Meanwhile

She had a parched heart, Araneus Illaudatus.

She had a name

              in her own tongue, wasn’t

a Roman Senator, wasn’t

              orb-weaver

    

              with a rocking-chair and corn-cob pipe―

What

              could true her name, she was 

              wholly alien―

A fanged knob, body 

              big as my thumb―

              to the first joint.

                            ―

Poised for hours in her spun palace her

              deeply unreadable mind―

She drained the night-moths.

She’d disappear for a day or two,

              turn up bigger than before―

Blood-pumped

              until she split her seams, pulsed out

from her old skin, 

              flexing like a fist―

Illaudatus: 

              unpraised.

                            ―

Did I not wed her, did I not worship―

Hand-fast 

              to her twilight appearance 

every evening in summer―

              When she dropped to head-level I crawled

              into the lit house―

Sat up

              just inside the door, adrenalined, 

                            ―

              afraid―

Autumn came and the web sagged.

Winter came with its pit mouth

              and I stayed inside.

Now it’s spring and her egg’s hatched

              in the crook of the deck-chair―babies

              getting ready to balloon―

Soon they’ll hook the wind and 

              web up

in someone’s eaves, thimbles

              of blood and bite

                            ―

    

              at the center of the weave―

They’d fanned out over the canvas seat, they had

              a penchant for spinning.

A drive for blood and a drive to be, which is

              everyone’s condition…

I took a thin box and made one side a shuttle. 

              Started to airlift 

              the orange tribe― 

but made an orange smear. And so I smeared them all,

              her children.