Spider

 

In dark and quick pursuit he’d been,

That scuttling devil, dancing up

To check.  Afraid of him?  Not me.

And no intent of mashing him.

 

Swift as the blow of bad news, he

Raced a length of skirting-board,

Then stopped suddenly, splayed legs wide.

Morning; open the bedroom door;

 

There he waited for me – silent,

Patient, his smile invisible:

He knew he’d catch me up; he knew.

Legs tautened, he’d climbed up the wall.

 

That’s where I saw him last.  We stared

Across the void at each other.

The void, he promised me, was dark,

As shit-dark as he.  As for me –

I still refused to be afraid.