Recluse

Eight: Extremities armed for the call of the wild; the hunter marches.

Seven: Strings fanning into the damp corners of cardboard castles.

Six: Sections of articulation, do they bow? Your speculation.

Five: Fighting for survival after a brutal night’s rain.

Four: Flattened by the yellow boot of a passerby.

Three: Thirty-day passes, then come the kids.

Two: Teeth? No, jaws! Anything but for life.

One and three quarters: Oh, I can’t stand the eyes.

One and a half: They’re all looking at me, different shapes and size!!

One and a quarter: God, so many freakin’ legs!

One and a fifth: I can practically feel one coming up my back! Can you?

One and a sixth: I shudder seeing the images of them as I scratch these words to life.

One and a thirty-second: I can just picture one opening up the jaws on my hand to take a bite.

One: order of Coleoptera (Beetles, Mom!), it’s lunchtime.

None: Left in my bladder, I’m gonna freakin’ die.