Calf Canyon

I am trying to tell my unborn daughter a story. It is an old story
that hangs on the spinneret tip of a spider's abdomen,
the spider's heart a bruise,
each chamber a stitch that nicks the copper blood
as it rushes through, each valve sighing out
like the hush that hung
lodged in everyone's lungs,
a silence stacked between plates on the drying rack,
a thrum that vibrated the blades of his kitchen knives.

With long-limbed free verse and highly textured prose, Calf Canyon builds an origin myth with unc...