Title: Death’s web

Author: ELIZABETH SMITHER

In: Sport 31: Spring 2003

Publication details: Fergus Barrowman, November 2003

Part of: Sport

Keywords: Verse Literature

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Sport 31: Spring 2003

Death's web

page 44

Death's web

Today there is a fine webbing
on my mother's face. She looks
through it, as if accustomed

in a theme park ride
to have these cotton threads
brush and lightly settle.

Are not her wrinkles deep?
Is this not the lightest touch
which she might desire

a softening of her vision
as on the Ghost Train ride
as a young bright bride

accompanied by her husband
determined to be no less brave
when the cotton/cobwebs parted

and the train plunged into blackness
on its fake/fear slide.
Then there was light and daze

and now, a presage. She smiles
but sinks too, as if
a light weight is meticulously measured.