"O! Spiny Spine!" - For Sarah

"O! Spiny Spine!" - For Sarah

Fourteen yellow clacky teeth
And seven bloody sockets
Peeling off my cataracts
To keep them in a locket

O spiny spine inside my back!
Where are the vertebrae I lack?

Bulbous knuckles, child's hands
The months under my nails
Which remain unclipped (scratch at my hips!)
On fingers gaunt as rails

O spiny spine inside my back!
Why are my eyelids turning black?

Instead of gold, a cage of ribs
The stand of legs grown hairy
In my cage, the atrophied heart
The croaking, dead canary

O spiny spine inside my back!
Why do you make me heave and hack?

Decaying brain, and rotting mind
Meninges turn to mush
Leak out my nose and into my throat
Filthy, acrid slush

O spiny spine inside my back!
Where is my life, my bones in a sack?

O spiny spine! My skin grows pale!
Whyever did you crack and fail?

-With love and black bile, for Sarah