Draping sleeves

of a white coat drag

and the seams of them are openly unraveling like spiderwebs.

I question the small stitch

missed. The flat white is a glass dam.

Fear and pain wells up on the other side.

I can see it in their eyes

threads of glass

coarse and aching.

What are words or tears or touch

when all is smooth and closed? I don’t

know either. I stand and watch the dam make a deep lake deeper

the fish drinking the blood water

and becoming fat. Alone

the spider travels from epicenter to edge

and the web is stark

and scentless beneath its legs.