The Spider by Cameron Morse

It's just a moment—not  

worth much—where I'm 

holding the ladder 

for Lili. I look up at her 

in her p.j. bottoms, her sun 

hat, and there's this tiny 

black spider dangling 

from the heel of her old New 

Balance tennis shoes. 

She's in the air two stories tall. 

Already left the gutter 

scoop on the roof, out of reach, 

after we moved the silver 

staircase. Later, I match the image 

of a black widow 

to the spider I wiped away 

without a word. The article explains 

they crawl into the folds 

of clothes that are left to hang 

in dark corners. 

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Cameron Morse is Senior Reviews editor at Harbor Review, a poetry editor at Harbor Editions, and the author of six collections of poetry. His first, Fall Risk, won Glass Lyre Press’s 2018 Best Book Award. His latest is Far Other (Woodley Press, 2020). He holds and MFA from the University of Kansas City—Missouri and lives in Independence, Missouri, with his wife Lili and two children. For more information, check out his Facebook page or website.