Then there was the day
I showed the schoolchildren
the wolf spider I had
collected from the floor
and onto a page of paper
so as not to kill her but
to show her humanely
outside.
But before I could
get her to the door,
she slipped, like an idea,
off the page, and fell
to the white tile floor
where, to our surprise, her
so-many babies splashed
away like drops from an object
fallen in, say, a pond or a lake
or even an ocean, for
the size of the expanse of
water makes no difference;
it’s simply the impact and its
so-many arcs of consequence, the
trajectories already decided
by the speed and angle
of the fall.
And on this day, the mother
spider fell from perhaps two
feet and the expanse she hit
was solid white tile, but still
her children splashed so beautifully
off her back and away, not a one
hurt nor the mother, all
of whom scattered like drops
so quickly to the edges of the
slick and shiny floor, and to the walls
and any edge of darkness they
could find to get away from this
light, this broad and cold
openness, this sudden and barren air.
Published online at Barrow Street (4×2 Project)
Pete Follansbee: Published Poems 