Love, it’s a four-letter word
A chemical disturbance of the nerves
A rewiring and misfiring of our precious neural wiring
Spinning us up in its web.
A writing spider sat beside her
We all heard the tale
If it learns to write your name
And spells it overnight
Say goodbye,
Say hello to the light
Was this some rare magic then
In this villainous creature’s sin
Entrapping ensnaring and pulling us in
Don’t resist
The spider calls
Here, hear little sweetheart don’t be scared
I’m gonna build you a rocking chair
And if that rocking chair don’t rock
I’ll make you a laughing stock
And if you don’t fall fast asleep
I’ll bring you something warm to eat.
I saw it there beneath the tent
In the corner coiled it sits
As thunder rattled overhead
and Raindrops fell as though they bled
I saw the web twitch and it ran
This way that way back again
It spun and hopped and twists and stops
And the line runs parallel
I crane my head and there it is
The first letter written in silk
A curse is a most thoughtful gift.
She knows my name, this spider queen,
That’s how I hear her speak
That’s why I see her in my rearview
And when I’m trapped beneath
Some wooden table scared unable
To look at the spider that spun
Soaked to the bone and cold as a stone
The flies while alive did love their web
Their dear cocoon
Their fuzzy place
Their velvet room
That comfort that
Lets you relax
And mother tends to you
I hear the spider from inside her
As she spins the U
This was all so long ago,
But it finished the name, it is true.
The legend says if the spider writes
Your name by night that come the dawn
You will be past tense,
Empty clause
I tried to make the spider pause
As it wove the I in me
I asked it, begging, plaintively
Love, it’s a four letter word
The best of the season
The glittering squirm
That flits in your stomach when you burn
In the absence of someone
Alone
You hurt because you yearn
And when you burn is when you learn
The spider spit, up she runs
Kicks off the table in a frantic plunge
Slowly in a line of silk the letter I is spun.
Love, what a four letter word
To make it a spider is most absurd
It’s not a spider, nor a web
It’s a not a trap
It’s not a jail
In payment for the quarter
cast in the wishing well
The spider whispers MURIEL
MURIEL, AREN’T YOU SWEET
LOOK AT ME, LOOK CLOSE AND SEE
A mirage arose as though on the sand
As a wisp of the wind this ethereal hand
This magic gifted to this fabled spider
I really saw one as a child
In the rain by the riverside
We had been out on the land
When the williwaw took shape
And ran us all ashore
We sought cover and sat under
That ruddy picnic table
That’s when I saw the arachnid called
The golden weaver,
Hear its song.
It sat and watched me from its web
And seemed to whisper MURIEL
In a voice that seemed almost perverse
Profane, in fact,
a four letter word.
