Each night, the spider slept with me. He was orange with black checkers and covered me up to my chin with his wooly body. He followed me in my dreams, hanging low above my head. I was scared and wanted to run, but I couldn’t move. In my sleep, he caressed my cheek with his furry paw, soft as the fringe of a cashmere blanket.
Death wears a chef hat and prepares spring meals underground. On the menu, foie gras made from your liver and aspic from your knees. Your bones become soup that seeps through the stones. The grass drinks your voice through thousands of thin straws. I breathe the steam that vanishes in light, under a robin’s wing.
We laughed like in the old times. You leaned against a pine tree I never saw before in my yard. When I looked closer, you were the pine tree. Scraggly, half-dry, and dirty, your body was devastated by chemicals and drought. You bent and dipped your branches into the clear pool. The water filled with pine needles and mud.
What will I do now with all this dirty water?
I’m sorry, you said. I just had to clean up a bit.
Your branches now looked greener, dripping. You smiled, and small pink blooms opened on the climbing rose behind you.
The damned are restless again, but they’ve been labeled a terrorist group. The bus drivers from River Styx Transit are still on strike. There are new tax hikes, and the crime rate is on the rise. The small dog of the earth bites off the noses and ears of corrupt politicians, but it could only do so much. Thank you for watching the underworld news. Good night.
The evening report
What did you do today? Did the butcher sell you a pig’s ear wrapped in bloody newspaper? Did you tell him how you’re going to cook it? Was it the news about our town? Have you read the dissident writing in the clouds? With whom did you discuss it? Beware, the walls are perked-up ears. The spider in the corner watches and listens when you talk to yourself.
The cockroach looks at me. It moves its gigantic antennae and wiggles its belly. I don’t dare cry, for my tears would bring it even closer. He can eat me, but not my little brother. He is so small, a doll, sleeping. I can hear the cockroach paws scratching the floor. Hang on, little brother. I’ll climb over you and protect you. When mother will unlock the door, she’ll find us embraced, smothered.
Claudia Serea is a Romanian-born poet who immigrated to the U.S. in 1995. Her poems and translations have appeared in 5 a.m., Meridian, Harpur Palate, Word Riot, Blood Orange Review, Cutthroat, Apple Valley Review, and many others. A two-time Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominee, she is the author of Angels & Beasts (Phoenicia Publishing, Canada, 2012), The System (Cold Hub Press, New Zealand, 2012), and A Dirt Road Hangs from the Sky (8th House Publishing, Canada, forthcoming). Visit her blog at http://cserea.tumblr.com/.
–Art by Sagi Kortler