Your lovely, fragile legs
Your round, defenseless body
Zing a shot of terror
Through my jelly spine.

I shiver,
You scuttle.
I gasp,
You freeze.
Then scuttle
Again.

Who knows why
You descended
From your soft cobwebby pillows
Safe above my broom’s reach?

Why do you lurk
So ominously
So inscrutably
So terrifyingly
In my tub?

You are excluded
From my sacred assortment
Of things I may kill.

You pose no danger:
Neither to my body,
Nor my home,
Nor my food.
Upon death, your body will provide
No healing,
No shelter,
No nourishment.

But. The jelly
In my spine
Takes over.

Water on.
A brief swirl.
A pang of guilt,
Darkness passes through in my soul.
You are gone.
I bathe in peace.