make me feel
like a deity
to smash
the occasional hairy
brown spider
scuttling
down the length
of my hallway molding—
the way I'd swoop down
from outside
its ontology,
as if forcefully teaching
its whole phylum
a lesson.
But gradually,
it's begun to make me feel
like a casualty
to always be teaching,
never learning
from these sessions.
I've thought—could it be
even more radical still
to pivot and turn
on that retributive foot?
To tend, if not
to the gardens of mercy,
than at least
to the flowers
of nonchalance?
Can I yet learn to do
that which
daunts me most
and spurn a god
who must manifest
his worth?
And will
learning to do so
somehow make me
invincible
right here on earth?
