In Short – Issue 5 (Spring 2026)

May 31, 2026

Image credit: Untitled #1 by Eman Shumail

Ingest, Inject, Eat, Absorb

By Danielle Harms

When the wolf spider jumps onto the mouth of my big toe, it’s more reflex and less attack. We have surprised one another. Wolf spiders live in sheltered crevices—like between the slats of the wood-fired hot tub we fill with a hose here in Northern Wisconsin. Through the steam, I see her perched on my toenail and try not to panic. My 5-year-old is in the tub with me. He’s under the water, holding his breath, and is newly afraid of spiders. But this one twitches herself away before I can do anything. I swear, her legs never move.

Unlike other spiders, who abandon their egg sacs on plant stalks or stones, female wolf spiders carry their young on their backs. After laying hundreds of eggs in a silk sac she’s spun herself, she’ll carry it on her spinneret until they hatch. Once she rips open the sac to release them, she’ll carry her young on her back for 10 days. Her silk serves as homegrown seatbelt, securing the spiderlings to her body.

While trying to complete her escape, the wolf spider falls into the water, and I flail so she won’t touch me. Red pine trees cast shadows on us both. The water subdues her. Her body is vibrating like rough bark. I lean forward to see if this is from the waves of my child’s kicks or the bodies of her young riding on her back. But she won’t hold still enough for me to see. She curls her legs at strange angles, trying to find a way out. She is a boat of a mother, fighting for her life.

My child runs out of air. He surfaces, goggles half full of water. I position myself in front of the spider, and he doesn’t notice. Instead, he tells me he set a new record for holding his breath, then dives under the water again. I look at the wolf spider, trying to parse what I see, to sort heads from legs. My skull prickles. Rain falls and turns to sleet.

Spiders are not poisonous, but venomous. Poison is ingested, venom injected. You eat poison but absorb venom. Wolf spiders sting but don’t bite. And they don’t swim either. This one is simply trying to survive.

With my hand, I nudge the mother-spider toward a cedar slat, and she uncrumples her legs. I think I see a hundred spiderlings there on her back. But is that because I want to? Under the surface, my child reaches for my knees. I shake my foot, but nothing’s there. When I look back, the mother-spider is gone. She returns to her home and leaves behind a wet smudge on the wood.

Somewhere near the dark cave of the stove, she is finally resting. Or hiding. Or finding something to feed.

Climbing his way up my leg, my child surfaces for air.

Danielle Harms (she/her) writes from Wisconsin, where she earned a PhD from UW-Milwaukee and was Cream City Review's nonfiction editor. She has been published in Conjunctions, Short Reads, Fourth Genre, New Letters, and North American Review. She received her MFA from George Mason University. Her work was listed as Notable in Best American Essays 2023; she is the winner of an AWP Intro Journals Award; and was a staff scholar at the Bread Loaf Environmental Writers Conference.