Canzonetta

When I was a boy, curious about science and nature, my eldest sister gave me a book about spiders. The tarantula and black widow always gave me the creeps, and I’ve encountered both in places I’ve live, but the spider I feared most was Loxosceles reclusa – the brown recluse, also called the fiddleback or violin spider for the distinctive markings on its thorax.

The brown recluse is unimposing in size and appearance, rarely aggressive, and bites are uncommon. But its quiet nature masks a serious danger. A brown recluse bite is notoriously deceptive because it is often completely painless. Most victims don’t realize they’ve been bitten until hours or days later when the venom begins its work on the skin. While roughly 90% of bites cause only minor redness that resolves on its own, the remaining 10% can lead to necrosis requiring surgical debridement or skin grafts, crater-like scarring from the destruction of fat and muscle, red blood cell breakdown, acute kidney injury, and in rare cases, death.

The tarantula is too large to conceal itself. The widow announces her presence with her vivid red hourglass blazing against a jet black body. But the recluse strikes without warning, and by the time you understand what has happened, the damage is already done.

With this in mind, I set out to blend multiple layers of three unlikely subjects – a venomous spider, Russian composer Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, and an angry old woman – into a single haibun. The result is “Canzonetta.”

Haibun is my favorite form of poetry to write, presenting the challenge of combining title, prose and poetry into one complementary whole. I’m especially honored that the editors of Contemporary Haibun Online have published “Canzonetta” in the April 2026 issue.

Canzonetta

Tea at Auntie’s was as much about pomp as it was circumstance, with her Parian china and Darjeeling leaves steeped in a porcelain diffuser. One audible sip might be forgiven, but silence was expected when Tchaikovsky’s violin played. And one glance from those volcanic eyes over the rim of her cup was the only reminder to never mention the chipped saucer again.

necrosis
the subtle bite
of a recluse

Click here to read the April 2026 issue of Contemporary Haibun Online.