Terror, the scratch of thin, chitinous, way-too-many legs across porous drywall. Breath hissing, coating my tongue in whisper-light webs. Panic, skittering and skating through my belly and across my chest, strumming taut muscles and gnawing the back of my eyes. My teeth rattle in counterpoint….

Nothing as perfect as a steaming up of tea in thin, transparent china, thrown against a wall. Nothing as exquisite as a pretty in pink petit fours on a rose bespeckled platter smashed into a pillow or a vase of white roses ripped apart like…

Deft feared master of her craft nimble warrior spins an artful web all her own

in the window sill threadlike remains of eight legs colour leached by light eight eyes will not see again a tiny web hangs, tattered  

fat orb weaver squatting in her web trapping and wrapping a soft plucking from the edge announces a tiny doomed suitor

so elemental but spirituality leaves me wanting more

Only the harsh wind can open this blossom, the city the cement gray sky bringing out the red, yellow, and orange of the petals, its people The city, a morgue, no movement in its capillaries suddenly pumps to life its breath, hot and muggy, a…

O Holy One who governs the vast and endless spaces between the galaxies, yet cares for the sparrows sold two for a farthing, you fashioned this wee eight-legged engine, geometer of lethal gossamer, fly-slayer, death-weaver, rain-catcher, critter I swat with a furious slipper if I…

  I’m going to the garden. No, I’ll get the car. What do you mean? It’s not too far. Why do you always have to argue with me? I don’t. Why do you think the garden is too far? What? You said you were going…

Midnight feeder, morning porch booby-trapper, you hide in plain sight. Scaring humans much bigger and catching insects unaware. Your game is survival and deception. Intricate webbing catches the light and reveals a fortified trap. Patiently awaiting the next meal, and unaware of dread you create.