SPIDERS

  
“Vacuuming Spiders”

I admire their geometrical patience,
the tidy way they wrap up leftovers,
their willingness to be the earth's
most diligent consumers of small bitternesses.

Sometimes at night I hear them
casting silk threads, clicking their spinnerets, 
plucking their webs like blind Irish harpists. 
I can almost taste the fruit of the fly
like sucking the pulp from a grape.

But when their webs on the ceiling
begin to converge, and the floor
glitters with shards of insect wings
I drag out the vacuum
and poke its terrible snout under the sofa, 
behind the radio—everywhere,

for this is the home of a human being 
and I must act like one
or the whole picture goes haywire.

-- Charles Goodrich