Corinne A. Schneider

After Spider Dance

La Tarantella is a southern Italian ecstatic folk dance, traditionally performed by lower class women, midwives, eccentrics and others at the margins. Groups of couples now perform it at weddings.

I started seeing scratches under women’s eyes           Some of the women           tired from too much seeing           scratches & their absence of inner thigh Spider curled in a white rose Animal souls          cut flowers          a raindrop a buzzing          Why don’t you just break my neck already? Tiger lily          How many calories?     Maybe twenty gilding the lily          Brushing my hair is a mutilation       Well, of course you engender sexual obsession in others, your many lovers       That’s why you could never cohabitate, you’d run out of little outfits – Mosquitos finally come a callin’ this summer   Baby bok choy bolting           up the center          Fuck those white sheets          police helicopter           star of the sea You can get into a rhythm Eyes on everything Season of lightness Taking your dreams away After Spider Dance, II Are you a weaver like me? Maybe you could heal me       Feed me nuts & berries lichen tincture essential medicine so my bones grow   I can tie my bones together       I know how to mate fully without bearing children copious and empty Smile at me at la clinica I’m drunk enough now to tell you about Rochelle my across-the-street 2nd grade neighbor whose mother was always away Rochelle taught me how to masturbate in the basement by straddling inflatable pool toys Her mother’s face in the gold hand mirror in the dark peach bedroom looking away   This is the thing about not ever needing anyone   all your secrets are your own Watch them bead up like dew

Corinne A. Schneider is a working poet from the Great Lakes / Rust Belt of the US. She writes poems, essays and other ephemera from the House of Sex, Death & Taxes. Her work has recently appeared in Bone Bouquet, Tinderbox Poetry Journal, Queen Mob’s Tea House, Coldfront Mag, and So to Speak.  She lives in Washington, DC with her cats and partner and writes about international solar energy markets for a living.