Invidia - Vanessa (a)

I see a spider through the window,
she’s missing a leg and so dances her path.
I trace my finger along that trail
smearing a line of clean through the muck.

Her abdomen is juicy, plump
and on it sits a crimson mark,
I think she’s handsome with her curves,
her oozy orbs, her spinneret.
Her submission to the cluttered wind

All glittery in thin sunlight, in morning that berates us all;
dew that tickles down her figure, teasing her for being broken.

There are threads loose on my hem
I pick them and they come undone.
Maybe, if I pick enough
I’ll pick my way to a new dress

From daddy’s wallet, his leather treasury;
a bounty of those paper-dresses,
the ones that are good at turning heads
like Meg’s or Melanie’s or Tessa’s, like them
I’ll boast my Daddy dresses.

I think I feel quite like this spider, frittering on fragment legs
tugging at the threads beneath her, waiting for a richer web.