spider 

i have been talking too much 
to the spiders. i learn their webs 
& watch as their abdomens swell 
with buzzing lockets. we bounce 
from subject to subject. i never know 
what humans are supposed to talk about.
my partner says, “it’s like you fell
from the sky.” the spiders sometimes 
descend like gymnasts from the ceiling 
while i am hunched over a keyboard.
they mistake the screen for a fresh sun.
all the planets i know of are worn out.
i would be too if i were pulling rocks 
from the darkness. i don’t kill spiders 
instead i cradle them to elsewhere in our house.
i try to explain the cruelty that is 
a body. the light goes right through 
my spiders. the one i met yesterday 
could fit his whole life on
my thumb nail. the spiders rarely 
respond. when they do it’s in prophecies 
“soon we will knit” & “when the deer
get back to the moon.” 
those make more sense to me
than most of my life lately. 
sometimes i confide in them,
“i am unsure i have ever been 
where i should be.”
the needle-leg mother asks,
“could you weave?” i respond,
“yes.” she’s answers,
“then you have found a place.” 
in the morning i nearly walk into
a web with the precision of a
stained glass window. one panel missing 
no host. i too have left
a part of my sky unfinished.