Mortal Wounds

How came it here unbidden
 and bleeding?—in its youth
disregarding mortal wounds
 in the name of a new name
it had given the old world
 and paraded through streets
in songs and sigiled banners
 on a thousand thousand legs.

How came it here unwilling?—
 to defy all circumscription
or prescription—explanation
 of the taught braids holding
from the inner to the outer
 all its outer parts together
while the inner on inspection
 boasts not one finger nimble
enough to tie a simple knot.

How can it yet move if death
 on eight legs perches proudly
on the web that no one spun
 in which its limbs are caught?