Ode to an Arachnid
I saw you in your lacy lair today;
Those threads of sticky trickery you weave.
Your silken snare for unsuspecting prey
Is steely artistry spun to deceive.
Ambrosial aerial tidbits flit into
Diaphanous exquisiteness… and death.
Your deft octet of legs, they writhed and wrapped
Your fresh and flapping manna right on cue.
A shudder scuttled over goosey flesh;
I gasped and gawped and grimaced as you snacked.
I heard one of your ilk lunched on a finch.
This fiend of fatal fang had sucked him dry.
Such eerie information makes me flinch,
Yet still I will not pass your wonder by;
To face my fear may force a long-sought cure.
I spy your lusty greed beneath the moon,
Entangled in a silver-spangled gleam
Of bristling, bulbous spider-bride allure
Feasting on a scrumptious little groom…
I fail to quell my shrill and hellish scream!
Susan Jarvis Bryant
