PostPoems Be Artistic. Be Creative. Be Inspired!

 We hoped it would be strong and graceful---
hence, the extra limbs (at first, a bit clumsy).

We hoped it would be brightly observant---
hence, the ring of eyes about the head.

We hoped it would be, eventually, eloquent---
hence, four jaws at right angles, and tongues with barbs.

We hoped it would have the happiness of many friends---
hence, its desire for a hive, and hiving;

and that it would be creative, imaginative---
hence the many decorative webs it spun

{decorative, to us; but simply, instinctively, useful to it).

We hoped it would have had the best of us---
and it does,
slowly,
little by little;
the dripping mandibles have mangled us,
as we stare at each other, and it, as it feeds.

These silken cocoons are no longer needed to bind us:
these limbless torsos cannot move about,
except to turn our heads---
first, toward, in horror; and then, away, in disgust.

It laps up even the vomit we sometimes spew,
and the pus of our torn, infected flesh.

We hoped to begin a dynasty outpoured from our wedded love.
Now it drags about an egg case, bound to its hind parts by silk,
apparently able to reproduce by itself.

This is our own flesh and blood,
devouring our own flesh and blood,
muscle and bone, saving the soft organs for last---

the fullness and fellowship of a familial feast.