Santa Tarantula

Now we praise her, her soft scopulae

for scaling glass, her silk spinnerets, always

reaching. There is shifting the egg sac often,

which a male arachnologist named brooding.

There is losing babies and calling this

our lives. There is singingsingingsinging, staring

into another mother’s face and saying it is still

the sun. Also, bittersweet sea smoke. Also,

burnt sugar hissing on the stove. There is scaphism:

death by milk and honey in a shallow dish.

There is shame surfacing like foam.

There is the most powerful species named johnnycashi,

and his hooks there to restrain our fangs during sex.

“If one crawls into my bed and I name it, will it be

nicer to me?” asks one man, as some of us cling

to trees, some to the soil sacristy. Praise

the tarantula woman still alive at forty. Praise her shifting

smalt of sky, her quiet stare, her morning face shriving

the sheets. This is how you kill a tarantula.

Cover her, and hope to God she suffocates.

Notes:

This poem received the 2019 Cosmonauts Avenue Poetry Prize and previously appeared on their website.

Source: Poetry (October 2023)