arachne

all the spiders in my house assemble
themselves into a beautiful girl,
standing on the ceiling, one foot 
in a web. i ask her if she would
like to get under the covers & 
she refuses, scurries on all fours
across the ceiling & into the bathroom
where there's still steam on 
the mirror from my shower. she tests
her hands on the fogged glass,
each print the shape of one of her spiders.

oh, arachne, the curses 
mythology puts us through. she cries
webs & sits on the lip of bath tub,
in my pajamas i sit beside her 
& i tell her that i don't think 
her myth even has a moral to it,
that athena is a selfish gold woman
for creating spiders from her.

i tell her that i want to know
what it feels like & she touches 
my sternum, bursting open
into dozens of tiny black spiders.
i spread. all over the room,
an excitement for new textures 
of feet across drywall & the slick
faces of doors. the fans, a cyclone.

all the while she takes & her knitting
needles & begins to make pairs
of finger-less gloves. the yarn 
pours out of her fingers. she crouches
in the living room. she thanks me
profusely but i'm too busy with 
my new bodies.

i get under the covers, all hundred-or-so
of me, but i never feel warm, something
about the outside skeleton makes me
feel like a doll. i feel, for the first
time, extremely beautiful as spiders.

i wonder if you would love me if you
found me like this before arachne 
changes me back. if you could lay down
in the nest of spiders & know 
something of me, i only ask because
you never know when you will wrong
a god, athena with her golden eyes 
watching from the bay window.

arachne comes back, scoops me up 
in her hands & blows into my spiders
until i form a body in bed again.
she gives me a pair of the gloves
she's been knitting & i put them on.
i help her back into the ceiling 
where she stands & faces the corner,
slowly unfurling back into spiders.

catching moths on the porch,
i toss them up in my room to feed her.