by William Doreski
A spider in the men’s room sink
braces against the apocalypse.
A nut-brown asterisk big
as a silver dollar it sneers
as I reach for the faucet handle.
No, the drain is securely capped,
and besides, I don’t want to kill it,
only banish it from the bright
indoor space it dominates.
Upstairs in my office, comfy
in my three-way swiveling chair,
I assume that some dull student
will crush the thing in a paper
towel and trash it. Indian summer
brews in the treetops. Airplanes
scissor a mottled sky. Voices
whisper from my laptop, crooning
about love and longing, fast cars
and slow-dancing women. Essays
badly in need of grading sigh
on my desk. I should shovel them
into the recycling bin
and pretend I lost them when flashes
in the dawn suggested nuclear war.
The spider hasn’t panicked, though.
When I return to the men’s room
three hours later it maintains
its Zen detachment and pose.
A student combing his hair
ignores it. Another student
rushes from the room without washing
his hands at the occupied sink.
I wash at the other, safer sink
and avoid catching the spider’s
prismatic gaze. By tomorrow
it will be gone. If not, someone
will have to lie on the tile floor
and sacrifice self and ego
to complete the spider’s life cycle.
Then its tiny but tragic spirit
can abandon its papery shell
and skitter up the brick-hard air
and crown itself with stratosphere
in the manner of classical gods.
William Doreski lives in Peterborough, New Hampshire. He has taught at several colleges and universities. His most recent book of poetry is Cloud Mountain (2024). He has published three critical studies, including Robert Lowell’s Shifting Colors. His essays, poetry, fiction, and reviews have appeared in various journals.
