Daddy Longlegs Poem by Roger elkin

High flier, it didn’t take you long to shake
off that sleek leatherjacket look –
red Michelin-man gone grubby underground -

and finding wings -
skin-thin mediaeval glass -
begin a stuttering flight, Cyrillic calligraphy
against light, the long lean swoop, legs trailing
like herons taking off, skimming tips of grass,
lifting, ricocheting sideways and back, sashaying
in spastic dances on the breeze,
then helicoptering in whirling circlings,
and rising to the bob-bob-bobbing top
and down again,
abdomen dipping and curling,
cocking to union,
locking on, agogic in the speed of need,
the ecstasies of again again again…

And off. Away. Rising.
Up. Up up...

That was the Summer of your life;
the time of arrival.

Too soon were staggering toward Autumn,
old man’s nose in your shrimplike face,
wings flapping, flagging, getting nowhere slow,
being dragged to the ground,
down down
hinged legs a walking frame – angled, taut -
curled foot snagging its awkward boot
as you mauled across lawns – lurching, tired -
in a sad old progress,
fearful of Winter,
the betrayals of loss.