Laurie Kolp

Laurie Kolp is an avid runner and lover of nature living in Texas with her husband, three children, and two dogs. Her poems have appeared in Moria, Whale Road Review, Rust + Moth, and more. Laurie’s poetry books include the full-length Upon the Blue Couch and chapbook Hello, It's Your Mother. Learn more at www.lauriekolp.com, @KolpLaurie on Twitter and https://www.facebook.com/KolpLaurie.

Existence as a Zoo

An alligator’s cocky allegation

belittles all

confidence of a crocodile’s

depth-defying allegiance to aqua.

Essential to life:

forgetting superfluous stress, which is less than

giraffes

hating their necking circumstance.

Instead, live fully

justified. Jump in puddles just because

kangaroos do.

Lately I’ve been thinking about living

midlife as a monkey mimicking

nostalgia. Not even apes

opt to take

precaution when dangling on thoughts of

quitting teaching.

Right now, I want to

swan around the world,

take a field trip, not

underscore

vegetating sloths

wasting time. I want to

explain my existence as a

zoo.

Spiders in Heaven

Positioning his right hand

in front of my eyes, the boy

shows me a small spot

on silky skin between his thumb

and forefinger—which he holds

like an L— a pink mark

with evidence of scratching.

It looks like a bothered

mosquito bite, but he insists

a spider attacked him

in the middle of the night.

He pauses, looks off into space.

Only six, he is not completely

engaged in this tutoring session.

Out of nowhere he says he hopes

all creatures make it into heaven

because he’s always wanted to

touch a black widow

and certainly, up there

he wouldn’t get bitten.

Neither would his mom

who just arrived.