the heater on high
warming up our chilly legs
the spider and me
The haiku humor here is of the classical variety. It arises mostly from the comical juxtaposition of chilly human and spider legs, both getting warmed up by their proximity to a heater.
The most likely scenario is this: the poet is warming her legs next to a heater when she notices a spider coming down on a thread near the heating element. The poem is an empathetic response to the sight of that spider, who must also be cold given that he or she is somewhat out of season.
This is an example of a haiku with “seasonal confusion” (i.e., one that employs words from two different seasons). But the confusion is resolved because having two seasons is, after all, the point. This is an early spider, or maybe a late spider that has managed to survive until now in spite of the cold.
—Clark Strand