The Widows Hour

I. A black widow hides the hour’s count, in a painted red glass, on the underside  of her belly. II. Unlike a snow white kitten, the hard shiny black widow receives not one loving caress. III. In the pale moonlight the black widow spins a silver web. It created a growing and binding spell-like enchantment. IV. A man and a woman are dancing through time. A man and a woman and a black widow are dancing through time. V. I do not know which I prefer, Us making love by a sizzling fire Or us making love on the cold wet sand, the black widow scurrying across the beach Or the moment we met. VI. A web repaired a broken window with finely spun silk. The shadow of the black widow remains hidden from view. The silence hanging in the web spoke a thousand words. VII. Descendants of Adam, Why do you fear this little spider so? Do you not see how the black widow splashes and plays in her bath as naturally as the child within you? VIII. I know that I know nothing and I remember everything all at once; I know, as well, that the black widow does not worry about what I know. IX. Dark spaces harbor the black widow. Shake out your shoes, shirts, and jackets after they’ve been on the floor. X. The black widow’s shadow encloses the stars like an eclipse, even I cannot overlook a cosmic event as rare as this. XI. She walked across the Nile in crystal slippers. Escaping, she never looked back over her ivory shoulder, the black widow’s shrill song flies through the wind and echoes on the water. XII. Grains of sand are filling the glass slowly. The black widow must be endlessly dreaming. XIII. The sun beat down while it rained. I was not moving and I was not going to move. In the peak of the thirteenth hour the black widow traced circles, after kissing me lightly on the  back of my hand.