by Rollin Jewett
There’s a spider in my bed.
It’s creeping closer to my head.
It crawled out from the closet door
and climbed the bedspread from the floor.
I had no time to make the bed,
I’d barely even raised my head.
Before I’d had a chance to dress
the spider made its move, I guess.
And now it lays upon my cover,
where in fear I did discover
eight black eyes and eight fat legs
before I’d had my toast and eggs.
It comes here nearly every day.
I wish it would just crawl away.
I think it likes my nice clean sheets
But I hope it soon retreats.
I told my mom but she just said,
“Will you please go and make your bed.”
I guess she thinks that I?m a liar…
that there is no hairy spider!
Now its sleeping quietly
like the princess on the pea.
It doesn’t seem to mind a bit
that I am so freaked out by it.
What am I supposed to do?
Tell the hairy thing to “shoo!”?
If it wasn’t quite so large
I could possibly take charge.
But it’s bigger than my foot…
So I think I’ll just stay put.
I hope that it will not attack,
I think I’d have a cardiac!
Its fangs are scary, sharp and blue,
I bet they’re full of poison, too!
I’ve heard tarantulas can kill.
I’d better stay in bed until
my mom calls the exterminator…
Better yet, “The Terminator!”
Now it’s crawled beneath the sheet…
looking for something to eat?
I won’t be the food provider
for this black and hairy spider.
Maybe I should grab a shoe
and smack it ’til it’s black and blue.
No, I’d have to get too close…
and if it splattered — that’d be gross!
Shall I go and call the zoo?
I bet that they’d know what to do!
The zoo man surely has no dread
of getting spiders out of bed.
No, I will not call the zoo.
I know right now what I must do…
Tomorrow morn, without a sound…
Before that spider comes around,
and tries to sneak beneath the spread…
I will quickly make the bed!
Then the message will be clear
that spiders are not welcome here.
Then it’s own web it can spin,
and I will have my bed again!
So, I made my bed, you see…
and now my room is spider-free!
I only found out later on,
that it was hired by my mom…
If she’d just paid me instead,
I’d have always made the bed!
Rollin Jewett (aka Rollin Jarrett) is a playwright, screenwriter, actor, author, singer-songwriter & poet. Rollin’s screenwriting credits include the thriller Laws of Deception and the campy cult classic American Vampire. His poetry has recently appeared in Southern Fried Autopsies, Gathering Storm, Gravitas, and Penumbra and his short stories can be read in Fell Beasts and Fair, Ghost Stories: An Anthology, Open: Journal of Arts & Letters, Vagabonds: Anthology of the Mad Ones, Fantasia Divinity, and Coffin Bell among others. Rollin lives in Holly Springs, NC with his wife and son.
