Deadly Spider in My Car

Deadly Spider in My Car

The spider claims the car at night.

It waits where the visor folds,

thick body swollen with venom,

legs like black iron ready to strike.

It does not blink.

It does not breathe the way I do.

It listens for the throb in my veins,

and waits for stillness to sharpen its aim.

I hear it shifting in the silence,

threads drawn tight across the roof,

a trap spun out of hunger,

a map of how I will die.

The wheel is no longer mine.

The road bends toward a coffin’s mouth.

Every turn hums with the promise of a bite.

Even the air is webbed.

I grip the seat as though it were a prayer,

but the prayer has no power here.

There is only poison rehearsing its entrance,

and the shadow of legs above my head.

It is not a passenger.

It is the driver,

and I am the one carried,

to an ending written in silk.