A black widow tends two webs in different corners of my bathroom.
She crawls back and forth on the white plaster wall between her traps,
eats from the abdomen of a millipede first,
head of a pill bug next.
A male widow doesn't spin a web.
He destroys a female’s snare so other males are not attracted to her,
and sacrifices himself after an involved courtship
in which he gently binds her legs with his silk.
After my bath, water dripping on the floor,
the widow crawls from a nook, rests her carapace over a droplet.
Black widows don’t need to drink water;
they get ample fluids from their prey.
With the flashlight on my phone beamed at her head
I see her palps moving, flicking droplets onto her body,
shaking them off.
