Some critical mass of spider web
drifted above the bottomland today
northwest of town:
staring into the haze-warm blue
of a still noon sky so big and close
the farthest distance of the stratosphere
merged with the air before my eyes,
the faded edges of the dome
the whites of a single eye,
the deepening gradient of blue the iris,
the zenith the darkened clarity of pupil,
like a god’s-eye peering
into space peering into me,
the inter-distance of floaters
in my ocular humor, random photons
refracting into rods and cones, and yellow
rays defusing in the air above me
as I rested on the lawn and saw
strands of whispered white, flakes of silk
gossamer shards essing, twisting
slide-sailing slips of shimmer,
some like surging semen in liquid blue
the bloodless brilliance of life itself
others plummeting, failed parachutes, all
in silent resolution with the ground.