—LIVIN’ ON A PRAYER

 

arthropods

 

        my brother stays busy eating spiders, spiders of every shape and size, hairy critters, gauzy-legged, some escaping, stitching up his nostrils, weaving among his dense nose hair until they bore through both tunnels, feasting on his eyes, laying their eggs in the nests they’ve made of his sockets, so that when I ask him why he raped me, he can look perplexed, instead of stupid or amused.