Spider

Just inside the cupboard door
a large fat
spider
squats in solitude.

I sneak to my dressing table,
keeping my eyes on it.
Under my gaze
the arachnid flexes
to legs at once, low.

I shudder, not a disgust to savour;
shiver, make the spider scared.

It is large with insect blood,
looking gorged and impractical:
a huge ungainly
body which, I expect might
jump nimbly on its hairy stumps
without feet, hidden joints.

And after I have frozen it,
stiff with hairspray,
to the shelf,
it still looks wickedly at me
with glazed eyes;
I can only guess how many.