Gallery

in the public square you are not to be questioned just admired for your dark demonstrations of being the hanging black spider waves its life at you perhaps the arachnid lover is demoralized by your hidden beauty hard to tell you cringe under its radiant otherness in the public museum take the tour backwards let the man with the megaphone mouth spin his webs not from the center out but outer to inner inwardness opens windows in closed walls be kind to the blank eyed watchers here is a beautiful oil on canvas there is a spider in the corner that no one notices for it has no frame its eight legs tremble The man in the bus-driver cap extols her still not living attractions the ugliness of the moment is memorized by the whole gallery only the Picasso remains free of the taint of paint A fat woman sighs into my face threads exude multiple silky spinnerets droop from sticky glands I want out the way I came in but am now too endangered to weave my way out of this carry out picture palace