Ode to the Mortar

I used to think you were for passing

through; seeds go in,

but only on their way to food.

Now I lift the pestle (louder,

more famous friend, no more

than long stone without

you), and see

you are no passing station.

Tossing home diameters,

trotting through the air

about their suburban business,

two spiders (who could joust,

with room to spare, on

my thumbnail) are happy.

They find crevices in you

the way I bump through potholes

on a bicycle. Their tempers

are more restrained,

never shouting to the sky

about the municipal council

who still, in five years,

has not filled in the one at my corner.

They never hurry to conference

about the damper regions below

that could erase their perfect

dryness, leave them unmoored

and starving, always on the climb.

Like the cat, who would eat

them if she saw them, they

do not comprehend risk

or reward so noisily.

They will not fall unless

the incomprehensible

intervenes. Spiders do not

try to predict impossibilities.

Their legs, so thin they tint

the air but keep from color,

just tap along. They are smaller

and paler than a cumin

seed. What use have they

for the noisy pestle,

when their concern is

your dark motherhood,

in which they can resist the quick

of life by stringing up a line,

hanging from it, finding chew

among their floorboards,

and never leaving home?

They can’t imagine

I would have to grind

these cumin seeds—

and I don’t, but my beans

are so flavorless, today,

and you are so inviting in your

quiet smooth utility, and sometimes

we should sacrifice others

to our pleasure. Even when

they cannot understand.