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Spiders in the Mirror |
This planet's most persistent spiders live in the driver's side mirror of his Lucino.
Every night, they bridge the space between the mirror and the rubber window frame
With a filmy white net, and feast on midnight corpses and early morning leftover
Courses of befuddled old flies and cannibalized post-coital spider males.
But every morning before he twists on his ignition, he pulls down that meticulous creation
So as to watch the windings of the asphalt world behind without a filter.
But there are days when he forgets,
When he is flustered by the persuasive flirtations of the swarthy sprinkler repairman
Or the urgent call from his mother's nursing home to report that she requires her winter coat.
On those days, when the nearly effortless act of destruction simply doesn't occur to him
Until he's already rolling through the first stop sign, feeling each panicked tick of his watch,
He hurries onto the highway as usual and waits for the wind to tear apart that subtle sticky trap.
But as he speeds along at 60, 70, 80 mph, still the slender silks remain,
Flapping through flashes of sunlight like a ghostly white kite arched against the sky
Until, at last, when he pulls off at his exit, the spiders' threads rest again, whole but hanging limp
Stretched and relaxed like the heel flaps on an old pair of nylons
Or the condom discarded under a bench in Golden Gate Park.
copyright 2008
Holly
Painter |
