Robert Wrigley

[ian-gazarek.livejournal.com]

"Progress"

Web by web the ruined work of spiders
  marked his progress up the trail.
Some made clear by the right haft of light
  he waved away with his stick,
others clinging full across the face
  or making of his dark shirt
and jeans an odd diaphanous
  tweed not found in any store.
He never once broke stride or slowed,

though coming back he saw,
  by the tatters of the webs,
wind-swung, tangled and combined,
  two red-brown, heavy-bottomed spiders,
each devouring the other. Mandible to abdomen,
  they gnawed, and a pair of pale egg swags
swung under them, pendulous, albuminate,
  by gravity drawn down,
each one adorned by a single shimmering blue fly.