In The Month Of Spiders

IN THE MONTH OF SPIDERS

In the midst of a major electrical storm,

the lightning cast an enchanting glow

on the webs above my door.

My little guests had all moved on though,

the bird of September soon to arrive,

and I too longed already for the protective heat of July.

One like two summers ago,

when out on the meadows near Baskin's Beach,

I'd made a new friend; her oval abdomen

smooth as leather,

broken in patterns of yellow and black,

centered between that magic number

of five and three combined.

It was then I realized those numbers ruled me,

and had so in fact all my life;

sums and quotients of, multiples and dividends...

quite beyond my control,

yet there was no question or phobia of it,

as if some omnipotent instinct had clued me in.

My phone number rang with it, and so did my address,

both of which I had no part in choosing.

Could it be, I too was some mammilian cross-phylum

of the group arachnida? Pondering the zodiac,

and my birth under the sign of Scorpio.

As for my friend, she would not have me,

her tiny mind occupied with more important things;

the hum of moth wing, cricket leg serenade.

But oh what power! This machine of instinct,

as rigamortic she clung to her silken engineering,

legs spring loaded…ready for the kill.

It reminded me of my own kind;

how easy the large under-estimate the small,

the females of my species seeming always attracted

to the animals with longer legs.

That's O.K. though…

I've still had my share of guests

wandered into my parlor.

I made a new friend in fact, the other day.

Her phone number even ends with the digit eight.

She's keeping me quite preoccupied,

though it may not be evident on the outside.

Silent I am, almost rigamortic,

waiting for that familiar ring,

as across the room my telephone sits;

only a fine thread separating the two of us.