A poem by Barbara Brooks

Marbled Spider

          Its web stretches
across the trail.  A deer fly brushes
its sticky center.  The spider
watches as it struggles.

          As the web stills,
the spider crawls down,
wraps the body in a cocoon,
injects its venom.

          The spider sucks
its capture dry, snips the silken
husk from the snare,
removing any hint of death.

          Broken threads
repaired, the spider slides
under a leaf, legs poised
for another capture.

Barbara Brooks, author of The Catbird Sang and A Shell to Return to the Sea chapbooks, is a member of Poet Fools.  Her work has been accepted in Avalon Literary Review, Chagrin River Review, The Foundling Review, Blue Lake Review, Granny Smith Magazine, Third Wednesday, Shadow Road Quarterly, Indigo Mosaic, Muddy River Poetry Review, Boston Literary Magazine and online at Southern Women's Review, Poetry Quarterly, Big River Poetry, Agave Magazine among others.  She currently lives in North Carolina with her dog.