Doll eyes, he says
You have doll eyes
Of course.
Glassy, blind doll eyes
waiting for any random child to squeeze me to life
Bring me reaction.
My pupils hold tiny negatives of him.
He checks them for impairment.
Sitting side-by-side on a damp porch step
he tells me the story of the spiders
plunging mouth fangs into live, bound captives
melting and digesting their insides
leaving an empty shell
Brittle, used and dead.
Intact from the outside