Steve Tomasko
It Starts With A Spider
Dancing on the Edge
Dancing on the Edge
It Starts With A Spider
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No, it starts with my wife,
asking me to please remove up there in the corner, by the door It starts with a feeling. For the spider, for my wife. The spider I removed two days ago, flushed (I’m so sorry) all legs and pea (small, dried rumply-ready-to-plant pea) -size body and because it was late and I was in my robe and our bedroom is in the basement and I am no Jain practicing ahimsa I flushed the spider, legs and all, but, two days later she asks again, points, up there, in the same corner, legs and pea and I’ll swear it’s the same one. It’s in the same place. Same pea-size. This time I pull on my robe and because I’m thinking of reincarnation and because I can’t always tune out the feeling of being swirled myself down and drowning, I (think what it feels like to be a fish hooked in the mouth and my wife says she thinks she can’t fish anymore but still likes to eat them and could I always take out the hooks but that’s another story or maybe not as that fish that spider could be a bodhisattva trying to teach me) tie my robe and cup the pea with legs into a pint mason jar and carry it upstairs and out- side and release him/her into the flower bed. it ends with a spider. Doesn’t it? Or it ends in bed not worried about things dropping down on silk lines. It ends dropping off to sleep. It ends in life and death and life. This piece was previously published in Steve Tomasko's chapbook of poems, "and no spiders were harmed" (Red Bird Chapbooks).
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Dancing on the Edge
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Insects seem to creep their way into Steve Tomasko’s poems (even his love poems). He doesn’t think that’s a bad thing. His wife, Jeanie, long ago stopped screaming when a dragonfly lands on her. She doesn’t think that’s a bad thing. But they both still get creeped out by spiders. Steve and Jeanie edited the 2015 Wisconsin Poets’ Calendar. Steve has had poems published in various journals including: The Aurorean, Concis, Corvus, Echoes, The Fiddlehead, Gnarled Oak, Hummingbird, The Madison Review, Right Hand Pointing, and Verse Wisconsin. He’s also been rejected by some of the best journals around.