Along Came a Spider

Granddad used to wash his hair with Ivory soap,

ignoring the shampoo in the corner.

I brush my teeth

and medicate my face.

I'm alone in bed

except one tiny spider,

scrambling away from my giant pen.

Flick it away and it lands,

clings,

and continues

across the expressive sheets.

Flick it away,

it regroups it goes, goes.

The moon here is not my Athena.

It is chalk on the huddled downtown spikes

and all the highway overpasses, billboards, and gas stations,

the first meager trappings of some eventual hell.

I remember thinking 2004 -

a svelte apartment,

new year’s eve parties,

salvation in the afternoon -

now I'm sleeping inches away from the floor,

in the company of spiders,

not yearning for revolution as my youth would warrant.

I have no, like, screenplay to sell to Jollywood.

I gave up on

what it was,

what was it?

What it was

was Granddad’s soapy white hair.