On a ceiling in Verona

SPIDER-THREAD

Late winter gloom.  I’m stepping down

an ice-path to the river

like an Incan on his sliver

of Andean terrace (steep, frozen).

Downstream, the dark-eyed Jessie O.

(steamboat captain’s daughter,

great-grandmother)

was just a child, coming up from below

St. Louis... O Jessie Ophelia...

Cleopatra Desdemona...

Solominka, Marina...

frescoed on a ceiling in Verona-

by-Neva, maybe (in a dream).

& I, only mere boy,

half-yearn... imaginary

Longfellow, flaking off the stream...

Your dark water-crossroads, Pawnee-

Hecate.  Whirlpool

of Eurydice.  School

of Dante’s cinder-journey.  Three

ways, all phosphoric (thundering

falls).  Only to find

that light Diana-mind

Justinian burrowed, for his high welding –

only the lightest spider-thread

from Colchis dawn will do.

For Juliet.  You too,

my child, may skip the tightrope-tread.

2.19.16