Aphonopelma hentzi
by Nancy Beauregard
Furrows by James Thompson. Hand-colored intaglio on paper; 7 x 7 inches. First appeared in HDJ No. 7, Spring 2008.
Aphonopelma hentzi
black birds bobbing for oil
in stripped fields of burnt weeds
fire ant colonies tarantula
jay walks highway 285
lifts each leg slowly tests reaches for
scorched tar
diesel waves from semi-trucks
raise orange tinted hairs
in warning tarantula
steps around flattened bodies
driven to cross roads on its search
for love
Nancy Beauregard lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico, with her daughter and two feisty Maine Coon cats. She holds a BFA from the Institute of American Indian Arts and an MFA from Western Colorado University. Her work has appeared in Duck Head Journal, The Santa Fe Literary Review, Sky Island Journal, The Normal School, and Tiny Seed Literary Journal, among others, and in her poetry chapbook, I Heard a Train. Her recent accolades include first place in the 2022 Eugene V. Shea National Poetry Contest and first runner-up in the 2022 HeartWood Literary Magazine Poetry Prize. Follow her on Instagram @murderedinanovel.