Spine Poetry
Until earlier this month, I didn’t know spine poetry was a thing—but now I do, and I love it. Many thanks to my literary partner (and pop-culture bestie) Alex for introducing me to this form. As April is National Poetry Month, I hereby present to you the first poems I’ve written in decades*!
Things No One Will Tell Fat Girls
A round-heeled woman
(the female persuasion)
—clothing optional—
Entering the stream:
“Carry me across the water,
in the heart of the sea.”
Tabloid baby,
wild child,
pulled from the river,
until I find you—alive—
running with scissors,
arise!
The doubtful guest,
the ghost
at Skeleton Rock.
Fierce Conversations
The company she keeps—
stern men (a confederacy of dunces)—
do they scare you?
Part of a bigger universe,
parasites like us
blink when things fall apart.
Go,
tell it on the mountain:
even cowgirls
get the blues.
If you want
to write no more
secondhand art,
no need for speed.
Refund bad habits
(a delusion of satan).
The mind palace,
on writing 20th century ghosts,
travels in time.
The first four years:
on the banks
of plum creek,
little house
in the big woods.
The long winter:
by the shores
of silver lake
(farmer boy).
Little
house on the prairie,
Little
town on the prairie,
these
happy
golden
years.
*Mostly sappy laments about boys who didn’t love me, but also there was one poem about Jenga that I wrote for the poetry class I was forced to take in college.