araknaphobic

she is afraid of spiders

the way they move

like the clowns in parades

swinging high above everybody's head

on their thin little legs

pretending that nothing would happen

if they fell 

tripping tumbling like the trees

after they call timber go crashing down

she told me once they reminded her

of puppets

that it looked like their little black bodies

were hanging from their stringy legs

and made her feel

as though maybe they were right side up

and she was the one facing the wrong way to gravity

makes all the blood rush to her head

and stay there till nothing makes sense

and that thats when she screamed

when the ceiling became the floor

and you weren't there anymore

but a stranger standing at the door

and turning and walking away

she said thats what she remembers most

why the spiders scare her

when you left that day

you threw open the door and the sun came in

lighting up the top of your head

like a halo, an avenging angel

and stretched across the frame

glistening in the midst of its tiny threads

was a black spider

hanging upside down while the room spun

and she fell

she's afraid of spiders 

but she cries in the night for you

maybe that's the difference

between fear and love

the one makes gravity your enemy

and the other centers gravity in him