Today’s Poem

At Woods Edge Hiding Out

For five nights now our hero

has been sleepless on account

of the poison ivy and the steroids

used to get it gone. He hunts

spiders that hide behind

portraits of his mother and the long-

lost dog. A doctor once told him

that fangs are full of bacteria.

The poison’s not the point.

Under the skin motes of half-eaten

insect carcasses collect, calling up

bad blood and fester. The white

walls of our hero’s house are stippled

and smeared where books, boots

made a death mask with eight legs.

-Jason Braun