A Series of Poems About a Spider

Ode to the Spider Living Between My Window Pane and the Screen of My Window

You sit there basking in the sun.
Sometimes high,
Sometimes low.
You're always on the screen, not my window.
Does the screen feel better on your spider legs like Dr. Scholl's massaging insoles?
Or maybe you hope that if you sit there long enough
You'll melt through the screen like the
Ghost of a spider.
You've been stuck between for days.
You can't find your way out.
You must have crawled to the screen when my window was open.
You came from the inside, not the outside.
Don't you know outside will kill you as surely as living between the screen and my window pane?


Ode to the Spider that Used to be My Roommate

You and I were roommates before you crawled between.
We lived amicably together.
   I didn't know you were there.
   You didn't crawl down my throat in my sleep like spiders sometimes do,
   The sleep studies say.
We were good roommates.
Then you crawled between the window pane and the screen.
The warm, spring air must have called to your Spider senses
Just as they called to mine.
But you stayed too long.
   I shut the window.
   Now you are stuck and
   I know you are there.
Someday I will open the window.
If you are not already dead, I will kill you.
We used to be roommates—
Now I live in the world behind the glass
And you live between.


Ode to the Spider with the Overactive Spider Senses

You couldn't resist the call of Spring
the sweet Summer air
the cloud-studded sky
the smell of green, growing things.
Now you will die.


PS I feel that it would be irresponsible of me to not now research the traditional form of odes (is there a traditional form of ode?). If any of you lovelies have information on the Ode, please share.