Travelers Welcome

Travelers Welcome

Sunday, April 1, 2012

The Tarantula in Traffic

by Al Ortolani

crawls out of the rocks,
a fist of hair and legs.
He scuttles across the highway
and traffic slows. A woman
holds her hand over her mouth
and steers around him. He
stops on the No Passing line,
a black splotch on yellow.
A truck behind the woman
centers itself over the line and
follows her. The tarantula,
startled by the truck’s shadow,
flinches, pulls its bulbous abdomen
closer to the asphalt. Two
chili cooks emerge from an RV
with a spatula and a skillet.
He rears his front legs.
They pose for photographs
as if ready to flip him
into the skillet. 

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