Boadicea

The spiders knew I was back within seconds,
eyes glinting eightfold from spyholes.
And so they send their champion,
who snaps into view
like ink on a sail. She enters
from above, stretches
a bone-thin leg to shiver me,
fans the rest
and threatens to walk
three walls round, pausing
above my head, flexing
for a second
before the drop.
Christ, but she's huge.
Ambitious for tarantuladom
she spans index to thumb, knows
that I know she carries no poison
on her person, but knows too
that her spokey jerks
do more to jack my heart
than Prussian Blue.
She's probably had a harem
in her chariot, her tent,
her teeth, and that's just today.

And because after all
it is the wee hours
and my parents' snores harmonise
through the walls,
because she knows I'm 23
and shamed, she makes me thrash
for sleep under surveillance.