How You Leave

The night before driving to the mountain,
you want, very much, to be clean.
But the long-armed spider will not leave,
and you can’t kill—
it’s too maybe-coyote out in the dry-oak dark.
You exit the room, return,
watch her climb the tub’s slick white wall halfway,
then slide down again.
Each failure softens you against your terror.
You leave her there.
You go to sleep. You do not dream
of things crawling into you through various holes,
or the highway’s red, white, and pink azaleas
(that hasn’t happened yet),
or your lover’s face, so granite you are certain
it will not change, until you learn
that just like your own, their face is always changing.
In the morning, you use a glass
and a museum postcard to trap the spider.
You carry toss her from the balcony
towards the trees that smell like your childhood.