The last two summers had brought  false widows

out onto window sills, eaves and sundry surfaces

 hunched up or splayed according to chance.

The summerhouse, home to a cocoon, was overstacked

with tiered objects that I occasionally disturbed

to reveal  dark access points musty from winter damp,

half obscured  by jaundiced plastic windows

turned opaque by years of heat.

 

I had a fancy to search for one item,

reached down with a firm hand

when a soft dark pellet apparently fired itself

across the bare flooring, too quick to define

but my sense of its size was a shock in that half a second

before it went to ground.

I resolutely closed the door  and walked away

leaving the problem for another day. 

.