Our Poem Of The Week, presented in association with Poetry Ireland, is Webbing, by Conor Cleary.
webbing
– for Toby
what would you say
if it turned out
I was a giant
mechanical
spider who
didn’t really
like the things we
both said we liked
if on further
inspection you
were to discover
my insides are
chock-full of
counterfeit silk
and I hated
your friend Rachel
what if my gums
concealed big steel
fangs needed to eat
that retracted
seamlessly
that envenomed
that were very
much part of me
I hope that you’d
take a step back
think rationally
try to see things
as seen from
my perspective
hung upside down
from the ceiling
About The Poet: Conor Cleary is from Tralee, Co Kerry and lives in Belfast. He is currently studying poetry at Queen’s University, where he was the recipient of this year’s Seamus Heaney Centre MA Award. He is a participant in this year’s Poetry Ireland Introduction Series. His poem Webbing was originally published in issue 121 of the Poetry Ireland Review (2017).
