Spider silk
Reaching for the black
and bulbous fruit
I risk the crab spider
opening its arms and
legs in defence
might it mistake
my finger for the body
of a honey bee
paralyse it, carry it away
into a brambly underworld
perhaps not
but still my fingers
bloodied by raking thorns
and broken berries
they are knotted
in discarded spider silk
a long-forgotten scaffold
with bundled bodies
of emptied hoverflies
© Daniel James Greenwood 2018
Daniel Greenwood 