Nana’s stationery box kept safe an old photograph, one I’d taken as a child.
A fine gift she gave me,
a disposable camera,
and one summer eve’s mischief in my parent’s garden.
She hung decorative silver balls, pilfered from the Christmas decorations chest,
from the trees
with silk ribbons
almost like spiders’ webs.
The kind you see strung with water pearls after it has rained, and
as precious as glinting beads, like a stolen necklace,
dropped
and its
fine silken threads
a delicate
trap
in what became as she struggled
a stubborn
awkward
tangle
that
clung to her mind
…clouding
into tissue that will not tear.
And when the spider comes
when that dark dark shadow comes
its eyes, a hundred mirrors reflecting a hundred heads
and sudden fragments of lost self chorusing: where are you now?
But Nana is free. She stands beneath a young apple tree,
reaching to its highest branch, glass bauble full of sunlight on a summer’s eve,
a silk ribbon in her hand.
Davina Colpman has published poetry in Aesthetica Magazine and been long-listed for the Fish International Poetry Prize. She’s a graduate of the UCLAex Writers Program and is a slush reader at Every Day Fiction.
6 Responses to “THREADS • by Davina Colpman”
Comments
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December 30th, 2008 at 3:46 am
A little piece of terror grips me when I read
fine silken threads
a delicate
trap
in what became as she struggled
a stubborn
awkward
tangle
that
clung to her mind
…clouding
into tissue that will not tear.
It works every time!
December 30th, 2008 at 12:14 pm
Unfortunately I tripped up at ’stationary’ – remember ‘e’ for envelopes – a little thing I know but it prevented me from enjoying the rest. Sorry.
December 30th, 2008 at 3:25 pm
Thank you for your comment, Sue which enabled me to fix the oversight. I hope you’ll read it again and enjoy this time.
December 31st, 2008 at 8:15 am
You are welcome – sorry to have been a bit picky!
I read it again of course and loved it. I found the ending especially poignant. Thanks for sharing. Sue
January 2nd, 2009 at 8:11 am
Thanks for your comments Oonah and Sue.
October 22nd, 2009 at 11:36 pm
This is a lovely poem. Went still, reading it.