must look so small, undetectable even,
from the vantage point where I imagine 

a god could see me, and I do sometimes  
imagine a god like a sentient star

out beyond where our instruments 
could find it, then I talk myself 

out of the image. Out of the concept
entirely. From a distance, I know 

I’m an ant tunneling my way 
through sand between plastic panels, 

watched—or not—from outside. 
My puny movements on this planet, 

all the things I’ve done or built 
with my own body or mind, seem 

like nothing at all. But from the inside 
this life feels enormous, unlimited 

by the self—by selfness—
vaster even than the sparkling 

dark it can’t be seen from.

^{El Retiro, Colombia}

When I step naked into my shower,
I find, staring down at me,
its eight dark eyes peering over
the silver lip of the sprayer, a tarantula
the size of a bar of soap.

There’s a reason we tap out our shoes,
check behind pillows every night
before bed. Spiders and scorpions make
a daily pilgrimage of this house, through
windows and doors, to and from the jungle
that presses in on us from all sides.

How many have I displaced, or killed,
I wonder, looking up, surprised by this creature,
each of us weighing options: four pairs of legs
leaping into the falls and down the bluff
of my body. Or two, scrambling out
into the cold to fetch a broom.

And I think, not  my shower today, but  ours.

“You stay up there and look,” I hear myself say,
and with this a small peace forms between us.
My hands lather and scrub. The brown voyeur
drums one hairy finger just at the edge
of the cascade—that thin wet line
between  curious  and  afraid, where each of us
must make a home.

A simple recipe for dodging flies

                        in the heat at a barbecue spot

is as simple as the clear shine

                        of water zipped away in plastic

hanging around the ceiling’s periphery

                        in a dining room like ornaments

or omens. Flies drive themselves to delirium 

            with the sparkle differing from diamonds

and catch their last by swaying freezer bags. 

            A shimmer stuns the multiple views

in a fly’s eyes and misdirects their iridescent wings,

            christened from maggots and scat,

until they stutter and bump, and find their legs

            clustered like gathered stems of bouquets, 

on their backs and dried out 

            like empty green bottles on window sills  

before being swept into the trash, a heaven of sorts.