meeting shelob

Caleigh Maffett

I watched intently as
She danced before me
Upon her ropes of web so glossy.

She spun across her stringy net,
Leaping about like an acrobat
Weaving a cord between her fingers that
Would keep her in the air.

She must have seen me watching
And fearfulness was catching
Her by the limbs and snatching
​Her need to dance and spin.

She caught my hand as I reached out,
Her fangs exposed, a teapot spout
And, biting down, had cast me out
Of her playful garden.

They called her a baboon
In a spider’s 
cocoon
Or so a few had told me.

Some lay the claim that
She is the same
As the creature Samwise trounces

To protect his master
From fatal disaster
In the pass of spider trenches.

I must admit
I am rather unfit
To answer people’s questions.

I cannot recall
The face that I saw,
But Shelob is not what beckons.