Tia Factor, Shelter, 2015 (Artist Website, Instagram)
Oil paint, acrylic ink, and spray paint on wood panel
6” x 6”
Porous. All I build is full of holes. I make a line
and the wind whistles through it. I'm so used to this music/can
sing it by heart. Where can a fragile thing keep
the kids? I’m a creature that takes home
from other stuff. Rigs the world with sticky wire,
connect-the-dots, that's mine, mine,
forest I hover over like
some sky god, like cephalopod, the lurk
and the very real ink—but all I make
quakes.
I eat several times a day, more
than my bodyweight, thick-middled,
motherfucking wasteful. What I wouldn't
take for a shell. This is why I rove the north
my babies tucked nursery, like a hostess SnoBall
I carry in my teeth,
aren't I a cutie? All I make
has the strength of nothing.
Spiders like I
have to terrify
before you realize how quick
our exoskeleton caves, yields up
our jelly interior. All we are,
ready to combust under magnifying glass,
spotlight, under just a bit of pressure.