review, and Autumn Sky Poetry Daily, among others. He lives with his wife and four sons in Atlanta, Georgia, where he works as an engineer in fiber optic telecommunications.