for Nien Cheng
Write your autobiography,
they said, everyone in the country
has done it, and they handed me
a roll of paper
and returned me to my cell,
where I watched the spider stumble
across the floor and crawl
under the cement toilet.
The weather had turned cold.
I’d spent months watching it
diligently loop its web—
perfectly symmetrical—
across the corner of the room.
Now, it seemed too feeble
to climb the wall. Above me,
the detached web waved its strands.
I began to write
as little as possible.
J.D. Scrimgeour is the inaugural poet laureate of Salem, Massachusetts. He is the author of six books of poetry, the most recent being Small, Rectangular, Reflected World (Nixes Mate, 2025) and two of nonfiction, including Themes for English B: A Professor’s Education In and Out of Class, which won the AWP Award for Nonfiction. Recent essays have appeared in Fourth Genre, Michigan Quarterly Review, Plume, and Poetry International. “The Great Fire,” will appear in his forthcoming multi-genre collection, Poet in High Street Park: Prose and Poetry for Modern Salem.
