Silk
Alicia Krasner
O’ primal hunger
O’ primal thirst
Budapest, 1956
Refusing the Soviets children
Coworkers slumped over benches with holes through their heads
Tapped telephone conversations
Hidden microphones’ loom, suffocating
The Danube’s middle is speech’s only haven
When the tanks encroach the city Corpses strewn across the streets (again) The disarray unbars the prison Cargo cars’ serve deliverance
Faith lies beyond the cut electric fences Beyond the no man’s land grasses Past the watchtowers and their machine gun bullets
Freedom costs my grandparents their web They leap over the Atlantic into Canada After Faith Silk threads snapping Their web only a string until they birth my father But their triangle doesn’t last
My grandfather dies when my father is six Faith gallops away My grandmother chases it down New York Florida California Back in Europe Everytime my father weaves a web, he is torn away His mother pulls his hand until Faith winds her She’s alone and fallen Her doctorate a thorny laurel
My dad sees Faith in the Oil Boom Becomes a man that day Pulls his mother towards Houston Cashiering at a grocery store A breadwinner at thirteen Their American Dream scrappy, but at last seized
Faith is bridled, meanwhile But she’s unruly She’s fickle The halter he grips does not let him weave.
Mexico City, 1977
Life made my mother an axolotl
Her father dies when she’s fifteen The thread that suspended her severs It tears heart tissue from her She’s falling With what strands remain , she lassos herself back The web’s still there, but now’s slack She patches her wound
Every web has its spider Family misunderstandings can be venom A few years later, hers banishes her They’ve wrapped her limb tightly in silk Hope it squeezes sense into her She drives to forced independence in her Beetle
She’s head of a magazine during the day Counts pesos for tuition at night Counts pesos for dinner Some nights sleeps hungry But ambition sustains her Her limb falls off eventually but she regrows another Raw, pink, determined Eyes widen when they see she’s still swimming
She’s reaccepted into the web but sirens call across the Gulf “The Fountain of Success is in Miami Gutsy, she hops on a plane Her threads snap Others strain when the boarding door shuts
Turns out success is costly Meaningless when it’s lonely
She tries to expand her web with new threads But she’s a recent immigrant Naive She picks the threads that belong to spiders They trap her in a silk ball Take a bite out of her Desert her Her blood emptying After her mother visits and hacks her free She vows she’ll never anchor again to non-family
She heals, grows back everything
Miami Beach, 2018
Progeny inherits miswisdom
There were times I was my own parent
I struggled to walk the quaking ground during adolescence Desperately wanted the silk tethers to catch me if I misstepped The famine made me desperate But scowls met me when I confessed it
I impacted hard the ground when my feet failed Gasped in dust It burned me I had to cough, purge it Expectorated it with mucus Feeble I dragged myself through barren soil As others stayed behind Retching at my failures
But the ground still quaked The tethers were still loose Fed up I stood Still dreamt of a giant web Shiny and crystal
I couldn’t let the famine kill me I reassured myself that I could weave my own destiny But protective arms intercepted
“What are you doing?! They accosted, “Do you want to die? Everyone’s a disappointment until proven otherwise.”
The protective arms belonged to scarred bare-knuckles To footprints that I followed
That day They became ghastly cautions to adulthood
So I ran to the loom My foot on the pedal Frantic Fastened silk threads to my friends Short and taut If they left, I thought It was my doing But you can’t will people into staying
I woke and they were gone Our woven threads cut The web I had toiled so much on Was the size I inherited Small
After enough new threads Enough restarts Enough cuts The dreamer inside died
Hunger became debility in the small web When it growled I could only shush it Why weave to anybody, if it’s unclear who’s inconstant?
But my starved heart still gnawed My neglected biology one day pounced My breathes shallowed I began to sink The light dimmed I began to lose hold
I returned Yet decided it was enough I unwrapped the thread I kept close to avoid snagging It had been a noose
The cheery stoicism I had feigned masked a coward
Was I really strong if I feared burning from the sun? Or an embrace’s warmth?
