Bird-Eating Spider

From the Andes
to this glass cage
inside a pet shop window.
"Who could want that?'
My friend's a psychotherapist:
"It could be … somebody's mother.'
I imagine a small man
with mousy hair, mousy
slippers and cardigan, devouring
through thick lenses,
as if it were television,
that box on the living-room table.
Pipe-smoke twists into a question:
"Shall I feed her today?'
Smugly, it's thumbs down.
All power is his now
except when dreams deliver him
to hairy claws that fracture
glass into a web of cracks,
scratch ravines in mahogany,
wreathe space with sticky veils.
The jungle is closing in!
He flutters wildly, inside
a cage of legs, till spent.
Next morning, that vertical
sheen discloses a knot,
darkly contracted.
Her eyes, brilliant microcosms,
reflect back the room
where he has lived his life.