2023 Best of the Net Nominee

2024 Pushcart Prize Nominee

Not Killing a Spider

Yesterday, my colleague in the room next door
reported a sighting–
So disgusting! The ones that look like baby tarantulas.
Horrifying. I kill them on sight.

I am seated at my desk when you arrive,
feel you before I see you–
an uncanny sensation of weight
and dread in the air, then nothing–
but I know you are there,
and I cannot find my next breath.

Now I see you–
black mass of eight-legged menace,
and I consider my colleague’s quick solution–
the crush and crunch of dominion,
and this appeals for a moment–
but two of your eight segmented limbs,
the pair framing what I take for your head,
positioned on either side of venomous black scythes,
reach gently, slowly, into the air,
as I hear my father’s voice–
Spiders are friends.

My father never discarded things unnecessarily,
spiders or otherwise–
closet full of old tennis shoes fortified with duct tape,
baskets stacked with remnants
of worn out red plaid pajamas for dusting,
a toolbox filled with shards of bar soap
others would have thrown away
without a thought as to their second life as
material for coating wood screws.

This is how he cultivated his peace,
his place in the world,
and spiders were friends–
even the ones I imagined lurked
in the recesses of the cellar,
watching from little lairs of dust and shadow.

I have tried to see the world as my father did,
as he so wanted me to see it–
a place of good hearts and mercy
and potential for repair
and new uses and purposes and lives.

Yet, then, as now, I cannot help but notice
the dark things in the corners of the cellar–
ancient, otherworldly things,
alien to waxed floors and artificial light–
or any light at all.

I am not my father,
and I see dark things still–
but, as you raise and lower your arms,
Considering something in the air,
I find my breath again
in your return to the liminal
beyond desk and wall.

Elegy

Your paws have always reminded me
of a ballerina’s pointe shoes,
beauty in seal-brown silk.

You look at me with disdain
(as any self-respecting cat would)
as I gently scoop you up to help you climb
the last few steps to my office–
oh, excuse me–
your office.

You yowl in protest–
your voice still strong–
and I wonder how a sound
that resonates with such ferocity
can come from such a frail body,
diminished to next to nothing
in a period of weeks.

Tantrum over, pride restored,
you sit at my feet as I write,
cerulean eyes fixated on my lap–
which is also yours.

I pause and let you know I love you–
and I remember when you were a kitten
and used to wait for me at top of the stairs,
perched regally in the manner
of your ancient sister, the sphinx,
before bounding down to meet me at the door.

You seem content this evening,
sitting with me at my desk,
and I can feel the little rumble
from deep in your chest against my own–
a purring of tiny timpani,
a fanfare of feline affection–
too proud for andante con dolore.
You look up at me–
old eyes framed by long whiskers
the color of clotted cream.
Do you know?

I hold you now–
my arms wrapped around your body,
your dainty, dark-socked feet
indignant in a final pas de chat.
Beautiful girl–
I do not want to let you go.

Philip A. Lisi lives in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, where he teaches English at his high school alma mater by day and writes poetry and flash fiction by night alongside his family and the ghost of their cantankerous Wichienmaat cat, Sela. His work has appeared in Sparks of Calliope, The Abbey Review, Litbreak Magazine, Rosette Maleficarum, and the Serious Flash Fiction anthology.