ISSUE: Autumn 1977
I want you, spider: walker-on-the-ceiling,
creeping black thumb.
Here’s my forehead, the pad
for your landing. So slip
down your rope, that purest advance
of saliva, settle close
enough to my lips.
I’ll know what you know,
thank you, Exhort, tell the story
of the eight-leggers. Put your fur
next to mine, relax down here
on the pillow, You look like a priest
in a multi-colored cassock
so let’s confess
to each other: We’re beasts,
ten hands between us,
sharing one house, the same desires
and industry: to design
the web, live on what we catch
from air, and always returning,
always, to the spun eluctive cave.
