Emerging from a black cocoon,
eight spiny legs extend.
The joints and folded limbs stretch out
clicking as they bend,
to grow ten times as long-
a large and looming spider.
The web it weaves is silky smooth-
by spindly legs stretched taut-
yet paper-thin, spread large and strong
for every victim caught.
Stretched twenty times as long,
the web grows ever wider.
Then the noise of wings approaches:
a thousand tiny flies.
An army of wet-winged bullets
the spider's web defies.
A flimsy shield of thread
catches fifty times its size.
When finally the assault ends-
the spider’s worth fulfilled-
it then withdraws, tired and limp;
fatigued from every kill.
Fang still dripping venom
or at least until it dries.
A hundred times more deadly
Than its tiny size belies:
An umbrella like a black spider
beneath dark and rumbling skies-
always at the ready
because everybody dies.
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