5 Poems by Lois Roma-Deeley | Micro-Poetry | #thesideshow

Taking Body Out of Context

The snail leaves its shell,
inching away
across the wood floor in a glitter line of glory—
but you, you
are trapped here,
face pressed to the window glass,
heart pounding against rib cage,
separating muscle and bone, dividing
words from poem.

God Tweets Body

Shaking fists. #seriouslydoubitngyourexistencetoo
“When in fortune and men’s eyes…”#fateisabitch#blamegames
You did what? with whom? where? #sweetspotareheavenly#angelsarejealous
Save the earth. #umessedupagain
Oh Man! #callingonyounowhowdoesitfeel
Hey Sport Fans #dontcarewhowins#notlivinginvegas
War breaks out. Again. #tired ##verytired#thefloodwasagreatidea
Going to hell? As if. #howstupidtoyouthinkiam#fireandbrimstonereallymessy
Woman!#sorryaboutthemonthlything#sorryaboutthelaborthingtoo
There is only one way #thisisajokeright?#doesntanyonereadrumianymore?
Requiring proof#makenicewithmystery#notmuchofanimaginationahaveyou?
|Where am I? where are you? #stopwhining##stopitrightnow

Body Double

Limp hair, big nose, taped-down breasts.
Is this what everyone sees?
Between the legs, a v of envy?
The bathroom mirror warns
of two ghosts walking through the walls of this house,
their tongues, stretched out and razor thin,
cut your breath in half. Blood rushes
through the heart, pounding away
at the rib cage, unforgiving
of muscle or bone. Body remembers now
exhausted stars collapse in far off space,
(there is nothing that can stop them)
when the known laws of gravity cease to exist…
Body understands this
as the property of dark matter—
no matter
you woke up in Body’s room
wanting what you didn’t choose.

Body Politic

we are all here
gathered into one big room
sipping wine from goblets,
breaking bread and singing
with the voice of a thousand fires.
We are all
shadow and song—
echoes in each other’s throats.

No One Wants You, Body

Pot belly. Thin lips.
Gap toothed grin and waddled skin.
Skinny arms with sunken chest—
don’t look, don’t look, don’t look

Knobby knees. Hanged dog cheeks.
Drooping eyelids,
quivering double chins.
Scars like a river, wide and purple—
stretching alongside
fatty hips—
don’t look, don’t look, don’t look

Ten stubby fingers, ten crooked toes—
Two narrow eyes.
One beaky nose.
Each and every long black hair,
insistently growing here and everywhere—

don’t look, don’t look, don’t look

About the Author

Lois Roma-Deeley‘s full-length poetry collection, The Short List of Certainties, won the Jacopone da Todi Poetry Book Prize, (Franciscan University Press, 2017). Her previous books include: Rules of Hunger, northSight and High Notes, a Paterson Poetry Prize Finalist. Roma-Deeley has published widely in numerous poetry anthologies and literary journals, nationally and internationally such as The Transnational; Rabbit; WAVES: A Confluence of Women’s Voices; Spillway, North Dakota Quarterly and many more. www.loisroma-deeley.com