My parents set up the tent in a Christmas tree farm near
a six-lane highway
in southern California, we are near a grey overpass
sparse ponderosa
pines glint nearby in the smoldering gloom they get
the poles
aligned and stake the corners as the sun speared one last ray on the
dark rain clouds
and then there is a downpour the rain falls water tankers full
we take shelter
in the tent and I sit on the rough canvas flooring but it is
near an overpass
and the piercing engines of the semis shred the quiet around us, and
as the area floods
a carpet of spiders come running in their own wave, the fuzzy
wolf spiders and
orb weavers the dark tree spiders their front legs grabbing
forward onto the
canvas million-eyed aliens. I ask my parents why don’t we go
somewhere dry without spiders
like a nearby hotel and they said no we’re camping, and I sleep in
the wet canvas
tent with little spiders crawling around and over, dreams
borne off to spider
land where they use me as a carousel.
