We are under siege: a host of speckled spiders
extrude chainmail, not to armour themselves,
but to mesh us in behind enchanted windows.
The evening’s engineered elegance
by morning dangles a Tay Bridge disaster
for parcelled moths and beetles; spiders abseil
to mend their dew-sparked moth-holes and to weave
tilted trampolines that bob and sway
with every spurt of wind across the garden.
Their grey domestic cousins creep out of taps
and curtain rails and shrunken skirting boards
to gobble flies, regurgitate black pellets
in the bath, or hang their twitching larders
on dizzy scaffolds far above our reach.
Inside and out they velcro tight the doors
and wrap a curtain wall all round the house.
Our outpost falls to a swirl of busy spiders
silently, silkily taking over the world.