NIGHT SPIDER
All day he waited, then
when the sun’s speech ended
he dangled out, swung like a drunk
still attached by one claw
to the tavern door.
All night he had endured the rain.
To him distant thunder is a feeling,
the welling of a tiny drop
of his own black blood, the wind
a chance to tense, to quiver, then fail
like a lonely face at a window
refused by the laughter inside.
With his swag he returns to the hole,
and the darkness reforms him.
He remains unseen and unknown
poised, alert, without knowing why,
eyeing life’s brilliant white bone.
