Daddy Longlegs
By Ted Kooser
Here, on fine long legs springy as steel,
a life rides, sealed in a small brown pill
that skims along over the basement floor
wrapped up in a simple obsession.
Eight legs reach out like the master ribs
of a web in which some thought is caught
dead center in its own small world,
a thought so far from the touch of things
that we can only guess at it. If mine,
it would be the secret dream
of walking alone across the floor of my life
with an easy grace, and with love enough
to live on at the center of myself.
Copyright Credit: "Daddy Longlegs" from Flying at Night: Poems 1965-1985 by Ted Kooser, © 1985. All rights are controlled by the University of Pittsburgh Press, Pittsburgh, PA 15260. Used by permission of the University of Pittsburgh Press.
Source: Flying at Night: Poems 1965-1985 (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2005)