No Flies on You

The web between the windowsill
And the back of the wingback chair
Involves an awful lot of lines.

But they’re not really lines, are they?
The word line is a metaphor.
They aren’t really spun threads either.

They’re analogous to worm silk
But made of quite different proteins
With different enough properties

That, despite a lot of science,
No one can wear web underwear.
Even web is a metaphor

In its Indo-European
Etymology: it meant weave.
This spiderweb is not textile.

It is not a technology.
Its strands of extruded proteins
Do not indicate practiced skill.

If you crave an analogy,
That’s it—your compulsion to speak,
To signal, to play at charades,

To comfort, attack, groom, describe,
Narrate, identify, and bond
By symbolic grunts and gestures

May be your set of behaviors
Most like the spider’s compulsive,
Obligatory spiderweb.

Words are snares. But then, we are learned,
In our specifics, like bird songs
Or whale calls across the oceans.

So we, too, are technology,
Unlike the elaborate web.
Call it whatever you want, then—

Lines, threads, architecture, parlor—
You were always your own target,
Snagged in your own entanglements.