*

*

It looked like a black bean in the kitchen sink drain.

No one had eaten black beans—

not today, not yesterday

The bean unfurled one spiky leg, two legs,

then eight

A spider the size of a quarter

humped abdomen with a white dot in the center

*

I recoil in horror

*

What to do? Smash it? With what? A spoon?

No, too big for that approach—

Flush it back down the drain—yes!—with hot hot water

Run the water long to make sure

Put the rubber strainer in place

to keep the creature from reemerging

*

This archetypal fear of arachnids

must be built into our genes

The sudden, heart-gasping fear

the shriek, the leap backward

then the defense: shoe attack, broom, or tennis racket

*

Some braver souls capture and release

Not in this house

Errant spiders are forbidden to dwell here

dispatched by any means

never to squiggle across an arm

in the night