Spider Eviction Day

On Spider Eviction Day I gather them up one by one and toss them out the door.

Ten would be a lot.

Thirteen would be a good, witchy number for such a task,

But there are never that many.

There were seven last time.

.

There are four in the bathroom.

I let them stay, because of the flies

That come in a whirlwind for a few weeks

In the summer.

However, it is September now and the invasion is over.

.

Tissue in hand,

I prepare to snatch them

To toss them outside,

When suddenly I hesitate and address them.

.

For every thousand flies I suck up with the Dustbuster

The spiders catch perhaps one,

And yet I let them stay.

.

“What are you even doing?” I ask,

“You cling motionless to the walls in the corners of this room during the most plentiful time of the year.

Where is your motivation?

What is your purpose?”

.

One time I was in the shower when the largest of the sisters

Descended down the wall.

Without my glasses, I had to draw close

To see her delicate mouth-parts moving as she

Drank from the droplets on the tile.

.

With their spindly legs and little, fat, gravity-defying bodies

They live lives

Beyond mammalian comprehension

Among their ephemeral architecture.

.

“What are you even doing?” I say,

“You could do so much more than sit there and wait. Even the cat in the other room

Who sleeps twenty hours a day

Is more active.”

.

When I suddenly realize

I should ask the same of myself.