Spiders All Over

There’s a body in the brush

With a still-swollen eye

And a tag around the hand

That says ‘Return Me’

I asked my sister

If she saw it

She said she did

But Mom pulled her away

And called the police

I said--

Did you scream?

She said she didn’t

But Mom did

Because the body

Had spiders all over

And Mom hates spiders

I said, Maybe it wasn’t the spiders

Or not just the spiders

Maybe the body

Made her scream

My sister said, No, it was the spiders

Just the spiders

Two years later

We found out the body

Was a gag

A joke

The police never told Mom

Because she ran right after

She called them

And never left a name

Or a number

We were all sitting out back

Sipping iced tea

Playing Monopoly

In the backyard

The first full day of summer break

And one of our neighbors who was over

Said something about

That dummy they found

Two years ago

In the brush

We all froze

We’d never talked about

The body in the brush
Or the spiders all over it

The whole thing was a prank,

Our neighbor said,

Nursing the iced tea,

One of my friends’ kids

Was mixed up in it

Kids, right?

He looked at me and my sister

When he said it

Even though by then

We were both

Well into our teen years

How’d they get the spiders on it,

My sister asked

The neighbor didn’t know

What she meant

The body, my sister repeated,

It was covered in--

But Mom dropped her glass

And it exploded

On the patio floor

Her hand was shaking

And nobody moved

Because glass

Was everywhere

A year after that

My sister had to be pulled

Away from the edge of a bridge

A car passing by

Saw her standing on the railing

Stopped

And managed to get to her

Right before she fell

She scratched and clawed at him

But he held tight

He was a former firefighter

And he told us later

That she wasn’t the first person

He’d had to hold on tight to

That didn’t want to be held

In the hospital

My sister wouldn’t answer

Any questions

But on her arm

Was a new tattoo

That none of us

Knew she had

One little spider

Crawling up her arm

I’m going to get more, she said

I’m going to get lots more

She fell asleep

Right after that

One strand of hair

Hanging down

In front of her right eye

That nobody

Dared

Touch