She grasps her white orb egg sac

and runs for the cover of the rocks.

 

She has a brood, unlike me.

I envy her, resting in naturalness,

a kind of being I do not know.

 

I find her sisters hanging on to their own egg sacs

inside a nest of warm stones.

They hunker lower into the corners.

 

I am torn between rescue and the work I must do.

 

I say, I am sorry.

I am human, I can’t just let things be.

 

I prepare for the extension of the human house.

As long as I can, I will avoid the places with the spider moms.

I hope, under cover of night, they might move to safer ground.

I scratch at my ankle.

 

She says, I am sorry.

I am a spider, I had to bite.