eight legs. all dancing in a straight line. connecting by a silver cord, which they say you can see when you’re dead. or when you’re about to leave your body. but didn’t you do that already? i heard you did. i was in town the other day, and i was listening to the gossip on the closed circuit tv channels that lead into your basement apartment. they said your whole system of spider locomotion had folded up shop and moved on. i wonder what den or what burrow in what city you have gone to. i leave the bar knowing nothing which will help me now. i know only that ugly things come to those who wait. i’ve been piling up these pillows around my bed. in a futile attempt to sandbag off approaching dreams of you. keep away! keep away! shake your long hair over some other sleeper! i am an unlicensed receiver of your signal. i’m too poor to afford the converter box which will unscramble you from me. only may i sit and shiver in front of the cold static snowflakes stippling now my face.