after putting on a sweatshirt

I left on the floor last night, I felt something

feathery tickle the back of my neck

so wiped it with my hand and saw, crawling

on my hand, a not-very-big black spider.

“EeeeeyaAHHH!!!” I screamed,

flapping my wrist and flinging the spider

to the carpet. “Motherfuckshit,”

I spluttered. (I had the heebie-jeebies.)

Keeping it in my sight

I grabbed an anthology of contemporary poetry

and dropped it on top of it, pressing down

like a paramedic on a chest.

“Sayonara,” I said. But when I lifted

the book up, the spider wasn’t dead.

It looked like a booger, tinged with blood.

Its broken legs gave little kicks.

Would you believe me if I said I glimpsed

myself in that moment, a crippled widower

suffering before death?

I placed the book back over it

and pressed down, harder.