Beholden to a Spider
When the geraniums came in to spend winter on the big coffee table that
my Aunt Nancy gave me; the low, green table that matched a china
cupboard and some other odds and ends of furniture that I vaguely
remember from the spare room at my grandma's where my mom stayed when
she left us. A round table that is so big and so low that no one knew
what to do with it and besides it has a cigarette burn on it, I spotted a
golden spider in one of the plants. He was very small and drawn up into
a little box shape and I was busy trying to fit all the pots in the big
window and on the table to maximize the southern sunshine and I figured
he'd make his way off soon.
He was still there a few weeks later
when I pulled some of the yellowed leaves and old blooms off, hanging on
a tiny zigzag of web between two pink geranium blossoms.
Today I
had to pull off a good deal more yellowed leaves and shriveled blooms,
including the two now dry spires his web spanned. I gently set him down,
still perched on his dried pink stem, into the center of the plant.
It's too cold to put him outside now.
