Tarantismo

Tarantismo

bachelor tarantulas swell over my front porch
after the lazed and fuzzing sun spits them out
every late summer,
like lumbering cacti rolling
with fresh fat legs

whiskered bodies feeling out the quality of the air
orange blue
lying low on nettles
the quality of the women spiders
crouching behind
lichen-crusted, coy stones

there is no one in my house, old fellows,
bewildered in a draining bathtub, lolling
in an armchair, leaning
out a window sighing
loud and earnest
with her eight hands clasped at her
new-blossom breast. no one
dreams of you but me.

it's the dance that does it, the
whirring when spiders rub static
together, the legs interlacing, the fingers

piles of drunken suitors at my feet
winking for the courtship poison

and me dancing off the porch
to get it out