Photography © Edward S. Gault
Venomous Spider
Viagra is synthetic. That is why
Evangelists for nature recommend
Not taking it, and eating oyster pie
Or cocoa, or a saffron-ginseng blend.
Miraculous fulfilment may ensue
Or not: the science isn’t there to prop
Up claims—but science does know spiders who
Serve venom that prevents a rodent’s flop …
So if you buy bananas and get bit,
Provided you survive the spider’s bite,
It augurs well, what nature put in it
Delivers oomph—you learn, to your delight,
Exotic-spider deadly venom will
Rejuvenate the victims it can’t kill!
Mike Mesterton-Gibbons is a Professor Emeritus of Mathematics at Florida State University who has returned to live in his native England. His acrostic sonnets have appeared in Autumn Sky Poetry Daily, Better Than Starbucks, The Creativity Webzine, Current Conservation, the Ekphrastic Review, Grand Little Things, Light, Lighten Up Online, MONO., the New Verse News, Oddball Magazine, Rat’s Ass Review, the Satirist, the Washington Post and WestWard Quarterly. The poem was prompted by the Independent story, “Supermarket evacuated after spider whose bite can cause painful erections or death spotted.”
Edward S. Gault is a poet and fine arts photographer living in Brighton, Massachusetts. His work has appeared in Oddball Magazine, Spectrum, Wilderness House Literary Review, Interlude, Currents, and Encore.
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