Spider Hole

                            Spider Hole

I watched a spider crawl through a hole in the grout of the tile of the sill of the window in my bathroom.
A yellow-brown hole stuck at the axis of the three planes; wall, sill and window. 
It’s black hair-like, stick-like, legs folded out onto the slick shiny tile
like time-lapse photography of a flower blooming. 
It’s dark head and brown hairless body squeezing,
dark against the white tiles, frosted window and cream painted walls,
as it pushes through into the open. 
Then a pause while he straightened, spreading his legs, lowering his body till almost flat on the tile.
In that pose he seemed painted. 
The size of a half dollar, thin in body, tiny in head.  His legs loosely angled. 
Then, like a blind man with a cane, one eyelash leg slipped over the bull-nosed lip of the sill.   
His feet stuck and pulled, almost sliding, along the paint textured wall.
In quick stabs he moved down and over, toward floor and where I sat.
I rolled the magazine I had been reading.  He moved closer, in shorter bursts, more reluctantly. 
He stopped, twisting his head; he’s spotted me. 
He spreads his legs to their full diameter, sinking his flat body near the wall. 
He waits, almost saint-like--
--for me to swing.
He falls.
His black tooth-brush-bristle legs flailed and then curled into his black and brown belly.
Dead.
I scoop him up with my magazine, and tip the top toward the garbage can. 
He slides down, falling weightless into a pile of used tissues and soap wrappers.
He tumbles down into the silver cylinder of the can, lost.