love & spiders

love arrived
surprising as cobwebs
in their tiny cottage
where the wind
never stopped

firelight and breezes
gossiped with the shadows
and the cold drew them closer

he said “everywhere you look
you see at least two dead spiders”

on her forearm
were a chocolate mole
and a wild, blue smile

she said “starving spiders
mean functional fly wire”
and she opened a window

they watched
a daddy longlegs’ 
exoskeleton
flip and wander
caressing the wall
with its knuckles

they married and
the wind hustled on
running its tongue over leaf and lock 

one day he brought home 
a huge oak table
like a paperweight 
for their joy

webs flapped 
like laundry from its legs
and new spiders
delivered their lives
to the corners

he had eight legged dreams
skin fraught with crawling
and sweat blowing cold

but love clung on

a huntsman’s shell
like a tiny fist
between two windows