Spider Silk
by Marcie Lynn Tentchoff

He crafted her from spider silk,
and cobweb dreams, and shadowed prayers
to creatures dark beyond all ken,
then breathed his yearning into her,
and watched her wake, and rise, and stretch,
all fragile, sparkling, dew drop pale.

She helped him greet his guests that night,
and charmed them, laughing in his arms
among the dancers, spraying drops
of midnight venom as she twirled.
He nodded as his rivals fell,
and drew her close beneath his cloak.

He watched her strengthen day by day,
to work his vengeance on the land,
her willful cruelty matching his,
but joyous, easy, conscience free.
"We'll rule the world." He kissed her hands,
and felt his heart leap as she smiled.

She spun out, reaching, hands like claws,
her lusts for power, pain and death,
growing as each conquest came,
while his lusts drained, and slacked to one,
his need for her, until at last,
while she still danced, he faded off
to spider silk, and cobweb dreams.

Marcie Lynn Tentchoff is an Aurora Award winning poet/writer from the West Coast of Canada. She lives with her family in a house surrounded by acres of green trees and bramble bushes, where cats, cougars, birds, bear, raccoons and other critters, both wild and semi-domesticated, prowl. Marcie's poems and stories have appeared in On Spec, Weird Tales, Aoife's Kiss, Talebones, and Dreams of Decadence, as well as in other magazines and anthologies.