A Poetry Sporadical of Repeating Forms
A Poetry Sporadical of Repeating Forms
For I will consider my gecko Jessie
For light passes through her head
For her head is an anvil, two thumbs wide
For her ears are circles of pink membrane
For her eyes are gold and etched in black
For she spies movement across the desert
For she compresses to an “S”
For she vibrates the tip of her tail
For she strikes too quick to see
For she snaps on crickets who freeze too late
For their flailing legs tickle her jaws
For she licks her lips when she is done
For she licks her eyes for good measure
For she harkens back to crumbling caves
For she charmed crouching men with tangled beards
For she stalks every perimeter that contains her
For she defecates in one corner only
For she owns her small home
For she is corn-chowder yellow
For her belly is beige and soft as suede
For her tail is fat with bulging rings
For she is adorned with gentle brown warts
For her legs are stout and bend like a frog’s,
For she scratches her neck with her back leg, like a dog
For she has five long toes
For she has eyelashes for toenails
For she stamps a trail of stars into the sand
For she climbs toward light
For she loops her forelegs through plastic branches
For she hangs like a bunch of bananas
For she stares fixedly through leaves
For she sees beyond the ottoman, the armoire
And chrome legs of the table
For she watches me
For she creeps.
Lynn McGee is the author of the chapbook, Bonanza, which won the Hudson Valley Writers’ Center (Slapering Hol Press) national manuscript contest, and has published both fiction and poetry in many magazines.She earned an MFA at Columbia, taught college writing, worked in adult literacy, and is now the news writer for a college in New York City.