Confession—still usually makes me
feel like a deity
to swoop in
from outside
of her own
furiously honed ontology
and to smash—
the occasional floozy
brown spider
who scuttles alone
down the edge of
my basement hallway molding—
like I'm silently teaching
the whole universe
some ineffable lesson. But gradually,
spider by spider,
it's seeming
slightly more radical—
to learn
instead of
to teach the lessons, to pivot
on that
retributive foot
and leave unseen, to become
truly invincible
right here
on the earth,
as an indispensable
broker—not of mercy, but
nonchalance.
