I’d been in the new room about an hour
and I looked around asking the walls:
how long will we be friends?
when the spider scuttled across the room
and under the bed.

I went over and lifted the bed.
there was the spider.
now what?
I wasn’t going to kill her. she was the size of a kitten.
she was too hairy and had her own face.
I don’t know what I was going to do –
maybe shoo her out or ask her to split the rent

anyway right next to the spider was this CD –
compact discs, remember them? –
one of those blank orange ones you used to buy in packs
to burn stuff onto – burning media, remember that? –
and scrawled in smudged red marker across it was
“Susan and Denise, school bus, 11/06/2007”

I sat looking at it. analysing the title for clues.
maybe it was some kind of documentary.
a kid’s tv show.
a parent’s recording of a school trip.
I sat looking at it

until the spider stomped it to pieces with eight fuzzy boots,
her gnarly face not necessarily accusing
but relieved nonetheless
as I binned the pieces
and we proceeded to discuss living arrangements.