Gold by Julianna McCarthy

First the bats
foraging, scouring gnats, mosquitoes
then swallows
snatching mites in the half light
where the cat works his way
through the tall grass
toward the golden orb weaver
waiting for darkness
at her loom
the this, then this
symmetry of slaughter
while an old moon swallows
the light.



Julianna McCarthy is an award-winning Los Angeles poet. Her poems have appeared in the Antioch Review, American Journal of Poetry, Catamaran, Nimrod, Hole in the Head, and others. Her first full-length collection, Night Surgery, is available from Blue Horse Press. She holds an MFA from New England College