Adam Stockman

Whose Home Is This? 
 
A spider is dangling from my ceiling
Why does it find my home so appealing?
Is my house chock-full of spider-fun zones?
Does my soap smell like arachnid pheromones?
He’s frightening to me but maybe he’s handsome,
Perhaps he’s the Brad Pitt of spider-film fandom.
If it’s true that spiders have their own impressions,
Maybe that answers my original question.
Maybe my house keeps the spider enthralled
Because he doesn’t see it as my house at all.
It’s all just a story I’m telling myself:
“My house,” “my room,” “my bed,” “my shelf.”
When, after all, it’s just a pile of lumber,
The kind of place for which spiders might hunger.
Of my perspective he’s barely aware,
He’s not going to say, “Gosh, that human is scared.
Maybe I should find another dark hutch,
A spot where I don’t freak him out too much.”
Yet how sweet it would be if that’s how we felt,
Because, really, we’re spiders to everyone else.
In a forest we don’t see the animal beds
But a place to assemble our own deadly webs.
And we rarely give a thought to the beast’s outlook
As we chop down its beds, its walls, its nook. 
The squirrels likely ask, as they run from us, reeling,
Why does that thing find our home so appealing?

Adam Stockman works as a librarian at a private school in Bedford, NY. He is also a songwriter (on Spotify as both The Ossibles and Morgo Robinson.)