while waiting for the biopsy results.

The book­mark is idling there for us,

untime­ly, in the worn copy; it’s almost bedtime,

so we open our ritual pages. Of course, lit­er­ary arachnids

don’t course blood, but they do have a heart

beating some sub­stance, and I’m still bleeding

red from the needle. Time injects slow poison

into an unfor­tu­nate bug in a silk web,

snagged on self-pity. Spelling out one word

of sticky con­jec­ture, then another. She is languishing.

The sac holds 514 eggs. They will flourish,

Wilbur assures. But my egg—almost four now—

doesn’t under­stand why I pass the book to her dad

for the fatal para­graph. I feel her heart stop

even though I don’t hear him speak it. Alone,

bal­anc­ing eight shaky legs on a barn beam.

I am trying to summon her.