I saw you there the night before,
a leggy black pearl against
the glossy white tub,
and made a note:

Spider. Remove before showering.

And the next morning remembered
too late,
and bore your sodden body to
the sunny deck rail where I
had meant to leave you, alive.

And lay you there gently, lifted
and lay you again,
shedding the water, and
once more, carefully.
Extended the fine filaments
of your eight legs, blew softly
on your corpse with sorry breath

that could not stir movement in the damp
mound of your perfect drowned body,
the book lungs and tracheal tubes
swamped and still.

And went back inside for a time,
wishing it otherwise, the day
barely underway and already
a hundred small wonders
dead all around, dead of
carelessness or meanness,
dead of forgetfulness.

Then wished to see you once more, even
lifeless on the rail,

where instead…