Tarantula

The patience of stone, whose surface belies calm.
Neither warm nor cold, but unfeeling.

It digresses and turns inward, a vessel reversed
in course, in body, in function, the

outward notion separate but inclusive,
darkness expanding, the moist

earth crumbling yet holding its form:
acceptance of fate become

another’s mouth,
the means to closure and affirmation

driven not by lust nor fear
but through involuntary will.

Neither warm nor cold, but unfeeling.
The patience of stone.

“Tarantula” first appeared here in February 2015.