Like Dickinson’s spider
Could I too thread my hours into lace?
Spinnerets of strands offered to the wind?

What I mean is, let me
chase orb weavers. learn their liquid rapture.
Oh, for weaving a web, nearly blind

then eating it; no escape.

Instead, I am forever dismantling my way out
of wickered webs, crawling away and away
from mycorrhizal networks of distress.

My gods do not stir as spiders’ spit
white mouthfuls of delight.
Seven types of silk, gossamer

procession of strained starlight.

loneliness
disrobed hollows of
my own porcelain bones.

When Kashiana is not writing, she lives to embody her TEDx talk theme of Work as Worship into her every day. She currently serves as Managing Editor for Poets Reading the News. Her chapbook Crushed Anthills by Yavanika Press is a journey through 10 cities. Her last full-length collection, Woman by the Door, was released in 2022 with Apprentice House Press. Her latest collection is called Witching Hour and will be released in 2024 by Glass Lyre Press.