marriage is

killing a spider
hanging inches in front
of your window
as your wife screams

kill that motherfucker.
that is the biggest
goddamn thing
i've ever seen.

and you'll plead
that it's just a spider
and that it won't come
inside to hurt her,

but she's already thrusting
one of your old shoes
into your hand, saying
squash it with this

and you'll take the shoe,
its sole worn thin,
its off-white turned green
from years of yard work,

and you'll walk outside,
stand between the rose bush
and the overgrown hedge
and look at the web.

the spider looks back at you,
knowing, small hands waving,
beckoning your firm hand forward,
hungry for its karmic retribution

where he will be reborn a lion,
and you an antelope
on an african plain
that you'd read about that morning.

with its legs twitching and writhing
against the window pane,
its smear of a body likely still
smiling as it dreams dreams of

days spent lounging under a hot sun,
your carcass set before it, the flies
buzzarding around the pools of your blood,
and the spiders building webs to catch the flies.

you walk back inside, holding the shoe
reverently, as if it were
the gun of a fallen war hero
that killed hundreds.

you lie down to bed with your wife.
the night is warm with the sound of
crickets and neighborhood dogs barking
and the distant roar of lions.