The Spider in the Holiday House Motel

By José Emilio Pacheco
Translated by Peter Boyle

The spider’s been here.

Quick as a will-o-the-wisp,

tiny as a flea the spider scaled-down,

her final reduction to an almost microbial being.

She climbed into bed,

read something in the open book

and carried off a line in her claws.

Spider in the motel where no one knows anything about anyone,

she, the indifferent one, knows it all

and carries her knowledge: where?

To the negligible part of night

under her dark dominion,

some high castle

or country store of harmless silk

that our poor provisional but necessary

eyes won’t see – so the world can exist –

like her web.

Wrapped up in her own arrogance she goes by again.

She wipes out one line more,

ruins the meaning.

The spider is the miniaturisation of terror.

Push her away if you wish but don’t kill her.

Now you know what the spider’s trying to say.

Click here to listen to the poem in Spanish, read by José Emilio Pacheco.