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Housewife

When the spiders come

inside, surprised off

the cacti that summered out,

and string up the ceiling,

and lace the white curtain

across in the fine light,

the beauties, I breathe them down.

Unpinned, they fall

into my fine-lipped cup,

the paper lid on

through the whole house

to the sunk garden,

the hopes handed out, and staying out.

from Inside Spiders

Copyright © Persea Books 2013
Used with the permission of The Permissions Company, Inc.
on behalf of Persea Books.

Published in Leslie Shinn Poems

This program is supported in part by a grant from the Idaho Humanities Council, a State-based program of the National Endowment for the Humanities.

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