The spider competing for the prize
in geometry has made a net
of white lines in rhomboid modes
As judge I remove my shoes
to waver like a sailor
on rigging between great spars
as I walk across the spider's web
inch along thick silken ropes
held in the curl of my toes
while sudden at the edge of my eye
a moving pillar of a shape
like the mast of the tallest ship
to set sail from Japan.
