pinster

The red hourglass was the giveaway.
Only in the missionary position
did the dark parlours of Havisham emerge.
Glue dripped down, streamed down like warm, thin juice.
On the ceiling, silent prayers of fluttering moths
stole about shifting for light and lost lips.
All was enrapture wrapped in silk, but coiled
- and as inflexible as steel wire.
In this troubled wonderland of Gothic trappings,
a dark spinster waited, her large venom sacs
primed to paralyze passing flights of caprice.
 
In gloom, stained ink trails spread blotted messages,
while loomers embroidered and fabricated
dazzling spun worlds of distant wonder webs,
jewelled by dawn's dew and dusk's cooling embers.
 
A tapestry indeed, but not that.
 
The faded manuscripts had been returned from yore,
leaving one bound volume alone, upright,
proclaiming in triumphant filigree its one title.  
All had been ill-augured myth, foxed pages
creased; heavy typeface left frowned.
The stave had failed to flow its majestic music.
And so, the black spinster spun away,
and left her prey to weave out of the maze
into a bright, clear, blue gaze of recovery.
To intimacy, where sacred songs would tell
of light places and where footsteps fell softly.
 
A tapestry that now in deed is that.