Illustration by Blair Thornley

I tore the web of a black and yellow spider in the brash of weeds and down she came on her surplus of legs each of which touched me and really the touch wasn’t much but then the way if a spider can she looked at me clearly somewhere between outraged and heartbroken made me say “I’m sorry to have wrecked your home your nest your larder” to which she said nothing only for an instant pouched on my wrist then swung herself off on the thinnest of strings back into the world. This pretty, this perilous world.