The spider does not recognize the woman as human
as it crawls across her stiff, starched collar
en route to the dark corner of the open coffin. There is nothing here
that would tell it that this is a person, no warmth
emanating from her flesh, no pulse beneath the pale, white skin
no blood. The spider might as well be crawling over
the folded hands of a marble statue, the still chest
of a toppled goliath, a jumble of broken doll parts.
If the spider were to recognize the woman
as such, would it surmise that her blood had been removed
by something like itself, some massive creature that drained blood
from its victims, replacing all bodily fluids with corrosive liquid
leaving the outer shell of the corpse to fade in on itself
slowly, as though collapsed by a slow leak or a steady hand?
And would our little spider fear this creature that could drain
something as large as this dead woman, would it
look elsewhere than the coffin for a safe place for its web
perhaps continue on to the far corner of the chapel instead?