death wants more death, and its webs are full:

I remember my father's garage, how child-like

I would brush the corpses of flies

from the windows they thought were escape-

their sticky, ugly, vibrant bodies

shouting like dumb crazy dogs against the glass

only to spin and flit

in that second larger than hell or heaven

onto the edge of the ledge,

and then the spider from his dank hole

nervous and exposed

the puff of body swelling

hanging there

not really quite knowing,

and then knowing-

something sending it down its string,

the wet web,

toward the weak shield of buzzing,

the pulsing;

a last desperate moving hair-leg

there against the glass

there alive in the sun,

spun in white;

and almost like love:

the closing over,

the first hushed spider-sucking:

filling its sack

upon this thing that lived;

crouching there upon its back

drawing its certain blood

as the world goes by outside

and my temples scream

and I hurl the broom against them:

the spider dull with spider-anger

still thinking of its prey

and waving an amazed broken leg;

the fly very still,

a dirty speck stranded to straw;

I shake the killer loose

and he walks lame and peeved

towards some dark corner

but I intercept his dawdling

his crawling like some broken hero,

and the straws smash his legs

now waving

above his head

and looking

looking for the enemy

and somewhat valiant,

dying without apparent pain

simply crawling backward

piece by piece

leaving nothing there

until at last the red gut sack

splashes

its secrets,

and I run child-like

with God's anger a step behind,

back to simple sunlight,

wondering

as the world goes by

with curled smile

if anyone else

saw or sensed my crime