[38] Arachnophobia, Cody Kucker

Though it’s mid-autumn, this opening rose
will not be the last to do so.

There are two more clenched buds about to burst
into flowers that, like the rest,

will come to grace the web spun in the hazel
with a decadent mess of petals.

But beneath what lovers once plucked and plucked,
these regal pink ruins, yellowed

at their edges, each hoped dearly to be It,
a spider neither stirs nor sleeps.