Photography © Timothy Gager

 

Shared Bathroom at the Oceanic Hotel

Spider over the sink, in a bathroom
web was a giant—ghost of the past,

where I once crushed spiders in my bare hands,
batted them to the ground, crunched

under my right
Converse High-Top.

My mother told me that spiders were
reincarnated from someone we loved,

a miracle in ways unknown to
grasp.….

That span over a sink
is spread two feet across,

Queen in the middle, her
body of work inches above

my sightlines, I’d never noticed
until the day I had to duck.

 
 
Timothy Gager has published 18 books of fiction. He has had over 1000 works of fiction and poetry published, 17 nominated for the Pushcart Prize. His work also has been twice nominated for the Massachusetts Book Award, The Best of the Web, The Best Small Fictions Anthology and has been read on National Public Radio.