(a poem to one of the critters in the Planting Disabled Futures virtual reality tree world my collaborators and I are currently creating [https://www.petrakuppers.com/planting-disabled-futures] – this spider was concocted by students in Jason Woodworth-Hou’s class at Georgia Tech University)

elongate a pink marshmallow, puff finger mushrooms

in fungal transformation – I am sprouting –

 

this sprout, then the other, yet one more, over there, another

here I stand on eight ends, voluminous, toes thick and stumpy

 

your vertical lips blow me a big grey shimmer kiss

your round eyes like a mars rover’s mother

 

hover scan my world, scan deep inside my pillow womb

lilac extruded hollow as you and me, we wallow

 

companionable, bump into one another with tender gesture

flickety-flick, no harm, no foul, as we all ping, careen into

 

my soft flesh, your sweet bristles, I, you, we, in exoskeletal peel –

eight-time waltz, for sugar, fly, a silken keel –

 

to dance to – tiny – die in this universe

of a thousand million brilliant glitter eyes

 

a 3d-rendered spider with a pale green upper portion, light pink legs, and black eyes on a gray background