Windowsill spider webs in the corners of  
my lungs.

It's always the tiny spiders that 
manage to get mistaken for beetles 
or ants-- I let them build webs in the
windowsill because they're so small and
patient like me-- dangerous and hungry
dressed in their thin-lady-bodies-- mother bodies--
refugees from the bushes-- they aren't the fat spiders--
the teeth spiders-- jump-ankle spiders--
neck bite spiders-- they wish they were born
as ants so they could be squashed under thumbs--
They are yearning for a quiet death
in the nest of their own ankle hair--
pulling loose the strands from 
from cut pony-tails, snipped-tied 
snipped tied and snip-tied to weave
the quilt fibers of a blanket they
knit for their dangerous children--
quiet children-- their construction of 
a matrix to die quiet in-- the cat's cradle of their
beds-- sleep spider-children-- she hangs the hammocks with
her mandibles and knit-needles. I admit I am
scared of the windowsill mothers but
only when I sleep because I can't watch
them. I trust the spiders when I can watch
their legs-- their housewife matrix building--
for children they wish to be born as ants--
they know they have children only to feared--
I tell the spiders to be still and not
escape down my throat as refuges while I sleep.
Stay in the window where I can watch them
and the sun can show off their children--
They try to knit their homes
in the caverns of my lungs-- breathe with me--
bite venom in my lute-belly ribs-- hammer-hammock
in the stacks of sore vertebrae by the legs of the
spider-children-- xylaphone tones from their teeth--
play quiet when I breathe-- 
play careful when I sleep-- I know we all
want a place to be safe and we aren't all
fat spiders-- we need places for the children
to pretend to be ants. We can't all be beetles
but breathing is something I want to do without
so many legs-- was I a spider mother? Was I a
lute or a knit-quilt in the windowsill?
Were you scared of me sitting in the window?
Stop biting me when we breathe-- I'm trying to sleep.
I'm telling you that I understand that you're scared.
I know you're not fat spiders and neither am I.
We can sing like xylophones and lie that
we're beetles or ants even if only
for a night. Sleep next to me-- we're 
refuges in our own skin. Scared of the bushes.
Scared of venom breathing.
Scared of the nests in our lungs--
wrapped tight in the spider blanket--
together as fellow mothers with children
trying to die quiet under thumbs.