May 20

To wound the heart is to create it
 
 
I felt it flit across
the back of my hand

before I saw it
a fleeting shadow

a large spider
already gone

before the stomach drop
the untaught unease

I saw another stationed
on the orchid’s leathery leaf

another where the garden
abuts the foundation

another tracing the fall line
of the shower

I leave them alone now
some say age

make you less tolerant
but it is softening me like a blow—

house spiders
this as much their home as mine

and there are worse things
that linger unseen in the dark