STEVE DUNN'S SPIDER

Down in the sweet pepper bushes,

down in the birches,

down by the manmade lake,

I walk across the causeway

avoiding Steve Dunn's spider,

the little recluse with the white violin on its back.

Down on the nudist's log,

down in the soggy water,

down by the fat girl's tried and true paradise,

I avoid the thin white threads

at any cost,

the week in bed,

the oozing ankle,

the convulsive tightening in the throat,

the year of remorse and burning tissue.

In the twenty-fourth circle,

in the twenty-fourth or twenty-fifth circle,

in the pool of warm blood,

in old Pomona Real,

I try to save myself,

[hold the slippery tree between my legs,

I talk to this or that Frenchman,

I talk to a sodomist,

I get ready for earthly bliss,

I go to the furthest limit,

I sink down of my own free will,

I lie on the wavy rocks

and I rise up,

one more time in the brilliant sunlight,

across from the pine trees,

across from the cedars,

king of the water,

lord of the greasy log,

lord of the lake.