Bargaining
Meredith Trede
A tiny brown spider rappels along
the outdoor shower’s drainpipe. I flick
water at her web. Go away. Please.
Can we make a deal, Arachne? I don’t
want to harm your child. Intercede.
Protect our boy if he re-ups or deploys.
I must write with care. Syllables can turn
life topsy-turvy. It won’t be said. Never
call a fear by its name. Never say storm
when at sea. Ease the spell-casting spin
of words. My weave weakens. Athena,
you once took pity on a boasting girl,
shield my child, safeguard his humanity.
Meredith Trede’s collection, Tenement Threnody, persona poems in voices from her city childhood, is from Main Street Rag Press. Stephen F. Austin State University Press published Field Theory. A Toadlily Press founder, her chapbook, Out of the Book, was in Desire Path. Her extensive journal publications include Barrow Street, Cortland Review, Friends Journal, Witness, and The Paris Review. She was granted fellowships at Blue Mountain Center, Ragdale, Saltonstall, and the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. She serves on the Slapering Hol Press Advisory Committee.
Of her two poems in this issue of Collateral, Trede writes, “They are part of a manuscript that began when my grandson joined the Marines. The knot of fear that surrounds the poems has not been diminished by their writing. But it is only in writing that I can stumble my way through the fog of endless war and more unnecessary death, as the political becomes all the more personal.”