In tidying his garden shed he sweeps up
spiders’ webs without concern, like
so much dust and spiders too.

They wait for hours, patient as anglers,
their lines complex geometries of silk.
It takes a million years to get to this:
an hour to build a web that lasts a day;

With webs secure as safety-nets,
they lie in wait for acrobatic wasps to falter,
unsuspecting slap-stick moths to snag
their powder-wings on sticky silk…

He locks his shed.
Even as he’s walking down the path,
a ball of legs unfurls, fixes a line,
abseils down the window pane.