William Wright: Wolf Spider and Sleep Paralysis
Three nights in succession, the earth has pulled dawn
to the chapel, the first light-smear like a thorax split,
blood-arc, sky a matrix of bone. Graves shimmer
like quartz on the hill, where loam craves
strong spring rain.
The chapel’s windows, toothed and gleaming. No one
knows why the yard’s trees hiss hymns. No one knows
how the spiders, deep in hydrangea, seal behind
them calipers of space, stitch gossamer
bloom to bloom.
Thus the heart moves to a warmer room, attuned
to April trees. Thus the bee is caught in clouds
of filament, wrapped, gored, and eaten.
No matter: the leaf still increases
in the eaves.
The storm grows, spiders scatter, and bent grass
acquiesces to summer. When thunder riots
foliage, rattles the panes, holy relics gleam
blue on the altar. The night will always
swagger forth and fall.