Elegy for Ernest
© by Taylor Mallay
A brown dotted body
with eight lean legs
hid behind a corner
of my old tea tin pencil holder,
like a toddler waiting
to be welcomed in
by a working mother.
No bigger than
the smallest pink eraser,
I watched his quick movements
as he flickered across
my morning station:
testing the edge
of a coffee-kissed hardcover,
stoic at a BIC cap’s peak,
seized by the sight of a bright
blue lamp, and finally,
basking in the heat offered
beneath its floral shade –
each point of exploration
connected by a thread
so lithe it leaned up
(even spiders need safety lines,
it seems). For a few days,
this cheap metal desk
was Antarctica to an
arachnid Shackleton,
who then returned
to the circle of light,
curled his little legs inward,
and fell asleep in the snow.
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