On the Grotesque Origins of the Password

Orestes then recounts
how Iphigenia embroidered the scene
of the quarrel between
Atreus and Thyestes
on a fine web.

It was a large and well-fashioned
spider's web though odd
hunchbacked or bulbous
a joint of lamb suspended
in an arch window karrom
or a shoulder appearing
out of the air for
its scaffold was not a single pane
but a commingling of curved panes
such that it made for
an interesting surface
on which to slowly inscribe the scene;

that golden ram
which writhed and hovered in ecstasy
with the hands and feet
of a monarch
sewn on
and the nimbus of a god
added,

the whole tale then
of Orestes
becoming a form of password
to his sister's
memory system.