I choose freedom I choose to live
I’m done rationing and surviving off morsels I deserve nourishment
I fend off the shame the world imposes Why should I not? If it would run to feed me if I faced the other hunger
O’ primal thirst
Budapest, 1956
Refusing the Soviets children
Coworkers slumped over benches with holes through their heads
Tapped telephone conversations
Hidden microphones’ loom, suffocating
The Danube’s middle is speech’s only haven
When the tanks encroach the city Corpses strewn across the streets (again) The disarray unbars the prison Cargo cars’ serve deliverance
Faith lies beyond the cut electric fences Beyond the no man’s land grasses Past the watchtowers and their machine gun bullets
Freedom costs my grandparents their web They leap over the Atlantic into Canada After Faith Silk threads snapping Their web only a string until they birth my father But their triangle doesn’t last
My grandfather dies when my father is six Faith gallops away My grandmother chases it down New York Florida California Back in Europe Everytime my father weaves a web, he is torn away His mother pulls his hand until Faith winds her She’s alone and fallen Her doctorate a thorny laurel
My dad sees Faith in the Oil Boom Becomes a man that day Pulls his mother towards Houston Cashiering at a grocery store A breadwinner at thirteen Their American Dream scrappy, but at last seized
Faith is bridled, meanwhile But she’s unruly She’s fickle The halter he grips does not let him weave.
Mexico City, 1977
Life made my mother an axolotl
Her father dies when she’s fifteen The thread that suspended her severs It tears heart tissue from her She’s falling With what strands remain , she lassos herself back The web’s still there, but now’s slack She patches her wound
Every web has its spider Family misunderstandings can be venom A few years later, hers banishes her They’ve wrapped her limb tightly in silk Hope it squeezes sense into her She drives to forced independence in her Beetle
She’s head of a magazine during the day Counts pesos for tuition at night Counts pesos for dinner Some nights sleeps hungry But ambition sustains her Her limb falls off eventually but she regrows another Raw, pink, determined Eyes widen when they see she’s still swimming
She’s reaccepted into the web but sirens call across the Gulf “The Fountain of Success is in Miami Gutsy, she hops on a plane Her threads snap Others strain when the boarding door shuts
Turns out success is costly Meaningless when it’s lonely
She tries to expand her web with new threads But she’s a recent immigrant Naive She picks the threads that belong to spiders They trap her in a silk ball Take a bite out of her Desert her Her blood emptying After her mother visits and hacks her free She vows she’ll never anchor again to non-family
She heals, grows back everything
Miami Beach, 2018
Progeny inherits miswisdom
There were times I was my own parent
I struggled to walk the quaking ground during adolescence Desperately wanted the silk tethers to catch me if I misstepped The famine made me desperate But scowls met me when I confessed it
I impacted hard the ground when my feet failed Gasped in dust It burned me I had to cough, purge it Expectorated it with mucus Feeble I dragged myself through barren soil As others stayed behind Retching at my failures
But the ground still quaked The tethers were still loose Fed up I stood Still dreamt of a giant web Shiny and crystal
I couldn’t let the famine kill me I reassured myself that I could weave my own destiny But protective arms intercepted
“What are you doing?! They accosted, “Do you want to die? Everyone’s a disappointment until proven otherwise.”
The protective arms belonged to scarred bare-knuckles To footprints that I followed
That day They became ghastly cautions to adulthood
So I ran to the loom My foot on the pedal Frantic Fastened silk threads to my friends Short and taut If they left, I thought It was my doing But you can’t will people into staying
I woke and they were gone Our woven threads cut The web I had toiled so much on Was the size I inherited Small
After enough new threads Enough restarts Enough cuts The dreamer inside died
Hunger became debility in the small web When it growled I could only shush it Why weave to anybody, if it’s unclear who’s inconstant?
But my starved heart still gnawed My neglected biology one day pounced My breathes shallowed I began to sink The light dimmed I began to lose hold
I returned Yet decided it was enough I unwrapped the thread I kept close to avoid snagging It had been a noose
The cheery stoicism I had feigned masked a coward
Was I really strong if I feared burning from the sun? Or an embrace’s warmth?
I choose freedom I choose to live
I’m done rationing and surviving off morsels I deserve nourishment
I fend off the shame the world imposes Why should I not? If it would run to feed me if I faced the other hunger
Alicia Krasner (HM '26) is a Mexican American poet and engineering student whose work explores inheritance, identity, and the emotional architectures of survival.